Page 67 of Gemini Wicked

And, yeah, I sneak a peek at myself in the big vanity mirror.

Which is, like, a massive mistake.

For a sec, I flounder in a surge of self-conscious dismay. After last night’s fuckfest, I’m literally a hot mess. Hair everywhere, lower lip swollen and bruised from Vasili’s savage nip the last time he fucked me, neck all abraded from Max continual whiskery scenting, and the violet bruise of a hicky Ronin gave me clearly visible on my tit.

Not to mention what the mirror thankfully isn’t showing.

My hidden girly parts. All tender and stretched and overridden from being stuffed by Lucius’ knot.

I mean, dayum.

He and V and Max—all three of them—were sex machines.

For real.

Even my snake, despite his well-known daddy aversion, barely pulled out of me all night. Apparently just the suggestion that I might be willing to move up the timeline—and, you know, hang out the vacancy sign on my uterus—triggered some genetic shifter instinct in those guys that’s powerful as fuck.

Good thing I heal up shifty-swifty myself, thanks to those biochemicals in my own witchy DNA.

Still, there’s no hiding how much I smell like sex. I’m literally dripping with alpha shifter spunk.

But why should I hide it?

I own that shit.

That’s what it means to be queen.

I straighten my shoulders, lift my chin, and look straight into the alien face of the Dark Fae King.

Across the width of the room that yawns like a chasm between us, Zephyr’s cold jade gaze burns into me. Framed in a sleek curtain of mossy hair, divided by the green slash of his eyepatch, his cold perfect face is so remote and inscrutable he could be chiseled from alabaster. His lithe frame looks invulnerable in his dragonscale armor and boots and gauntlets.

My sparkly antique crown looks fragile perched in his casual grip.

With his arrogant legs crossed on my desk, he literally hasn’t even gotten up. In fact, he’s sprawled in my chair like it’s his goddamn throne.

That air of aloof entitlement he’s packing pisses me right off.

Same as always.

He’s literally ten weeks late showing up at Icarus. And he’s been ignoring all Ronin’s pings through the scrying glass.

I mean, would it kill the guy to say hey, sorry I was held up, you must’ve been worried?

Would it kill him to say he missed me?

“Busy social schedule at court, Your Radiance?” I work hard to keep it casual, because there’s no point hiring a blimp to broadcast for the entire island my hidden uncertainty and achy hurt.

Or my lurking fear of rejection.

Zephyr’s no mind-reader, but he’s perceptive as fuck. He actually does answer to that la-dee-dah title—Your Radiance—at the Unseelie court.

But he doesn’t like the way I’m saying it.

Hearing the anger and heartache that edges my tone, his eye narrows and his brow lifts.

“Busy? You might say so. I’ve been quashing a rebellion in Avalon.” His voice is the same, cool water trickling over river-smooth stone.

Even while his glacial tone gives my heart a painful ping.

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