Warrior Fae (Ruthless Boys of the Zodiac Book 5) Read online

  WARRIOR FAE

  Ruthless Boys of the Zodiac

  Book 5

  Caroline Peckham & Susanne Valenti

  Table of Contents

  Campus Map

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  AUTHOR NOTE

  Welcome to your final year at Aurora Academy, here is your campus map to help you find freshmen to torture and whip into real Fae.

  Please take note of where The Lunar Brotherhood and Oscura Clan have claimed turf to ensure you don’t cross into their territory unintentionally. Faculty will not be held responsible for gang maiming or disembowelment. Enjoy your final days basking on Devil’s Hill and hanging out in the Iron Wood. This land has seen you grow into a true Fae and it’ll miss you as much as you will miss it.

  Click the map to enlarge.

  If you’d like to listen along to the playlist we created for this book, check it out here on Spotify.

  Or scan this code through the Spotify app:

  This book is dedicated to all the hard working Mindys who toiled tirelessly behind the scenes of this story to keep the Pride’s clothes washed and ironed, working into the late hours to remove countless suspicious stains from Elise’s undergarments, her sheets, a tiny hat and an unfortunate Tiberian Rat’s fur who happened to be in the splash zone of an outdoor orgy extravaganza.

  Sadly, several Mindys were harmed in the making of this series, one lost their fingers to a magical sewing machine, another broke her leg when diving out of Altair Halls to be the first to answer their king’s call, whilst another unfortunate Mindy fell to her doom while scaling the Vega Dorms to ensure Leon’s toast was delivered to him before it went cold. Sources say her only regret was that the toast in fact did go cold as she tumbled to the earth, but in the true spirit of all Mindys, they all agreed that not one casualty was in vain.

  Well done Mindys, we couldn’t have done it without you.

  Long live your king.

  I pushed into the power of The Sight over and over, seeking out my dark angel with everything I possessed. But if King had her, he was using some power to hide her from me and nothing I did could break through it.

  Seeking her out was like wading through an endless tunnel of black, my hands roaming blindly in the dark. But she was there somewhere at the far end of it, her presence calling to me in a way that made me fucking ache. It was the most excruciating kind of torture.

  “Gabriel,” Ryder growled, his hand clamping down hard on my shoulder as I blinked out of my trance. “Anything?”

  “No. Nothing,” I sighed, hating myself for this failure. I was letting her down. I was letting everyone down.

  We were in one of the empty classrooms in Altair Halls, the sound of chaos still reigning around campus. The war was over and the professors were hurrying to restore order after the fight.

  Leon had run off to search the tunnels beneath the Weeping Well, but my gut told me he wouldn’t find Elise there. She was gone and now she was somewhere so far away I just couldn’t grasp her. The agony that caused me was unbearable. And I knew if I didn’t find a trace of her soon, I was going to lose my fucking mind.

  The small comfort I could take was that sense of her on the edges of my gifts told me she was still alive. And I prayed to every star in the heavens that that would remain the case. Because if King tried to steal her from this world, there was no force in Solaria which would save that motherfucker from my wrath.

  My Atlas buzzed and I snatched it out of my pocket, finding a message in the group chat Leon had made for us so that we could keep in touch if we found her.

  Dante:

  Any news?

  He’d had to head home with his family and ensure his cousin Rosalie was tended to by a professional healer who worked for the Oscuras. I’d seen him breaking, torn in two directions when she’d told us about Elise. But we’d all forced him to leave with Rosalie. He’d be back soon enough and he’d already sent half his family to search the city for our girl.

  Between the Oscuras, my visions, her Elysian Mate desperately hunting for her, and the most fearsome Basilisk to roam the land willing to kill anyone for her location, surely we could find her. The four of us alone would rip apart the whole world to get her back, I knew that. I just didn’t know where to make the first tear.

  As new and unsteady as this relationship was between Dante, Leon, Ryder and I, there was one thing I did trust them on these days. And that was doing anything and everything within their power to save Elise. I’d witnessed how far they’d gone for her in the past, and the darkness in their eyes told me they were willing to go far further than that too. In fact, I didn’t think there was anything the four of us wouldn’t do to get her back in our arms.

  I replied to the group chat saying I had no news and Leon sent a response too.

  Leon:

  She’s not in the tunnels. I’m heading to the Iron Wood.

  I sighed, not having the heart to tell him to stop searching campus. Because I knew she wasn’t here. It wasn’t a tangible thing I could see; it was just a feeling. But the kind that was intrinsically linked with my gifts.

  “Where do I go?” Ryder demanded of me, his shoulders tensing up. “Give me a direction, point me toward the fucker who took her, Gabriel.”

  “I can’t.” I gripped his arm. “I can’t fucking see them.”

