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561 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 4, 2019
When we were together, we were safe. Tory had been my only constant in life and no matter where we were or whatever happened to us, I knew I always had her.
"Mr Indus has something to say," Orion announced. Elijah cleared his throat. The class waited attentively and some people sniggered. "I'm pathethic."
"And?" Orion prompted.
"And a coward."
Orion cocked his head, still waiting. Elijah sighed. "And I'd like to apologise to you all for being an embarassement to the school. And to Solaria. And to the entire race of Fae."
"If you wak out again you're done." Orion snarled and I sensed he really meant that.
"Hungover, Miss Vega?" he growled and she sighed, realising her mistake.
"Yes, sir. If you fancy sending any of your healing magic this way, that would be swell."
Orion gave her one of his darkest smiles that said he definitely wasn't her friend right then. "Oh I won't be doing that. If you turn up to my class hungover you can deal with the consequences." He shot to her side at a fierce speed and bellowed, "CAN'T YOU?!" in her ear. It even made me flinch, but Tory winced with pure pain.
Lance:
I guess you're about to go radio silence so for what it's worth...
In Solario blue means royal. And to me, blue means you.
Lance:
Seeing another guy's hands on you makes me want to rip out their eyes so they never get to look at you again.
"Hm... you're missing something though."
"What?" I frowned.
He reached behind his seat and produced the crown he'd won at the fair, placing it on my head. I smiled so wide my cheeks hurt.
"Better," he said, his eyes becoming hooded as he rested his hands on my thights and drew me closer.
"If you go around placing crowns on my head, you're going to be in trouble," I teased and his mouth skewed.
"Well let's not tell anyone then," he said, leaning in to kiss my neck.
Lance:
I'll make it worth your while if you pass the Reckoning today. #motivation #seemeafterclass
Darcy:
I can't believe you just hashtagged me!
Lance:
I can't believe you're not in my bed right now. #missyourpeach
She wasn't just a girl though. Not to me. She was the one girl I shouldn't want, the one I couldn't have, the one I didn't need. And yet I did. And everything in my life could be damaged so badly by that need that I'd fought it tooth and claw up until this point.
Seth bounded out of the chair and leapt on Darius like he'd just declared his undying love for him instead of offering a consolation hug. He jumped into Darius' arms and knocked him back onto the bed where they fell on top of Cal who got dragged into the hug too. I laughed as the mood in the room switched dramatically and amusement, happiness and friendship filled the air. I got up and dove on top of them as well, earning myself more licks from Seth as he alternated between all of us.
"Come on, Orion," Seth called excitedly. "You can join my honorary pack for the night."
"Not a fucking chance," Orion replied, folding his arms as he stayed well away from us where we were all tangled on the bed.
I turned away from Darius and he jumped onto my back, locking his legs around my waist. "Giddy up pony."
“Because that’s what I do,” he said slowly. “I watch you and hunger for you and ache for you. It torments me like I torment you.”…
”Then why do it?” I asked. “Why not just look away?” “I’d find it easier to carve my eyes out than I would to stop them landing on you.”
“In Solaria blue means royal.
And to me, blue means you.”
YOU DO NOT HAVE A PLACE AT ZODIAC ACADEMY.
YOU ARE NOT UNIQUE
YOU ARE ALL BOTTOM-FEEDING LOSERS.
YOU ARE ALL A BUNCH OF HORNY TEENAGERS.
“DO YOU THINK IT'S APPROPRIATE TO INTERRUPT MY LESSON WITH YOUR INDECISIVENESS!?”
[...]
as Orion's voice split the air apart again.
“I DON'T CARE IF YOUR PARENTS SOLD ORGANS TO GET YOU INTO THIS ACADEMY, THAT'S ENTIRELY IRRELEVANT TO WHETHER YOU MAKE THE CUT!”
“This is so not good for my hangover,” Tory groaned.
“Hungover, Miss Vega?”
