Zodiac Academy: The Big A.S.S. Party

"I say we dig a big hole and bury her in it," Seth suggested before turning and licking the icing off of Caleb’s cheek which earned him a half-hearted punch to the ribs.

"She's got earth magic too, genius, she'd just escape," I pointed out.

"I never said bury her alive," he said, waggling his eyebrows like an idiot.

"When?" I demanded.

"After graduation," she replied, raising her chin. "It will be a grand ceremony during the summer. A show of power just the same as Darius's marriage to Mildred."

I nodded once, biting my tongue on screaming about how fucked up everything she'd just said was. "So give me that time," I said. "Two years. Two years of you and me to fuck and fight and fall in love and be all the things we won't be able to be once you walk down that aisle. Give me that time to try and convince you that that life isn't what you really want. We don't ever have to talk politics, we don't even have to tell anyone if you don't want to. Just let it be me and you, at least for a little while."

"I..." She stared at me like she desperately wanted to say yes but was afraid of doing so.

"Think about it," I said, biting my tongue on trying to force her hand. "I'll be waiting."

I walked away from her with a weight in my chest and fire in my soul. I was going to convince her to say yes to my proposal. And then I was going to spend those two years making her fall for me so hard that there would be no way in hell that she could ever give me up.

Either that or I was setting myself up to have my heart ripped from my chest and crushed before my eyes.

But she was worth the risk. So I was going to take it.

"My poor boys, the two of you are looking decidedly morose," she cooed.

"Boys?" I lurched upright, wondering how drunk I'd been last night, but it didn't matter, there was no way in hell I'd have let any other Fae join this party. Geraldine Grus was all mine.

"Yes, silly salmon," Geraldine purred as she leaned forward to place a kiss on my lips. "Big Maxy boy and little Maxy boy." She dropped down to kiss my cock next and I growled hungrily for her as she stayed like that with her head in my lap, kissing, licking, driving me fucking insane as I waited to see if she was really going to do what she was dancing around or not

Darius was standing close enough to Tory for them to be sharing body heat without quite touching each other. Instead of watching any of the fireworks, his gaze was fixed on her, this look of longing on his face that made my soul hurt.

Seth had an arm slung around Darcy's shoulders and he was trying to encourage her to howl at the moon while she called him a butt sniffing dog boy and Caleb agreed with her with a roar of laughter

"Oh wow! The moon is really bright tonight!" Caleb's voice carried to me and I found him pointing to something across the room with an exaggerated look of awe on his face.

A wail escaped me as I spotted Seth Capella up on the banquet table with his trousers around his thighs as he waved his naked buttocks at the whole room.

"Truffling trifles!" I screamed, pushing through the crowd as I tried to get close enough to cast his round and muscular rump into stone as promised. My heart was all of a shudder as panic ran through me and as I made it closer, I lifted my hand to take out my fury on his hindquarters. Someone crashed into me, wrapping me in his arms and the music started up again as I found myself being twirled around the room by a pernicious plankton.

"I must avenge my queens, Maxy boy!" I tried to fight my way out of his arms, but he held on tight, chuckling low in his throat and making my grass stalks quiver.

"He's stopped now," he purred and I glanced over at the banquet table to find Seth had indeed put his comely kiester away. "Relax, Gerry."

His words were sinful and twisty turned through me like an eel caught in a net. "Oh, well perhaps a little frolic around the floor for a moment..."

I acted on instinct alone, throwing out my hand and casting an illusion over Seth Capella, turning him into a six foot turnip with beady eyes and a tiny mouth. Then I slapped him across his turnip face and he yelped in surprise.

"What the fuck?" said the turnip and Darcy and Tory burst into hysterics.

"I fucking love you, Geraldine," Tory snorted, clutching her side as Seth's tiny turnip eyes wheeled towards her.

He looked down at himself and saw my illusion, his pouty turnip lips cracking into a grin. "Nice magic, Grus. Doesn't rival an Heir's though." He threw out a hand and I wailed as his magic fell over me, expecting an attack, but instead the trickling coolness of an illusion ran over my flesh. Darcy laughed harder and the sound was music to my ears as I looked down to find the cheeky chihuahua had turned me into a giant buttery bagel.

“Oh butter me right side up, I am quite the baked good, aren’t I?” I joked.

Seth roared a laugh and my sides ached as I chortled along with everyone else. Darcy caught my hand and Seth dispelled the illusion the same moment I removed the one from him.