  Desperation pooled in his deep green eyes and his jaw ticked with the need for violence. I’d deliver it to him in a heartbeat if I could and I’d be right there at his side making King pay when he caught up to the fucker. But this wasn’t going to work.

  “I need to go to the Black Card,” I decided. “It’s the only way I can think of to get closer to King. I’m still in their ranks, they don’t know I’m their enemy. Maybe I’ll be summoned soon.”

  Ryder nodded firmly, his brows pulling sharply together.

  The door banged open suddenly, making us turn towards it an
d Bryce strode in with a couple of sneering Lunars at his back. He pushed a hand over his black hair, taking in Ryder and me with suspicion in his gaze.

  Ryder wheeled toward him with his hands fisting and his shoulders stiffening as he disbanded the silencing bubble around us.

  “What the fuck do you want?” he snapped.

  Bryce’s eyes moved from me to Ryder then he wet his lips. “Our people need their king,” he said curtly.

  “So you sniffed me out like a rat did you, Bruce?” Ryder hissed, a deadly rattle echoing through his chest.

  “Everyone’s looking for you,” Bryce defended himself. “It’s not just me. And my name is Bry-”

  “I’ll come to you when I’m good and ready!” Ryder barked and the assholes flinched but didn’t run.

  Something in their eyes made my skin prickle uneasily and my upper lip peeled back as The Sight flickered at the edges of my mind, offering me a vision. I let myself fall into it as Ryder laid into them and I found myself watching an army of Lunars dragging Ryder to the heart of them, tearing the shirt from his back while a fire Elemental burned the Lunar crest of a moon with a serrated edge from just below his collar bone.

  My throat tightened as the mob closed in with murder in their eyes, though I couldn’t recognise any of them, their faces shadowy and indistinct. The vision spat me back out and I found Bryce and his friends gone and Ryder looking to me with hope in his gaze.

  “Did you see her?” he demanded, but I shook my head, unsure if I should tell him what I had seen or not. But it was only one of many possibly futures ahead of us and right now we had something more pressing to focus on.

  “Fuck,” he spat. “I have to talk to the Brotherhood. I’ll get them searching our territory in the city.”

  “Ryder.” I caught his arm before he could leave, my heart beating furiously as I lowered my voice. “I’m not sure you can trust your people anymore.”

  His eyes darkened to pitch. “I never trusted my people, Big Bird. I just rule them. They will fall back into line by the end of the night.”

  I nodded and one look at The Sight said that future was a possibility. He was in no immediate danger, but I was left with a knot in my gut as he walked out the door. The Lunars were a ticking time bomb waiting to explode and I would do whatever I could to make sure Ryder wasn’t a casualty when it inevitably detonated. But there was nothing I could do this second.

  I cast a new silencing bubble around me and called Bill as I exited the room, heading down the corridor at a fierce pace.

  “Hey kid,” Bill answered. “Everything okay?”

  “No,” I growled, hurriedly explaining what had happened. “There was a huge fight at the academy tonight. Felix Oscura came to try and kill Dante and shit got pretty intense.”

  “By the stars, are you safe? Why didn’t you fuckin’ call me?” I heard him light up a cigarette and my heart yanked at the worry in his voice.

  “I was busy shielding a Storm Dragon,” I sighed and he sucked in a breath.

  “You’re working with Dante Oscura now? Did he win then?”

  “Something like that. And yeah, Dante won, Felix is dead. But I can’t go into all of that right now,” I muttered, hurrying on. “Look, I need your help. Elise is missing. The Black Card have her and I can’t see where they’ve taken her. Is there anyone you know who might have some information?”

  Bill had the dirtiest of contacts from his P.I. work. He’d squeezed the throats of nearly every low-level scumbag in the city to get information for various jobs. He used his Cyclops gifts to tug memories out of their heads, made them forget all about the invasion, then left them thinking he was their best friend. Fucking genius if you asked me.

  “Yeah…there’s a few pricks I can ask. You sure you wanna do this though, kid? She’s got an Elysian Mate to save her ass now, it’s not your responsibility.”

  I gritted my jaw at the mention of the star bond, a fierce longing in my heart making me burn for her. “She’s got me too, Bill. Nothing’s gonna change that ever again.”

  “Alright,” he sighed like he didn’t want to agree, but he’d never let me down and he knew once I made my mind up on something there was no going back.

  Except Elise. I’d changed my mind on her. I’d tried to force her away, treated her like shit and blackened my soul just a little further as I painted myself out as a heathen. And maybe I was, but now I was her heathen. Always would be. I was destined to love her whether the stars said so or not, and even if I had an Elysian Mate waiting for me out there in the world somewhere, nothing could tempt me away from Elise. She was my little angel. And I may not have been her perfect match or her other half or even her other quarter, but she still owned me. All that there was to give, even if it didn’t fit her entirely right.

