Page 8 of Zodiac Demons

Seven years of freedom, and here we were again, back in this fuck hole of a city. I stared at the crimson red uniform jacket in my closet with a frown. It was gaudy and obnoxious and comically old fashioned in this day and age. But Graves Academy clung to its five-hundred-something years of history like it was its entire identity.

Why am I doing this to myself? I didn’t need a degree, especially not when I was pursuing the arts, where years of schooling meant fuck-all for your ability to create something from the heart. Not to mention that going to college at twenty-five, I was going to be fucking geriatric compared to these fresh out of high school children who have never ventured beyond their jungle gym.

And yet…

“Creative writing? Really, Marcus?” My father’s chastising tone was loud and clear on the phone. “I know you didn’t get this lack of ambition from me or your mother.”

I rolled my eyes, the phone jammed between my ear and my shoulder, as I pulled on my pressed black uniform slacks. “What would have made you happier? A law degree? Finance? Money is hardly an issue, but my mental health will be if you expect me to spend eternity doing banal paperwork for human currency.” Oh, or better yet, how about I go into engineering and spend the next four years being Adrian’s little project? I scoffed in my head, because I wouldn’t put it past him to suggest that in earnest if I voiced the thought aloud.

“You’re an Emery.” He snapped, like that meant anything. Overbearing vampires were such a played out cliché, I wasn’t remotely fazed by his harsh growl. “Do you think I would have ever met an Alpha as powerful and impressive as your mother if I was a ‘creative writer?’”

I raised a brow as I stood on one leg to pull on my sock. “Probably. She does love reading.” The great Sienna Seraph was not one to diminish the arts, and I appreciated that about my mother. I’d be hard pressed to find a single flaw in that woman.

“She also loves money and power.” He scolded. To his credit… also true. “Being the head advisor for the Graves Counsel and holding the most prominent law firm in Graves, I’m able to control the fate of gods. What power will you have? What control will you have?” Father emphasized the word, and it struck a nerve with all the force of an ogre throwing an ax.

What the fuck did he know about control? He was an ancient with full blooded magic, who never once had to watch his body act and move without his consent. He’d never been a passenger to a monster on a full moon night, and woke up covered in blood and come, with no fucking clue who it belonged to. The only way he could experience even a portion of a hybrid’s frenzy was if he’d willfully neglected his need to feed, and even then, he could reel it back in before the consequences were dire.

I drew a slow breath to prevent my irritation from reflecting in my voice before I continued. “Super weird that you don’t know anything about being a vampire, because all I have to do to control people is slightly change the width of my pupils. Did they forget to teach you about compulsion when you got that degree?” I shot back just to provoke him, both willfully obtuse and mocking. “I don’t need to stand in a courtroom and argue with a bunch of sniveling pixies to feel like a man, but I appreciate the concern.”

Father Dearest didn’t find that as amusing as I did. He was practically growling as he tried to change the subject. “Be that as it may, you’re still part shifter. You should be seeking a mate, and a worthy one at that. You weren’t going to find a worthy anything living in hostels in Southeast Asia.”

He might have felt differently if he’d ever fucked an Eastern Zodiac dragon shifter in the rain forest, but he probably didn’t want to hear it. “So is that why you wanted me to come back to Graves? For my M-R-S. Degree?” I finished getting dressed to the tune of another lecture.

“No. I wanted you to come back to Graves so you could learn to behave properly before you ended up being tried by the Counsel for violating international laws for both shifters and vampires. Do you know how many fires I had to put out while you were off gallivanting around the filthy backpacker circuit?”

I tapped my index finger against my lips. “Probably ten? Fifty? Go ahead and tell me, because I know you counted.” I was so done being pushed around and bullied by my own father. He was a well-respected around Graves, and I had a healthy amount of fear of the man, but our blood tie didn’t mean I was his puppet. I didn’t live under his roof anymore, He was half the reason I left in the first place, and I wanted absolutely nothing from him that he could hold over my head. I was making it on my own just fine.