"Come on, let's go dance," Darcy said with a genuine smile and my heart lifted like a Harpy in an updraft. She grabbed Tory's hand too and Seth bounded ahead of us just as Caleb appeared jogging up the stairs.

"What's going on?" Caleb asked and Seth shoved him into the nearest wall.

"We're racing that's what! Last one to the dance floor has to bare their ass to the whole ASS club!" Seth cried and Caleb barked a laugh as he tore after him with a burst of Vampire speed.

"When he gets out in twenty years, I'll punch him in the face," Seth offered. "He fucking hates me so it'd be extra humiliating."

Darcy breathed a laugh. "When he gets out in twenty years, I'll punch him in the face myself." She tried to joke but oh her eyes were lacking light and it broke me into a million tiny pieces.

"No offence, but are you on something? Because I wanna try it." Seth smirked that smirk which made all kinds of sinful things happening to girls.

Darius was telling her that he belonged to her and that he wanted her to belong to him in return. Even if the stars wouldn't allow that in a physical sense.

It hurt me to look at it, let alone the mixture of emotions I could feel coming off of the two of them.

"Thank you," Tory murmured, letting Darius place it on her wrist as she watched him intently.

He bent low to fix it in place, putting his face close to hers and the moment he'd clasped it around her wrist, she leaned forward and brushed her lips over his.

A deep rumble resounded through the entire building as an earthquake rocked the ground beneath our feet and she pulled back again quickly, grabbing a shot and draining it with her eyes on Darius the entire time. He looked like he was fighting against the urge to drag her into his arms with everything he had as he watched her too, his fists clenched at his sides.

She took another drink with her as she backed away from us, letting the crowd swallow her and putting distance between them so that the ground fell still again and Darius sighed.

"We'll find a way," I promised him, not for the first time and he just shrugged in that way that let me know he still didn't really believe me, but I knew he was hoping that somehow it would come true.

"Come on, I'll find Gerry and we can all dance in a group. The stars might not even notice if the two of you start grinding up against each other if we're all together."

"Good luck finding one that doesn't have your face carved into the wall," I joked and she groaned as I followed them over to the bar where the other Heirs were already ordering drinks.

Tory pushed her way between Seth and Darius, tugging Darcy in next to Seth and looking up at the man who should have been her mate.

"Happy birthday," Darius said to her, drinking in the sight of her even in that ugly fucking dress. "Sorry you have to endure my company."

Tory laughed unashamedly and Darcy smirked, not caring about us hearing what she'd said either.

"Prove us wrong for thinking that then, Dragon boy," Tory teased. "Maybe I'll even let you dance with me."

Darius was practically fucking glowing with her undivided attention on him and I smiled to myself about it as I accepted a shot from Caleb and downed it.

"I'm not sure I can face dancing," Darcy groaned as the bartender began lining up shots in front of her. "Certainly not until I'm a lot more drunk. Maybe I should just get wasted.”

"I'll get drunk with you, babe, no problem at all," Seth offered with a wolfish grin.

"Why don't you give Tory her present, Darius?" I suggested, smirking at him as he glared at me for bringing that up. But I could tell he was going to put it off and I wanted to feel her emotions when he gave it to her.

"You got me a present?" she asked curiously, looking up at him as she bit her lip and waited.

"I got you both one," he replied, pulling two little boxes from his pocket and handing them to the twins. "As it's both of your birthdays."

“Way to make the rest of us look like dicks,” Cal said, shaking his head.

Darcy looked more than a little surprised as she accepted hers, glancing at Tory before opening it. Inside the box was a platinum charm bracelet with seven charms on it. One for each of the elements they possessed, air, fire, earth and water, another with the Gemini symbol on it, a letter G and an R.

"You had to go for Gwenadlina and Roxanya, didn't you?" Darcy teased as she inspected it. "You couldn't just let that slide?"

"Not a chance," Darius replied with a smirk. “Unless you’d rather I call you shrew? That’s always an option.”

"No thanks, but just for that, I'm going to buy little crown charms to go with them. Seeing as we're going for total accuracy here, it only makes sense to point out the fact that we’re princesses too,” Darcy said, offering him an insolent look.

Tory laughed as she opened her own box and lifted a matching bracelet from the little cushion inside it. The only difference to this was the Dragon charm carved entirely out of rose quartz which shone pink beside the letter R. She stared at it for long enough to make it clear that she understood the meaning of the rose quartz.