Page 72 of Gemini Wicked

“The Faerie Ball?” I gape up at him. “Is that an actual thing?” When his lofty head inclines an inch, I keep going. “So I’d be going as, like, your date?”

“As rather more than that.” Zephyr’s remote face turns toward Vasili, who’s already slit open my invite (of course) with one of his hidden stash of knives to skim the slanting lines of handwritten text inside. “I’ve proclaimed to all my kingdom that your coronation will take place at the gala, before all the assembled Unseelie Realm—both my allies and my enemies.”

My skin tingles with interest and my hair swirls around me in a gust of psychic wind.

“Whoa,” I breathe. “Not like that plan sounds risky or anything. But it’s ballsy. Gotta give you that.”

Lucius is hovering close to listen, his scholarly face intent as he ties back his wild hair in a tidy knot at his nape. That adjustment completes my headmaster’s downshift from vicious Vlad the Impaler to clerky Jonathan Harker.

Now the wary ping I get from my wolf through our mating bond reminds me of all those other, non-Fae issues we need to deal with at Icarus.

A surge of resolve rolls through me and lifts my hair right off my shoulders.

I swing my legs out of bed and hop down without using the little rolling stair that comes with our tall medieval bed.

Then I plant my hands on my robed hips and square off with my broody Dark Fae while my wild mane floats around me like a teal cloud. “Uh, is that whole coronation gig supposed to go down before or after finals? Because I gotta be here for those. I need to defend my own throne from that fucking Cleo.”

Now Zephyr’s standing right next to me, and he’s only taller because he’s wearing boots and I’m barefoot. As our gazes lock, a painful flicker of longing fractures his face before he can hide it.

Me? My whole body aches with that same longing.

I need to full-on concentrate just to hold myself back from touching him.

“The moon in Avalon is dark in two days’ time,” he whispers. “That is when I’ll crown you. At the Faerie Ball. Then shall you begin your reign as my queen.”

Finally, he reaches for me.

And, shit, I’m leaning toward him.

Before we can connect, Max leaps out of bed in a vicious scramble and shoves roughly between us. Golden hair swirling around his shoulders, my alpha looms over Zephyr with flaming eyes and a ferocious scowl.

“You will take Zara from this place of safety over my dead body,” Max says in a thick voice that’s guttural with dragon. “Her alphas are in rut and my mate is ripe for breeding. She will not leave this domus—neither for your dangerous crowning nor her war with Cleopatra—until her fertile womb is filled with my dragonets.”

Chapter Fourteen

Zephyr

I should never have come.

That is, very clearly, what they’re all thinking. My wild Gemini queen and her distrustful warlock harem.

Bathed in the harsh electric light of this alien kitchen with its threatening appliances, so unlike the gentle witchlight and friendly stone hearths of my Unseelie palace, the silence seethes with the suspicions these warlocks yearn to whisper in my pointed ears. The air is loud with the accusations they burn to hurl at my moon-fucked head.

The dragon is the worst.

Maxim Grigoryevich Rasputin.

I’ve made it my business to learn their true names. If they should ever threaten me…

Well, I’m Unseelie.

They call us the Dark Fae for reasons. We’re not exactly known for kindness and mercy, are we?

To defend myself and my bride, I will never flinch from doing what I must.

Maxim looms vigilant in the doorway, scowling ferociously at me and blocking my access to the rest of the house, to the rooms where my precious queen showers and prepares for her day. This dragon shifter mate of hers looks utterly disreputable, brooding barefoot in torn jeans and worn shirt, with his dragon eyes slitted and his hair twisted in a warrior’s braid that bares his ruthless face. A barbed wire tattoo loops around one sinewy wrist.

Dressed impeccably in Academy uniform and chunky combat boots with vivid green soles, Vasili Nikolayevich Romanov lurks near the complicated device called espresso machine. He leans casually against the counter and watches me with poisonous eyes the treacherous hue of quicksilver, expertly rimmed with smoky liner under a shag of silver hair, while he sips in pointed silence from a tiny cup of that revolting mortal beverage whose acrid reek corrupts the morning air.

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