“Yes, sir. If you fancy sending any of your healing magic this way, that would be swell.”
Orion gave her one of his darkest smiles that said he definitely wasn't her friend right then. “Oh I won't be doing that. If you turn up to my class hungover you can deal with the consequences.” He shot to her side at a fierce speed and bellowed, “CAN'T YOU?!” in her ear.
“Sir?” I called and he looked over, raising a brow. “Can Tory have another peach?”
He headed to his desk, picking up another one and shooting over to Tory's desk at high speed. “HERE YOU GO, MISS VEGA!” he boomed and she covered her whole head with her arms.
“Whhhy?” she moaned.
Before I answered, Seth broke into song, “You are...my fire, the one...desire, believe...when I say, I want it that waaay.”
Caleb picked up the Backstreet Boys classic on cue. “Tell me why!”
“Ain’t nothing but a heart ache,” Seth sang, clicking his fingers.
“Tell me why!” Caleb started dancing.
“Ain’t nothing but a mistake.”
“Tell me why!”
“I never wanna hear you say.” Seth looked to Caleb and they both belted out the last line together with their hands on their hearts. “I want it that waaaay.”
“If you keep singing at us I’ll throat punch you like I did to Max.”
"When we were together, we were safe. Tory had been my only constant in life and no matter where we were or whatever happened to us, I knew I always had her."
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Darius muttered. “Come here then, puppy.” Seth bounded out of the chair and leapt on Darius like he’d just declared his undying love for him instead of offering a consolation hug. He jumped into Darius’s arms and knocked him back onto the bed where they fell on top of Cal who got dragged into the hug too.
“You said no physical contact,” I whispered as his muscles hardened, keeping me caged beneath him. I was losing my mind.
“What if I’m having second thoughts?” he growled.
He dipped his head so his mouth was by my ear and goosebumps rose to meet the heat of his breath. “I can't think straight around you,” he said heavily,
“I don't have anything, sir,” I said innocently. “Are we really going to play this game?” He leaned into my face and my throat closed up as the all- too- familiar cinnamon scent of him washed over me, reminding me viscerally of the kiss we'd shared.
“If you don't kiss me I'll go mad,”
“I want you to the point of pain, Blue.”
“Do you want to be punished?”
He dragged his thumb across my mouth, wiping it hard and I wriggled to try and stop him, but I was completely cornered.
“What the hell are you doing?” I shoved his arms, but he ignored me, keeping me in place as he pushed his knee into my thigh.
“I’m trying to get Diego Polaris’s saliva off of my girl,” he growled.
Darcy: Are you freaking crazy???
Lance: Yes. For you ;) Come with me.
“There are countless people who would say I’m not allowed to want you,” Darius breathed. “But you make me want to burn the whole world down so that I can claim you for my own.”
“Then we should burn it down,” I agreed.
Darius caught my hand and pulled me upright, before throwing his arm around my shoulders as he held his Atlas in front of us and took a picture while pressing a kiss to the top of my head. I couldn’t help but laugh as he took the picture which he instantly sent on to Caleb.
“You’re an asshole,” I said halfheartedly as I ducked out from under his arm.
“At least I’m consistent,” he replied with a laugh.
“I have a perfectly good bed downstairs,” I replied, shaking my head just a little. “Why would you want me to stay?” Darius frowned like he wasn’t sure what to say to that but he inched a little closer all the same. “Because it feels right,” he breathed.
He wrapped his arm around me more tightly, stopping me from rising. “Don’t go,” he breathed and there was a strange kind of plea in his voice.
The way I read this scene over and over again 💞💘💓💖💗💕
"She wasn’t just a girl though. Not to me. She was the one girl I shouldn’t want, the one I couldn’t have, the one I didn’t need. And yet I did. And everything in my life could be damaged so badly by that need that I’d fought it tooth and claw up until this point."
“Then why do it?” I asked. “Why not just look away?”
“I’d find it easier to carve my eyes out than I would to stop them landing on you.”
