Page 18 of Gemini Wicked

The cum shot.

Hell to the no.

That’s not happening.

In my desperate grip, Neo’s hand feels like lead. I hum low in my throat, release my guy, and thrust my arms overhead. An electric current of power and rage crackles through me and erupts from my lungs in a vengeful scream.

A bolt of ultraviolet lightning forks from the sky. I hurl all that amperage like Thor son of Odin, straight at the offending image.

The LED screen explodes with a deafening crack! A blinding shower of sparks and shrapnel sends people screaming and diving for cover all over the deck.

Ronin wraps himself around me, protecting me with his own powerful build, which I have all kinds of issues with. That’s twice tonight he’s thrown himself between me and physical damage.

When it should be me protecting him.

That’s what it means to be queen.

I protect them.

Before we can be shredded by that sea of flying glass, Vasili sweeps an arm sideways and hurls the blast wave away from all of us. His witchcraft flings that airborne debris harmlessly out to sea.

Messalina was thrown hard to her hands and knees, so the shrapnel passed harmlessly over her head. She’s clutching her tiara to keep the thing on. Still, she lifts her face to find me across the sea of screaming chaos I just created all over her yacht—and nails me with a look of blazing triumph.

What the actual fuck?

Once the blast wave passes, the shipboard racket goes out like a snuffed candle.

“Cavolo, bella,” Cleo says softly into the ringing silence. Gracefully my ex-BFF straightens from where she’s crouched at the bulkhead and slips free from Xiao, who’s flung himself over her to protect her. “Always so predictable. You’ve given her exactly what she hoped for, Zara.”

“She’s lucky I didn’t flambé her,” I say, wrathful, in a voice that carries. “How’s that for predictable?”

“Who says we still won’t?” Ronin growls for emphasis like the bully he is and tightens his grip, pulling me hard into the muscled heat of his chest.

“Do you see?” With a degree of poise I gotta respect, Messalina climbs to her feet, settles her tiara more securely on her head, and speaks into the mic.

But she’s not speaking to me.

She’s speaking to the scattered sea of news cams that survived my pyrotechnics. To the witches and warlocks watching this debacle from their living rooms all over the planet.

Addressing all her subjects, she demands, “Does the witching world need this wild, willful, wicked Gemini? Is this what we deserve for a queen? Zara Gemini is paranoid. Psychotic. Psychologically damaged and congenitally dangerous. She slaughtered her own insane mother in a fit of rage. The next time she snaps, it could be your loved ones she slaughters.”

Well, fuck.

Fuck.

She’s not wrong. Is she?

“What the hell,” Ronin snarls. He doesn’t need telepathy to feel me clenching up in his arms. “That’s bonkers.”

Vasili hisses in vicious protest and rivets me with a sharp look (even though he can’t hear what I’m thinking). Grimly I evade his searching gaze.

“Don’t you believe her, babe,” Neo whispers earnestly, reaching for my hand. “Don’t. You’re not like that. You’re good.”

I shake my head and pull my deadly hand away. When I’m this worked up, I’m dangerous to touch. She’s right about that.

“Let me go, Adam.” With deliberate care, I wiggle out from the shelter of Ronin’s protective arms. Ronin (who’s a dead ringer for Adam Driver, hence the nickname) is super reluctant and grumbles in protest. But he knows I mean it, so he gives me my space.

I give all my guys some distance, for their own good.

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