Page 101 of Gemini Wicked

A soft spill of breath from Cleo’s parted lips, too quiet for anyone else to hear, is kinda gratifying.

Even with all the unresolved shit lurking between the Dark Fae King and me, plus another aggravating reference to our supposed nuptials, I gotta admit I’m not too unhappy to see him. My Unseelie has never looked more impressive than he does right now astride the menace of his snarling dragon, with one hand wrapped around the reins in casual command and plenty of fang showing in his bloodthirsty grin.

He’s a vicious little savage, but he’s mine.

He really is.

Still, he probably shouldn’t make a habit out of gifting me with the severed heads of our enemies. (Granted, this is only the second one, but clearly there’s a pattern emerging here.)

I’m about to say so when a calm voice with a Russian accent intervenes. “That’s certainly one option, Your Moon-Dazzled Radiance. But if you have any care at all for the health of your queen’s harem, I’d advise against it.”

I wrap Cleo’s braid a little tighter around my fist to keep her tethered and in check (because I’ve had enough of her shit today, for real). Then I crane to see past Xhevith’s big obstructive body.

What I find down there jams my heart all the way into my battered throat.

Standing at the head of the crypt stairs looms a tall aristocratic guy with a tailored suit and a ruthless face who looks like a cross between Mads Mikkelsen in Casino Royale and a conservative Wall Street broker version of Vasili. In one hand, the stranger’s gripping my backpack with the crown. Which sucks, but right now it’s a minor issue.

The major issue is his other arm, wrapped tight around a stiffly immobile Lucius.

This new guy’s holding a wicked stiletto jammed right up against Lucius’ throat.

Chapter Twenty

Vasili

My hands are cold with terror.

But my vision is red with rage.

As I stand—spellbound and sidelined—in the blackness of the crypt, while my abominable father upstairs threatens to destroy everything I love, it occurs to me I’ve been waiting years for some obliging person to come along and kill him.

Now, with toxic fear for Lucius spreading through my paralyzed limbs like poison, I resolve on a bone-deep level that today will be everyone’s lucky day.

No more waiting around for someone else to step up and do the deed.

It will be my absolute delight to kill my own father.

As soon as I manage to wrench free of this reprehensible Compulsion spell.

That spell of his froze me, like an insect in amber, at the foot of the crypt stairs the instant my wretched sire dropped a charmed amulet around my neck and whispered my full name in my ear.

Unable to move or speak, I watched the bastard slink silently up the stairs after an unsuspecting Lucius with his horrid stiletto in hand and black rage filling my murderous heart.

“Lucius.” Zara’s horrified voice drifts down the stairs where I stand, helpless and fuming in the dark.

Hearing the terror in my darling’s voice, I clench my casting hand in a fist of rage. This much movement I can still barely manage—but to zero effect.

My powerful telekinesis lies dormant under the spell.

Why on earth did I allow myself to be distracted, even for a heartbeat, by the Shakespearean drama unfolding between Zara and Cleo up there?

A heartbeat was all the opportunity Nikolai Romanov needed to destroy all our lives.

“I’m afraid you oblige me to issue a warning, Mr. Romanov.” Lucius’ controlled tone echoes down the stairs. From this vantage, I can barely see him, standing with his back to me, with my father lurking behind him like the trained assassin he is.

Still, somehow, despite the knife pressed to his throat, my headmaster manages to sound like he’s chiding a misbehaving student.

“Threatening a faculty member is a violation of the Academy Codex,” Lucius warns my father sternly.

---