“Anyone would think you were embarrassed about luring students out to sneak around after dark with you in your secret cave,” I teased.
“I’m mostly embarrassed it’s you,” he replied scathingly.
“You’re not even hot.”
“Bite me,” I joked.
“Don’t tempt me.”
I turned away from Darius and he jumped onto my back, locking his legs around my waist. “Giddy up pony.”
“Yeah baby. Do you wanna see my sea cucumber in private?” Max offered.
Before we reached her, Geraldine turned toward the sea. “Actually, you can keep your oily dolphin flippers to yourself, Max Rigel.” She ran into the sea and he stared after her in shock.
“For the love of sanitary sausages, please tell me you aren’t bringing your depraved hobbies in here where we all eat our meals!” she cried. “It’s bad enough you paid a griffin to take a dump on your chest without bringing your randy rocket out with you for breakfast!”
Geraldine is queen 💅🏼
“Everything in this fucking place is a bit much.”
so I can finally understand why people love it so much.
I can definitely see the writing improvement when you compare this to book 1-2, but my opinion remains the same: THIS BOOK HAD NO BUSINESS BEING NEARLY 600 PAGES LONG NO - BUSINESS!
There is so much that is absolutely useless, so much that should be cut out and rewritten and I really believe this series deserves this. I wish they would rewrite, or that someone will do that in fanfic form eventually.
A lot of things haven't changed.
- Tory is still the worst and most annoying twin.
- Darius is still pathetic and his daddy issues are screaming so loud that he PUNCHED AN IPAD, instead of punching a wall.
-Seth is still the worst character I have ever read about since Sean from Flock.
- This still feels like a Winx Club episode.
- We get a lot of weird gay interaction between the boys that make it seem like they're making fun of M/M attraction. Like it's something to laugh about. They have certain magic bonds that make them sexually attracted to each other even if they are not necessarily homosexual, it just rubs me the wrong way that it's being treated as a joke.
The only salvageable thing that ALMOST...and I say ALMOST, made me forget how bad these books actually are: Darcy and Orion.
There is no secret, teacher-student romances are my favorite thing in the world. So please, I am SO BIASED. It takes 3 entire books for us to get some development of any kind and the only ones who deserve it are right here.
The whole blue or green thing? JESUS THAT SCENE WAS NEARLY PERFECT.
Blue means you????!!!!!
For the non-readers [who don't plan on ever reading this series] who are curious and don't care about spoilers read the next part in italic, if you care about spoilers, skip it >
Orion, her teacher, nicknamed her blue because of the blue streak she had in her hair. That blue piece of hair gets cut by one of the heirs against her will and once she finally grows her hair back, Orion flirts with her by saying: what color are you dying it next? Green or Blue? If you do blue, it means you like me. So in one desperate full moon night, this bitch GOES TO HIS SLEEPING QUARTERS in the middle of the night, he opens the door and she just stands there with a fully dyed blue head and just says: BLUE. And he also tells her that Blue in solaria means royal, but to him, blue means her.
The scene was nearly perfect, but they ruin it by making Orion ask a dumb question after she goes through all that trouble for him, AS USUAL. We can't win. Do you know how much work it is to dye your entire hair? lmao, anyways, but yeah they finally fuck and it's adorable.
Orion has the best quotes in this entire series so far.
If you don't kiss me I am going to lose my mind????
I honestly believe that it's the dynamic for me. I am a fan of teacher-student romances, ergo, I love everything about these two. Is it worth it to read the entire series just for the CRUMBLES you get of their relationship? It depends... I'd say no. Because of the time you have to invest in it to get to this point.
Darcy is the reasonable twin and the only person I'd actually want on a throne one day because Tory is just like the heirs, stupid, mindless, and a waste of space.
Anyways, I won't lie though, it does get easier to understand how people got addicted to this series. It's just the sort of mindless reading you have to do to keep going and you get used to the characters at some point. I will move on to book 4, people say this will make you or break you.