  “Call me if you hear anything.” I hung up and tucked my Atlas away, running out the front exit of Altair Halls and letting my wings burst free from my back.

  I took off towards the Vega Dorms, gazing down at the devastation of the campus, huge holes blasted in the ground, areas of the forest still burning.

  Students were being lined up outside the dorms and counted by the faculty, so I cast a quick illusion spell to hide myself, making my body blend with the dark clouds above. I hunted for any of the Black Card among the crowd, but I couldn’t see them and as I came down to perch on top of the roof of the Vega Dorms, I sat on the edge and waited to be summoned. Because King would surely gather his followers soon enough. And until then, I would wield The Sight with all my power to try and find the girl I was so perilously in love with, that I knew with absolute certainty losing her would be the death of me.

  I stood down in the basement with my gang after the head count was done and the teachers had started work on fixing up campus. Professor Mars had taken charge as Greyshine was apparently still hiding in his office and because he was the only teacher with a backbone on campus, he’d restored some semblance of order.

  Now, I stood in front of my gang feeling weighed, judged, and measured. And I planned to eradicate all the suspicion I saw flaring in the eyes of my people for good.

  Ethan Shadowbrook was at my side in nothing but a pair of sweatpants, his inked muscles tense as he sensed the danger in the room. There was only one way I was going to crush the doubts I saw gazing back at me from the Lunars and that was by spilling blood. But that was just fine by me. I had so much fucking rage in me over Elise that I was hungry to get started. But not yet. I’d test them first, let the rats show their faces.

  “Elise Callisto was kidnapped from campus during the battle,” I said loudly. “Did anyone see anything that might help us find her?”

  “Us?” Bryce spat. “Why would we care about some random girl? She’s not even a Lunar.”

  The snake in me curled through my flesh, readying to strike, but I held myself in check as I waited for more people to chime in.

  “What were you doing out there helping the Oscuras?” a girl at the back called and a murmur of ascension rippled through the crowd.

  “Why should we do anything you say? You’re a traitor!” Bryce snapped and a large Minotaur, Russel Newmoon, behind him nodded his agreement. The guy was always backing up Bryce in class whenever he bullied Eugene Dipper and I didn’t like his cocky little face.

  I looked to Ethan beside me, needing to assess my second’s response to this and he raised his chin higher as more of my people started hollering angrily about my actions tonight.

  I didn’t give a fuck what they thought of me, but I found I did care what Ethan thought. I wanted his allegiance; he was a man of his word and an Alpha I could see eye to eye with. But if he had turned on me too, he would be the first to bleed.

  “Speak, Shadowbrook,” I commanded, and the crowd quietened to let him talk.

  Ethan’s blue eyes swirled with darkness as he turned to me. There was still blood on his flesh from the fight and a smirk danced around his lips like he was in his element right now. He’d fought without question, fie
rcely and with his pack behind him, tearing through Felix’s ranks like cannon fire. He hadn’t questioned my orders for a second, but perhaps he was questioning them now.

  “Ryder is our king,” he barked out powerfully. “Anyone who says he isn’t should pay the price of those words.” His pack howled their agreement and plenty of my people called out their support for me too.

  Interesting.

  I nodded, turning my head slowly to look directly at Bryce and the Fae still clustering around him, clearly defining themselves from the others. “Do you dare to still stand against me, Bruce?”

  He glowered at the name I used to belittle him, taking a foolish step towards me. “We deserve an explanation for the betrayal we witnessed tonight.”

  “I owe you nothing!” I bellowed, making the crowd wince back and Bryce nearly leapt out of his skin. “I am your king. So if you wish to rise up against me, then go ahead.” I opened my arms wide, striding towards him at a slow pace, giving him the opportunity to attack. I’d relish the fight, crush him thoroughly and tear his head from his neck to punctuate my point. But he didn’t attack me. He shrank like the coward he was, glancing left and right for back up that was now fast abandoning him.

  I walked forward until I was nose to nose with him, gazing down from my superior height and baring my teeth.

  “Kneel,” I commanded and his eyes flared with defiance. A defiance I would cut out like rot.

  If I was going to get my people hunting the city for my girl tonight, this had to be dealt with fast. I wouldn’t have treacherous words being handed back to Scarlett who I already suspected had betrayed me. No, this was a delicate matter and death might not be the answer right away. That might only cause more rebellion tonight. Fear was the tool I needed.

  Bryce hesitated before lowering down to his knees and I gazed at him as the crowd fell back to give me more space. I could feel the power shifting in the room, their respect for me forcing them into line. But respect wasn’t enough today. They needed a reminder of why I was the most feared Fae in Alestria.

  I pointed to the Minotaur who’d backed up Bryce, beckoning him forward. “Name?” I demanded of him even though I knew it. But I wasn’t going to let him think even a single brain cell in my mind was reserved for him.