Page 8 of Gemini Wicked

“Looking good tonight, bambina. Even if you’re out of uni. Didn’t you get the memo about the purple?” With a cocky grin, the bastard reaches for her.

I really can’t imagine what she’ll do.

Zara may be the only guest on this party boat (including the pop diva) who’s not wearing the royal purple. But Zara isn’t the same girl these two betrayed in Singapore. Since then, she’s claimed her power.

She’s become the Gemini queen.

In fact, my darling girl is already levitating in her Jimmy Choo shoes, floating a few inches off the deck, teal hair swirling around her shoulders, violet sparks dancing along her fingers. And the fact that Ferrari bitch and her boyfriend—who is clearly no warlock—aren’t batting an eye?

Color me suspicious.

“Don’t even think about touching me,” Zara growls at both her exes. If those two had any sense, hearing the spooky metallic resonance of her lightning voice, they’d be pissing themselves. “What are you even doing on this yacht?”

“Invited.” That bastard ex-beau of hers gives a cocky shrug, but he’s smart enough (barely) to keep his distance. “Guess the gloves are off now, aren’t they? I tried to tell you about Cleo that night in Vegas, but did you listen? Nope, instead you were obsessed with—”

“Enough, bello.” The Ferrari bitch doesn’t even twitch. But her cool voice reels him in like a fish.

Lover Boy falls silent and retreats to Cleo’s side, where she clearly prefers him.

Now he’s sulking.

Truly, it isn’t a good look.

Zara lowers her floating form to alight on the deck. I slink into the shadows near the bar to regain my famously cool composure. There I lurk like the rattlesnake I am, just waiting for some unsuspecting fool to annoy me.

Then I’ll strike.

Magically speaking, I’m the biggest threat on this megayacht. I’m the most lethal warlock in our polycule, not to mention the most actively homicidal. Especially now that I’ve grasped the connection (which can’t be a coincidence) between Zara’s ex-BFF and my funnel web spider of a father.

Yet, somehow, both members of Zara’s former ménage seem to have overlooked me. Which isn’t easy to do. I’m a gorgeous six feet-plus of celebrity warlock fashionably sporting a violet tux and a gilded mane of rock-star hair.

From this vantage, I can’t see my little queen’s face. But her voice is positively stony. “She’s a grifter. You’re a hacker. I was the one who took the risks. I had your backs. Always. But you—didn’t have mine.”

Finally, Zara’s brittle voice fractures. “How many more secrets are you hiding?”

My little darling’s pain makes me more than annoyed. I’m positively murderous. My eyes narrow to slits and my chest burns with a rising tide of rage.

“Bene. The time for secrets is over. Tonight is the night I finally tell you mine.” Cleo Ferrari has all the poise of a runway model, including the ability to strike a pose. Every move this girl makes is calculated. Now she shifts a sinuous hip under her sleek designer gown and touches a manicured finger to her pouty lip. “You know. This doesn’t have to end unpleasantly for you, bella.”

Now my own lip curls in a snarl.

What I know is that Ferrari bitch was far more to Zara than her partner-in-crime or even her BFF. What I don’t know is how much of her former… affection… for this duplicitous and deadly creature Zara might still be harboring.

“I could say the same to you.” Zara hums in her special lightning voice and raises a deadly hand. Purple lightning spills from her fingers and crackles down her arm. “You said it yourself. The gloves are off… bella.”

Thunder mutters in the twilight sky. The tinny reek of ozone seeps through the air. A few random looky-loos edge away from my electrified darling, which is certainly wise.

They wouldn’t like her when she’s angry.

“Careful, my dear,” Lucius slips up behind to murmur at Zara’s ear. Of course, with my shifter senses, I too can hear him. “This is no random encounter. You’re the future queen, and this vessel is awash in journalists. Don’t give these two the reaction they’re clearly seeking.”

He’s right, of course.

The words have barely left his lips before a chopper buzzes past, cameras protruding from the open door. The breeze from their passing swirls Zara’s teal hair around her shoulders and plays with the spangly mirrored discs of the ice-blue gown around her sleek legs. In that moment, she’s every inch a lightning witch.

Lucius looms over her, utterly alpha and deliciously lurky, while his wolfish mating scent perfumes the air. Zara leans into his touch by reflex.

But she gives no indication whatsoever that she’s listening.

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