The ending of this book was still super underwhelming and predictable but I am glad I know their orders now. I am honestly just reading this out of sheer curiosity and maybe even a little bit of FOMO at this point, but I will rage if they ruin Darius' and Tory's character development. I swear, I will.
One star for the blue hair scene, one star for Darcy and one for Orion.
But it's what I always say, if you have to invest over 2000 pages and four books to even begin to understand or get a grasp of the series as a whole, is it even worth going through it? Maybe if you have a loooooooooot of time and nothing else to read.
“We have a serious fucking problem. Corbin, tell me what it is.” He pointed at Tyler who remained dead silent, shrugging his shoulders.
“Polaris?” Orion asked Diego who shook his head. His eyes skipped onto me.
“Miss Vega?”
“That our Cardinal Magic teacher is a psycho?” I offered, rage still simmering in me from him attacking my sister. His jaw ticked in a deadly way and my heart thumped out of rhythm.
“I prefer the term unbalanced and frankly it's the least of your problems.” His mouth twitched with amusement as he looked away.
Caleb appeared between us in the blink of an eye, perching on the edge of our table and inspecting his fingernails. “We have a problem, sweetheart,” he said to me, though he continued to inspect his nails.
“I know. There’s a Vampire sitting on our dinner,” I replied and Darcy giggled in response.
“And most of all I was sick of wanting her and hating her all at once.”
“There are countless people who would say I’m not allowed to want you,” Darius breathed. “But you make me want to burn the whole world down so that I can claim you for my own.”
“Then we should burn it down,” I agreed.
”No matter what happened though, I knew Tory and I had each other. And that was enough. We’d been through so much together during our lives, but since we’d arrived at Zodiac our bond had grown even fiercer. We would ride out the storms of our fate together, hand in hand. And no one could ever take that from us.”
OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
can’t explain with words what i’m feeling rn but FYI i’m writing this on my iphones notes!!!!!
SCREAMING!!!!!!!!!!
i’ll be quick bc i have to start the fourth RFN!
★ this book had me on a chokehold and i’m not even exaggerating. this is addictive. and i’m literally obsessed. so far, best book of the series!
★ caleb or darius? caleb or darius? caleb or darius? caleb or darius? caleb or darius? caleb or darius? caleb or darius? caleb or darius? caleb or darius? caleb or darius? caleb. darius. darius. caleb. caleb. darius. darius. caleb. caleb. darius. darius. caleb. caleb. darius. darius. caleb. caleb. darius. darius. caleb. caleb. darius. darius. caleb.
this me trying to know which one is the better lover or character in general. it’s really hard to choose ngl, but i think i’m gonna go with my first choice.
✨DARIUS!!!✨
Now, I was adrift without her, my heart trying to tear its way out of my chest in a bid to go to her.
But now... the only girl I craved was Darcy Vega. Which was an impossible dream.
“Oh my god, puke,” Tory said and I blew out a laugh. “If you keep singing at us I’ll throat punch you like I did to Max.”
Caleb shot to her side in a blur of motion, slinging his arm around her shoulders. “Ohh what beautiful poetry you weave for me, sweetheart. Gets me so hard.”
Lance: Blue means you like me.
Lance: I guess you’re about to go back to radio silence so for what it’s worth… In Solaria blue means royal. And to me, blue means you.
“Do you want to know a secret?” she breathed, her voice lowering seductively.
“What?” I asked, wanting to hear anything and everything she might ever want to tell me. She leaned a little closer and her long hair tickled my skin.
“I think,” she breathed slowly. “That I’m going to puke.”
My eyes were closed so I couldn’t see him but I just felt oddly at home. Like this was where I was meant to be.
Darius was just watching me like I was somehow fascinating to him and I couldn’t help but stare back into his deep brown eyes.
“Don’t go,” he breathed and there was a strange kind of plea in his voice.
“Tell me about it,” he begged. “Don’t just leave.”