And if I hadn’t been, I certainly wasn’t above killing for it. There were plenty of billionaires in this world who I could guiltlessly use to pad my account with something as trifling and nonsensical as paper currency.

“A quarter of a century, and you’re still such a child. You know, your brother is already a professor. He’s the head of his department in a respectable field. He hasn’t been pissing away his intelligence and talent on the arts, because he has discipline that you somehow never managed to learn in all of the years I tried.” Father scoffed, and my eye twitched involuntarily. Great, let’s bring Adrian into the conversation. That always makes my day so much fucking better.

It was times like this that I had to admit that I actually envied Adrian for having a much more loving and gentle dad than I ever did. Despite growing up in the same household as one big, fucked up family, our fathers disciplined us very separately, and very, very differently. In some ways, it was necessary, being his species just likes sex, while mine is comprised of actual killers, but in other ways, I envied that he had the love and admiration of everyone—myself included, for a good while—while I was never so privileged.

I would have actually appreciated what he pissed away, but I digress.

“Like you were any more proper when you were my age.” I debated hanging up. I’d learned a long time ago how cruel my father could be when he was tasked with teaching me to control my gifts, but his physical beatings felt far more manageable than his mental and emotional ones. “I guess this is what happens when you mix a vampire’s arrogance with a Leo’s pride. Sorry your only born son isn’t as perfect as you imagined he would be.” He started to respond, so I interrupted him on the first syllable. “You already got me back where you want me. I’m being compliant. I’m doing everything you want me to do. What else can I do to not be a disappointment, Daddy?” I shot back mockingly, no patience left for this conversation.

“Stay out of jail and out of the Counsel’s eye for the next four years, and maybe I’ll accept this ridiculous career path.”

“No promises.” This time, I did hang up. A text came through shortly after from Mom, informing me that he doesn’t mean to be so harsh, and that I was doing great, and she was proud of me. She’d probably been listening to the entire conversation. At least one of them was on my side.

Father was probably just bitter that I was out walking in daylight, while his full blooded weakness meant he was limited to darkness without his enchanted sunlight ring. The man has been alive for some undisclosed hundreds, if not thousands, of years, and yet I was somehow impressive enough to give him an inferiority complex.

Whatever.

With a sigh, I made my way to the garage and pulled on my motorcycle gear to head to Orientation. I rolled my eyes in my helmet, thinking back to how much he’d disapproved of this little hobby, too. Nothing I did was ever going to be good enough for him, short of acting more like fucking Adrian, so why bother.

I threw my leg over my bike, turned the key, and I pressed the ignition. The engine roared to life, growling louder and louder with every playful twist of the throttle. The sooner I got this over with the better.

Less than twenty-four hours of enrollment, and I’d joined an Astrology club, learned more about Bukowski than I cared to know, and was already over this shit. I walked the hall, ready to get out of this archaic castle of a building and get back on my bike, when a cheap flier scrawled in barely legible handwriting caught my eye on the bulletin board outside the dean’s office.

Kick off the semester with a full moon party, it read, and I fucking snorted at that human nonsense. What kind of god or demon or monster in their right mind would ever want to waste their time with a bunch of drunk, uninteresting humans jumping around like uncoordinated apes and drinking until they were even less interesting than they started?

I sure as fuck would not be there.

I was about to head to the parking lot, when I caught sight of a man a few inches taller than I was, with tussled dark brown hair, and similarly dark skin that contrasted with his unusual green eyes. He walked down the hall with a more slight man of similar coloring in tow, whose platinum eyes were distinctly inhuman behind his rectangular glasses that suited his attractive facial features. He was being dragged along roughly by his arm, in pronounced discomfort—which was painfully obvious to anyone but his strong and domineering companion. His mannerisms were something that could only be described as distressingly cute.

Between the two of them, one of them scented like chocolate chip cookies, and the other was indiscernible and unlikely to be a shifter. They shared enough facial features and coloring that they might be related, but if they were, their species make up wasn’t the same.