Page 78 of Gemini Wicked

“How d’you tell him what to do then?” Dez’s clear eyes are wide with fascination. Since we don’t have complex mating shit lurking between us but just a solid friendship, she clearly feels free to satisfy her curiosity about our exotic guest in a way the others don’t. “Tried telepathy with the big fella already, haven’t I?”

“Avalon dragons are telepathic—but only with their riders.” Zephyr’s gaze rests on his dragon and his cold face thaws into something resembling warmth. “Xhevith communicates with me alone, through images and emotions.”

“Well, maybe you can give him the gist then, huh, flyboy.” That’s Racetrack, whose poor concussed head seems to have benefited quite a bit from the numbing potion Lucius doled out, but who still sounds cranky as fuck.

Wearing her own version of the school uni (accessorized with scuffed leather jacket and studded cuff), RT ambles in from the courtyard, where she’s been checking out the rest of Xhevith, with her combat boots clumping on the flagstones.

“Looks like the big galoot managed to miss your orchids, hun,” Racetrack reports to Dez. “Unless he rolls over or something. Maybe someone in this domus—like, I dunno, his rider—could tell him not to do that.”

Dez looks hopefully at Zephyr, her olive eyes round with entreaty. To resist that look, you’d have to be a monster.

My Fae (if he is still mine, because the jury’s still out on that one) inclines his regal chin, like, an inch.

But he does make that inward-looking face he gets when he’s talking to Xhev.

The dragon chuffs out a surprised snort that blows my pigtails back in a gust of hot breath. His lips curl back from his fangy teeth in his version of a smile.

I figure that’s him agreeing not to smush the orchids.

I grin up at him and give the sun-warmed scales over his nose a friendly rub. Under my palm, his well-oiled hide feels smooth as leather. Looks like he’s totally recovered from our deadly adventures in Wonderland (a.k.a. Avalon) last term, and it’s pretty obvi Zephyr takes really good care of him.

His rider might be on my shit list, but I missed Zephyr’s pet dragon.

“The courtyard of this domus is no place for a dragon. That beast needs a proper lair,” Max growls around his second heaping plateful of Ronin’s eggs.

My dragon shifter eats with one arm wrapped protectively around his plate, so no one can steal his food (which is, like, a leftover habit from his fucked-up childhood) and one eye fixed warily on the rival dragon.

“Where would you advise he make that lair?” Zephyr’s tone is wintry as he delicately navigates his own eggs.

At least he’s eating at the table like a normal guy.

Plus he left his swords in the kitchen.

Small steps, showgirl, I tell my own inner dragon, who’s been over-the-top excited and elated and wanting various forms of fucking (super distracting) ever since he showed up. He’s eating and not stabbing.

“As for myself, when I am dragon…” Max pauses to engulf another big forkful of his second breakfast. In this one way—where his appetite is concerned—it’s like being mated to a hobbit. After first period, to tide him over till lunch, he’ll pack a sandwich and a big apple for elevenses.

“I sleep on the roof. Especially when it is sunny.” Max gives the big green a warning scowl. “But that is my place. That dragon is not welcome there either.”

“I’d actually prefer that your dragon find another place to sun himself as well, Mr. Rasputin.” Lucius sips patiently at his coffee. “We’ve discussed this, have we not? The roof of this domus is no place for a three-ton dragon.”

Our headmaster couldn’t finish his grading last night, what with plunging into a mating rut and stuffing me and then Ronin with his first-ever knot, etc. So Lucius has been grading while he eats. Now he tucks a stack of neatly graded essays into his oxblood briefcase.

But he pauses long enough to give Max a stern look.

Honestly, right now you’d never know my headmaster spent a chunk of last night losing his mind with his thick dick buried down Max’s throat. (I mean, if you weren’t right in the middle of that shit, getting off on it yourself bigtime, the way I was.)

The sun-bronzed skin stretched over Max’s Slavic cheekbones gets a little ruddy, which fascinates me.

Is Lucius actually making that dragon blush?

While Max mumbles something contrite and hunches over his plate, Vasili lounges back in his chair at the table’s head, swings his punk-rock combat boots onto the table, and crosses his elegant legs.

That maneuver plants his vivid green soles right in Zephyr’s face.

“Never mind about that acid-breathing dragon, darlings, do,” the Goblin King drawls. A glimmer of malice surfaces in his sly gaze. “Whatever shall we do about this trespassing Fae?”

Looking down his royal nose at V’s intrusive boots, the Fae in question says tightly, “By the moon, I am no trespasser. Zara herself invited me here, many weeks ago. Else I could never have crossed the wolf’s powerful wards that guard this house without triggering them.”

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