I wanted to shed every layer I wore and every rule that kept us apart all at once. We were breaking the rules together, tearing them to pieces with our bare hands, every touch rebellious, every kiss defiant.
I was left standing with Darius who was looking at me like I’d just summoned the moon to come and sing us a lullaby.
“I should go,” I breathed.
“Stay,” he replied instantly.
Tonight had been unashamedly one of the best of my life and I wanted to tell my goddamn best friend about it.
“Are you jealous?” he asked hopefully and I snorted.
“No. Like really no.”
“Oh.” He sighed, resting back against the door. “So... do you wanna hang out for a bit?”
“No,” I breathed in confusion. “Of course I don't.” “Right yeah...” He frowned, hanging his head and a whine sounded deep in his throat. “How about a hug then?”
“What part of 'I hate you' do you not get?
“Move,” I demanded, trying to file after the other students as he let them by. His brows jumped up. “Shit, babe, which stars spat in your cereal this morning?”
“All of them,” I huffed. “Now move.”
a love bite showed against his skin.
My gaze narrowed on it. Why hadn’t he just healed it away? Did he even know it was there? When had she given him that? Was it last night when she went to him? Had they even slept at all? Were they literally in the middle of it when we were trying to call him? Had she had her mouth on his neck just a few moments ago? Smoke filled my mouth and I fought to swallow it, refusing to let him see just how much those thoughts pissed me off.
I looked down too and cursed as I spotted the bloodstains all over my white t-shirt. The girl had hit me really damn hard with that branch.
It was pretty hot.
I had no real intention of going anywhere near Darius Acrux tonight.
Probably.
Maybe.
Sixty three percent.
Dammit.
It didn’t take me long to spot Roxy. Her white dress stood out on the sand and her laughter carried to me on the wind like that particular sound had been picked out just for me.
She wasn’t just a girl though. Not to me. She was the one girl I shouldn’t want, the one I couldn’t have, the one I didn’t need. And yet I did. And everything in my life could be damaged so badly by that need that I’d fought it tooth and claw up until this point.
She could have been mine by now and I wouldn’t feel like my heart was constantly trying to bash itself to death on my ribcage every time I saw her.
“There are countless people who would say I’m not allowed to want you,” Darius breathed. “But you make me want to burn the whole world down so that I can claim you for my own.”
“Then we should burn it down,” I agreed.
Darcy: You can have a picture if you tell me the real reason you attacked Diego.
Lance: Fine. Seeing another guy's hands on you makes me want to rip out their eyes so they never get to look at you again.
“If you don't kiss me I'll go mad,” *flatline*
“Give a guy a second. One minute I'm messaging you wishing I could have you right here and the next thing...” He leaned in, kissing the corner of my mouth and I melted. Or that was what it felt like anyway. As if there wasn't a single solid organ in my body. “Here you are.”
“If you want me to stop, tell me to stop,” he said breathlessly and I wrapped my legs around his waist. “Okay, don't stop,” I exhaled and a heady laugh fell from my lungs as he drew me flush against him, feeding on my desire. “I want you to the point of pain, Blue.” 🕳️🚶♀️
“There are countless people who would say I’m not allowed to want you,” Darius breathed. “But you make me want to burn the whole world down so that I can claim you for my own.” “Then we should burn it down,”
“If we're going to continue this, we have to be careful,” he warned. “I know.” I kissed him gently and his hand slid into my hair to hold me there a moment longer. “You can't tell anyone.” I nodded. “Not even your sister,” IWANTODIE??/??///??////?////
"In Solaria blue means royal. And to me, blue means you."🕳️🚶♀️
“Don’t go,” she breathed, her grip tightening. “I don’t think you really-” “Please don’t leave me alone,”😭
“Roxy?” Darius asked, pushing himself back as he yanked his helmet off and tossed it to the ground. “Are you okay?”ROXY😭😭
“Tell me about it,” he begged. “Don’t just leave.” he's so whipped-