Page 32 of Gemini Wicked

After RT magicked me off the yacht, one of those big bullies from the AIB apparently sucker-punched her. Knocked her out cold.

Snuggled up next to her, Dez is swimming in her big terrycloth bathrobe, dark ringlets still damp from her shower. When I hand over her cocoa, her olive eyes look big and haunted.

“Thanks, copper. That’ll set me to rights.” Dez summons up a brave smile, but her voice is raspy from crying, and her skin is tight with strain.

She’s got bruises on her delicate wrists from being manhandled by those jerks, but I give her total credit. She’s no kind of fighter. But Dez held her shit together like a pro.

When I blinked into the domus, still yelling in protest, Dez was already getting the Dean (who’s like a million years old and had to be woken up and apparently slept through the actual party?) on the landline.

“How about a nip of the strong stuff for yourself, Red?” Ronin’s sprawled across the settee, tummy-down and shirtless, with a white square of adhesive standing out against the tawny ripple of his naked shoulder and his head pillowed in Zara’s lap. His black hair spills over the edge of the settee and one hand cradles his glass on the floor. There’s an inch of amber scotch melting the ice. That’s the only anesthetic he’d let Nurse administer before she stitched him up.

I don’t want any cocoa. I don’t need to be babied.

But I go and fetch the Macallan to top off his glass.

At least that gives me something to do that’s useful. I mean, like, it’s an alternative to hurling myself at Zara’s feet and howling like a toddler throwing a tantrum because she sent me away.

“You’re a good lad,” Ronin murmurs.

He’s kinda sleepy from the scotch and the heat and Zara stroking his hair. He’s so brave. I mean, he’s so badass I don’t think he was even afraid. When Zara’s ex was doing his darnedest to ram his knife through Ronin’s throat, I was more terrified than Ronin, who mostly just looked pissed.

Anyway, I’m not a good lad.

I’m about to explode with frustration.

My shoulders are all bunched tight with stress.

Leaving three messages in a row on my dad’s mobile, which he still hasn’t returned, is definitely not helping.

“How’s your shoulder?” I say politely, but also with real concern.

Ronin was the one who needed actual rescue. Seeing him tasered and pinned under that jerk, I was scared to death. By the time Ronin showed up here with the others, grim and bloody but thankfully still ambulatory and breathing, I was practically in tears.

“I’ll be right as rain, love. No worries.” From the comfy pillow of Zara’s lap, he eyes my hovering frame under sleepy lids. “I’m a fast healer, aren’t I? All those shifter biochemicals I’ve got from Lucius, yeah?”

My gaze shoots to the kitchen, where I can still hear the soothing drone of Lucius’ murmur on the landline. Our headmaster’s speaking Hungarian, so I guess he’s finally been able to reach his grandpa.

I don’t speak the language, and we don’t have a mating bond, because Lucius is afraid to bite me (and please don’t get me started on that whole topic). But I like the sound of his rolling R’s and buzzing Z’s and sibilant S’s. He’s lurking in the kitchen doorway, stretching the long phone cord to its maximum limit. That way he can keep an eye on Ronin and Zara (both of whom he’s bitten and thus goes alpha-to-the-max protective over) while he talks to Laszlo Aries.

“If you will insist upon engaging in mortal combat, Ronin Pendragon, you should have more than one mating bite.” That’s Maxim, getting in his two cents and speaking his careful English, which he taught himself back home in Russia. “My dragon’s bite will speed your healing.”

Max has been super vocal lately (when he’s around, because he’s gone a lot) about wanting to bite Ronin, because Ronin and Zara were the first ones he mated, and he bit Zara right away.

It especially comes up when they’re fucking.

Which is, like, insanely sexy.

Right now, my dragon shifter boyfriend looks disreputable but yummy, ripped jeans and faded black tee clinging to his wiry frame, buttery blond hair spilling loose around his shoulders. He’s scowling and pacing before the sliding doors that open on the domus courtyard and the glowing turquoise rectangle of our swimming pool.

Those glass doors are currently closed and locked because A) we’re on an island and the nights still get nippy, and B) no one feels safe having any doors open.

Not after what went down on that yacht tonight.

“And have superheats every blooming month the way Zara does? No thanks, love. My heats from Lucius’ bite are plenty.” Ronin snorts at Max, but softens the rejection with a wry smile. “You dragons are a potent lot.”

Max looks kinda disgruntled—I think he literally wants to bite all of us, except maybe Lucius, whom he defers to.

But Max is too focused on patrol duty over there to double down on coaxing Ronin to take his mating bite.

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