Zodiac Academy: The Awakening As Told By The Boys by Caroline Peckham & Susanne Valenti

Author:Caroline Peckham & Susanne Valenti [Peckham, Caroline & Valenti, Susanne]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2021-08-29T23:00:00+00:00

T he stardust spat me out like a bad tasting snack and my feet hit the ground hard as I came to a stop before the gates to my family's manor.

Lance appeared at my side a breath later and we exchanged a loaded look before starting towards the gate.

I didn't bother to say anything to the men guarding the entrance as we strode inside and started up the sweeping gravel drive. My mind was too consumed with the weight of this place for me to spare a moment on pleasantries.

We kept our silence as we closed in on the hulking property and my gaze swept over it without me really seeing it at all. It wasn't a house. More like a museum where the attractions contained snapshots of fear and misery which adorned the walls like the blood which had been spilled inside it had never been scrubbed clean.

Sometimes I tried to remember a time when the scent of fear hadn't hung in the corridors and I could almost remember laughing here with my mother and Xavier, playing hide and seek in the huge house and feeling the touch of love I'd always craved from my parents. But I was almost certain that was just a pretty lie I'd painted for myself long ago and convinced myself to remember.

Catalina Acrux was as cold and uncaring as her husband. Though my mother's form of parenting failures could mostly be accounted for as neglect or a general lack of interest in her sons. The only thing she seemed to give any real care to was her own appearance which was the epitome of polished perfection. Father liked to boast that she was the most beautiful woman in all the kingdom like he was trying to take the reputation of the Savage King's wife and paste it onto his own in her absence.

I wasn't saying it was untrue, but I hated the way father claimed my mother's beauty as some kind of accolade of his own. Not least because he was intent on marrying me off to a girl with a moustache and a Faeroid addiction which meant her muscular bulk rivalled my own.

We reached the enormous door which sat proudly front and centre of the extravagant property and the smaller door set into it swung wide before we could so much as pause our stride.

Jenkins peered out at us like we were an inconvenience to his life despite the fact that welcoming guests into the Acrux Manor was practically his entire job description. The old butler was a sycophant for my father's cruelty though and certainly no friend of mine, so I didn't pay him any attention as I stepped over the threshold of the house I'd grown up in.

Gold adorned a lot of the interior, the bannister for the sweeping staircase ahead of us glimmering in the light as I felt the presence of so much treasure feeding my magic reserves merely from standing within this gilded cage.

"Lord Acrux is finishing up his meal with Lord Rigel," Jenkins announced.

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