Page 15 of Gemini Wicked

Because I’m not gonna dwell on the way my whole body just shriveled up with guilt and shame. I’m not gonna spiral like a goddamn pinwheel over the shit that went down with my mom.

I fucked that up. I did. I couldn’t control my own lightning. I took the roof off the Double Gem. I was a kid, I was just coming into my power, I was hurt, attacked, terrified, trying to help, blah blah blah.

Here’s the bottom line. Eighty-seven innocents ended up dead. Including my mom (who wasn’t exactly innocent). I can never atone for that.

Never.

Yeah. Maybe that means I don’t deserve to be queen.

But that doesn’t mean Cleo does.

I mean, where was she when Avalon was dying, due to the late king Oberon not having an heir? If she’s who she says, that was her fucking mess I just cleaned up over there. Not that I’m complaining about hooking up with Ash and Zephyr. But the Dark Fae King’s definitely making life for me and my guys even more complicated and contentious.

Long story short? I’m sure as shit not about to bow down to her in homage.

I lick my upper lip, sticky with glitter gloss yet somehow dry as fuck, and search the sea of accusatory faces turned toward me all over this party boat. I don’t know these people from Adam, they’re all witching world aristocracy, sleek and well-bred, the way a runaway wild child casino rat like me could never aspire to be.

They’re pedigreed greyhounds.

I’m a junkyard dog.

But, fuck, the look on all those faces is identical. Unfriendly. Judgy. Condemning me for more than what I did.

They’re condemning me for who I am.

These people don’t know me. They only know what the media—and that bitch in heels on stage who calls the shots—wants them to know.

Still, that look of collective condemnation, like I’m something they just scraped off their shoe, makes me want to shrink in my stilettos.

“Take a breath, babe.” Neo’s gripping my icy hand firmly in his warm grip, which is part of what’s keeping me anchored. “No one’s making you do anything. It’s all some kind of mixed-up misunderstanding. We’re gonna sort this out. Together.”

“It’s a blooming lie, that’s what it is.” Ronin’s looming protectively at my other side, still scowling and planted like a tank between me and my exes. “That Oberon kid fucking died due to Messalina’s shit. That’s the whole bloody reason Zeph kidnapped you, Zara. Either Messalina was fibbing to him about her kid being dead all those years, or she’s fibbing to the whole witching world now. Either way, she’s a liar.”

Lucius is standing guard on his own, crouched like a hunting wolf, staring intently at the stage. He’s all sober and respectable in his vintage tux and tied-back hair, brow furrowed and eyes fierce.

But he’s not as civilized as he looks.

A continuous growl rumbles from his powerful chest.

Shit, I really hope he’s not gonna shift. The last thing we need right now is him wolfing out.

Plus I can’t tell what anyone’s thinking, because someone in this mob’s apparently packing a nullifying object.

Yay.

That’s when my snake slithers into the spotlight and saunters straight into the sea of news cams.

“Talk about a fairytale,” Vasili sneers in a cool voice that carries from stem to stern. “A lost Aquarius queen. A dead Fae princess miraculously risen from the dead. That’s certainly an imaginative story. Manufactured in the nick of time by a failed queen who’ll obviously say anything to cling to her pathetic crown. Truly, darlings, are we buying it?”

He jabs that pointed question right at our viewing audience, then deploys the lifted Romanov eyebrow for effect. He’s really talking to the witches and warlocks at home. Like, the commoners who are my real subjects, the ones who can’t have kids and are scared and helpless and losing their witchcraft due to this endless succession of weak and unmagical Aquarius queens.

The ones who need me.

The ones going extinct.

A few of the looky-loos on board shift and mutter. These aristocrats might be like the spoiled citizens of the Capital in The Hunger Games. But they’re not all Team Messalina.

Yet.

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