Page 159 of Gemini Wicked

By the time I reach the stairs, I’ve torn my shirt open—buttons flying everywhere—and ripped the sweat-soaked garment viciously from my shoulders. My long legs devour the stairs three at a time, fingers wrenching open my fly with a violence that will surely make my tailor weep.

Halfway across the kiva, as I rise above the crowd, Maxim’s eyes lock with mine.

He takes one look at my desperate face. Then his own predatory face ignites with triumph—and hunger. With truly alarming speed, he lunges for the stairs, ripping his Zephyr-provided dragonscale from his chest and shoulders as he charges after me.

Oh, fuck. Fuck!

In an uncharacteristic panic, I explode onto the rim and drag my trousers down my legs. The clothes tangle with my shoes—Italian leather, it would be a crime to spoil them—as I struggle desperately to rid myself of the lot.

Unexpectedly Xhevith rears before me, wings extended, head snaking down for a good sniff. One whiff of my heat makes his nostrils flare. He rumbles, long and low, with intense interest.

“Zephyr!” I shout without turning, frantically kicking free of my trousers. “For fuck’s sake, control your fucking dragon!”

Dear God, why did I have to drink that magical moon wine?

Bitterly I curse the moment I found that innocuous bottle, standing innocently beside Zephyr’s bed, and let my petty impulse to provoke him (by drinking his precious wine without asking) overcome my wits.

I’m smarter than that. I should’ve guessed—or at least suspected—it was moon wine. Laced with enchanted herbs to ensure fertility.

That moon wine is the entire reason I’m fertile.

I’ve barely gotten naked when the shift sweeps through me in a holocaust of heat and light.

I twist away from Xhevith and launch into the air, in my flying serpent form, with a teakettle scream of rage.

Behind me, the skies light up with a second shift. I don’t waste time looking back. My wings churn the air for speed and altitude. I stretch my sleek form for maximum aerodynamics and minimum drag.

Xhevith’s nails-on-chalkboard scream tears the air, echoed by Max’s tyrannosaur bellow.

I entertain the brief uncharitable hope that those two male dragons will fight each other senseless in a testosterone-fueled frenzy for claiming rights to my genital slit, while I slip away from both of them and vanish in the night. Desperately I chart a course for the volcano, where numerous small caves offer countless hidden nooks and crannies where I can hide.

Until this abominable heat passes.

But all the while, as I’m far too keenly aware, my fertile female dragon—with her consuming need to breed—harbors other intentions.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Zara

“Yeah, so, that was sudden,” I murmur to my remaining warlocks, not for the first time, as we file in a line up the steep tower stairs to Zephyr’s royal bedroom. “Really hope V doesn’t hole up somewhere all night and brood. He’s definitely flown way beyond any range I can sense him. You?”

I direct this question over my shoulder at Ronin, who’s still flushed and windblown from flying back in a rush with Zephyr and me on Xhevith, right after V and Max took off in their mating flight. After we did what we needed to (minus the whole demon thing) at the Faerie Ball.

With my two most vicious alphas sidelined in a mating flight and that elusive demon still at large, my remaining guys wanted me here, in the relative safety of the Unseelie palace.

“Same.” Ronin’s hands flex around my waist, because he’s kinda hugging me for comfort as we climb. “When V lit out like a blooming house on fire and I lost the link, that snake of his was sexed up as fuck.”

“I trust, if Maxim does manage to catch up, our dragon’s better angels will prevail.” Lucius sounds kinda winded from running back here through the streets in wolf form, because we don’t have enough dragons (with Max gone) for everyone to fly. “He simply must control his dragon. If Vasili’s serpent truly is biologically capable of incubating—carrying eggs that are fertilized by another male dragon—Maxim must allow that to be Vasili’s choice.”

“Max bloody well better.” Ronin snorts. “Or we’ll have a whole new set of problems in this harem, won’t we?”

“I believe in Max,” Neo pipes up stoutly, “and his better angels. No one gives him enough credit. He’s not a jerk. He really isn’t. He’s just really nice and decent.”

Speaking of nice and decent.

Neo’s back there with Lucius, carrying my dominatrix boots and gloves that I’ve already peeled out of. Just having him with me, and so totally calm about whatever monumental thing’s going down with V and Max, is a definite comfort.

The reason our bookworm sounds breathless is because Ash just carried him back from the Faerie Ball on the wing. It was a super sweet thing to do, Ash carrying him like Superman with Lois Lane. The whole dynamic makes me hopeful that Ash might actually be courting our bookworm.

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