Page 126 of Gemini Wicked

For a sec, I really wonder if Ronin’s gonna keel over.

Under his tawny skin, his face goes white as paper. His spreading shock ripples through our bond like an earthquake.

I’m not even sure he’s breathing.

Neo stares at this whole awful scene with his mouth open. Lucius presses his fingers to his lips and closes his eyes. Max senses his mate’s distress through his bond with Ronin and starts growling, but I grip his arm hard to keep him in his seat. Ash studies Ronin with his brow furrowed in disbelief. Vasili smolders at Zephyr, nostrils flared and eyes venomous, as though he’d like nothing more than to drench this inconvenient ex from Ronin’s troubled past in kerosene and light him on fire. (I honestly wouldn’t put it past him.)

“Okay… wow… this is a lot,” I whisper.

No one even looks at me. The entire table is riveted on Ronin and Zephyr.

Well, shit.

This is one convo that definitely does not need an audience. So I clear my throat and get up too. “Everyone out except Ronin and Zephyr.”

When no one budges, I use my queen voice. “I mean it. Everyone out. Except you two. You really need to talk. It’s, like, years overdue. Don’t come out till you’re done.”

Chapter Twenty-Six

Zephyr

My lost eye pains me like hellfire.

This happens when I am under strain. But the hellish pain in my eye is naught compared to the volcano of heartbreak and outrage erupting in my heart.

Although the Avalon night is summer-warm, I crouch on my heels before the witchfire hearth and hug my knees for comfort.

At the edge of sight from my remaining eye, I can just discern Ronin, huddled wretchedly at the table over the messy remnants of our abandoned supper. He remains precisely where he has lingered since Zara cleared the room for this long-delayed encounter.

My former lover’s face is buried in his hands, midnight hair streaming over his fingers and pooling on the table before him like inky tears. His white-knuckled fingers dig cruelly into his face. As though he would peel off his own skin to escape this ruin of all that is left of our love.

In fact, he’s digging those digits into his own skin so harshly he’ll surely do himself an injury.

Not that I would care, for my own sake.

But Zara will not thank me if her warlock is damaged under my watch.

With a reluctant sigh, I adjust my eyepatch over my empty socket, straighten my stiff and aching body, and tread toward the table with leaden feet.

My approach is not silent. But he—this consummate hunter and killer of men—he betrays no sign that he hears.

I clear the residue of old rage that clogs my throat. Swallow down the bitter bile of old regret.

“Ronin,” I say gruffly.

“How can you even stand to look at me?” His muffled voice barely seeps through his palms. “I ruined your face for nothing. Spurned your love for nothing. Halfway blinded you—for nothing. And Gwen, she… died anyway. She always felt guilty that I—killed my own lover—for her sake.”

His voice splinters and his shoulders shake. I am no mind-reader, not like he is. But I require no telepathy to know he is weeping.

A perverse and terrible ache of tenderness—for him, this treacherous mortal lover who betrayed me—seeps through my frozen heart.

“Stop scrubbing at your face,” I say roughly. “It won’t bring her back. Besides, if you damage yourself, Zara will have my very head on a serving platter. One whiff of physical pain through that bond you share, and our queen will descend on this chamber like a Valkyrie.”

Ronin huffs out a harsh breath that acknowledges this truth. But at least his shoulders stop shaking.

Zara is a safer subject for him than Gwendolyn.

Safer for both of us.

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