Page 104 of Gemini Wicked

A violent shaft of realization spears through my chest like a cocktail skewer through an olive.

Of course, I never for a moment made the mistake of trusting that twisty bastard. But I did rather assume he’d mind his Ps and Qs until he could entice Zara back to Avalon.

Apparently, my belief in his patience was misplaced.

“You shall have my eternal gratitude for your sacrifice, Lucius Aries,” Zephyr says in a formal tone. “You may be my rival, but I’m not unaware of my bride’s… affection for you. Or, for that matter, her lingering affection for the girl. Even Director Romanov here shall benefit from my royal benevolence. Xhevith will ensure any anguish the three of you experience will be… mercifully brief.”

He’s barely finished speaking before the frozen silence fills with the coughing rumble of that green monster, who’s getting ready to spray his flesh-eating acid.

So, clearly, he’s not bluffing.

Needless to say, his little plan is simply not happening.

Trembling with the need for violence, I fling my head back as far as this accused amulet will permit and summon the only witchcraft I possess that isn’t Mogadon.

I have shifter recessives on my mother’s side, a distant genetic legacy held in contempt by my father, that I’m betting the xenophobic bastard didn’t care to acknowledge when he bespelled this amulet.

Under the force of my witchcraft, a blinding blaze of light obliterates the darkness. My spine lengthens and my jaw elongates. My neck thickens and the chain of the amulet snaps. My hands sweep up and wings sprout from my arms.

I explode from my human skin into the coiling serpentine form of my shifted shape.

All around me, the stone chute of the staircase cracks and splinters under my rapidly expanding mass. I catch a crooked glimpse of Lucius breaking free from my father, both of them sprinting left and right out of my path. Lucius is bellowing for Zara and anyone else who’s up there to clear the commons before the floor caves in.

In mid-command, his voice unravels and stretches into the deep-throated howl of his wolf.

As the crypt walls shatter around me, I erupt from the stairs into the commons in the twining form of my wrathful dragon, with a teakettle hiss that screams rage.

Chapter Twenty-One

Zara

I’m summoning lightning. Even if I kill with it.

That’s something I swore I’d never do again. Lose my shit. Kill with lightning. Let my deadly witchcraft slip the leash.

Under normal circumstances, I’m no killer.

But I’ll do anything to save Lucius.

Including manslaughter.

My fingertips crackle with voltage. That fatal hum rises in my throat. The air turns thick and staticky with the metallic tang of ozone.

That’s when the floor caves in.

The glittering silver scroll of Vasili’s snaky dragon uncoils through a shower of falling rubble and explodes into the student commons with a rattling hiss. Iridescent wings, glinting with cobalt and emerald, launch his thrashing body airborne with a scream of rage.

Lucius’ wolf, howling with alarm, bounds across the collapsing floor toward the huddle of spell-stunned Hadrian kids who are about to become the innocent victims of this clusterfuck. Cleo’s sidekick Skyler scrambles off the table where she’s been crouching and dives for the choir loft stairs.

That’s smart, because it’s a tight passage where dragons can’t follow. But it’s good for me too, because Skyler can’t levitate, so she and Xiao (the small fry) are now contained up there.

Nikolai Romanov (who’s definitely large fry, if there is such a thing, especially with my backpack slung over his shoulder) veers right across the commons and vanishes into the narrow passage that leads to the cloister. Which is another place dragons can’t follow.

This time the scream of rage is mine.

That fucker just stole my crown.

I suck in a breath to hurl lightning right through the open door after him. That’s when a hard punch slams into my diaphragm.

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