Page 68 of Gemini Wicked

“Another rebellion? My, my.” Vasili slithers up next to Ronin and drapes a possessive arm around his boyfriend’s neck. “Never tell me your enslaved subjects are chafing under your tyrannical rule.”

Zephyr’s cruel mouth turns down in a frown.

“No one in Avalon is enslaved. My late mother’s former faction at the royal court has always been treacherous. Now they’ve turned outright… treasonous.” He’s answering Vasili, but his stare stays locked on me. “That faction has declared they will never accept a witching world queen on the Unseelie throne.”

Great.

Guess that’s another throne I’m not worthy of claiming.

But the blow of that rejection’s dwarfed by the one I weathered last night, when my own realm rejected me.

Not to mention the personal pain of his rejection.

My Unseelie mate.

I mean, not to sound like a broken record. But it’s been. Ten. Weeks.

Goddamn guy couldn’t even send the Unseelie equivalent of a Hogwarts owl?

Anger burns in my chest like heartburn. I make my voice hard and callous. “I’m not on the Unseelie throne. I was never crowned, remember? Sure, we did that whole ritual fuck practically in public, specifically to break the infertility curse and rescue your whole race from extinction. How’s that working out for you, by the way?”

One corner of Zephyr’s feral mouth curls up in satisfaction.

“The magic we wrought through our mating ritual has ripened. The curse is clearly broken. More than half the Unseelie females of breeding age in Avalon are with child.”

Hearing that news, my heart gives a good hard kick. I suck in a breath and hug my knees to my chest. No matter what else is going down in our polycule, I’m so happy we shattered that curse and saved his dying race.

And if we could do that shit there, why can’t we do it here? To save the witching world?

“Just what the world needs.” Vasili jeers. “Playpens and pacifiers and pointy-eared Unseelie brats crawling through the wards.”

Sweet Jesus, he’s horrible.

That comes with the whole Goblin King package.

But I forgive him, because he’s managed to coax Ronin to stop clawing at his own face. He’s captured Ronin’s restless hands and he’s stroking Ronin’s sleep-tangled black mane in a way that broadcasts a possessive hands off message that’s aimed straight at Zephyr.

My Unseelie—assuming he’s still my Unseelie—drinks us all in with his inscrutable stare.

Lucius has taken his wolf firmly in hand. Now my headmaster’s quietly and efficiently tucking himself into his lord of the manor Downton Abbey pajamas and smoking jacket.

Maxim is looming over me, no longer audibly snarling, but still bristling suspiciously at Zephyr. He unbends enough to accept the ripped jeans Lucius passes him and, after another suspicious look at Zephyr, shoves his legs into the pants.

Ronin tucks into Vasili’s side and stares at Zephyr with his topaz eyes all haunted.

Every time their gazes lock, I swear, the air between those two exes is so superheated the atmosphere practically combusts.

Like someone’s turned on the gas in here and left it running.

All we need is a single spark to blow us all to Kingdom Come.

Vasili sits straight in our bed like a queen, with the blankets draped gracefully around his slim hips, an unpleasant smirk lurking around his lips, his sex-smudged mascara and smoky liner adding a disreputable dash of rock-star glam, and his tousled shag of gilded hair skimming his shoulders.

Geez, his hair must’ve grown like four inches overnight, and probably literally while he was fucking me. (That’s a shifter thing, and he’ll be annoyed he has to cut it again.)

Me?

I hug my knees to my chest, pull the rumpled sheets over my naked snatch and boobs so I don’t feel quite so exposed and therefore vulnerable, and wonder why Zephyr’s even here.

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