Page 96 of Gemini Wicked

Under the protective patina of his skillfully applied foundation, my most troublesome student goes white.

In an arrested silence that hums with tension, the two Romanovs eye each other across the width of my office. The distance between them yawns wider than the Great Rift Valley.

“Oh, dear fuck. It’s you.” Recovering swiftly, Vasili speaks first, with a brittle contempt that shreds any scrap of sentiment.

“Privyet, Vasya,” his father says quietly. “You’re looking well.”

“Don’t you mean I’m looking gay?” My alpha gestures in an exaggerated way that encompasses his black-painted fingernails, his gilded shag of punk-rock hair, his trendy Duran Duran spin on the Academy uniform, and his tastefully applied cosmetics.

A muscle flexes in Nikolai Romanov’s jaw. “Apparently not. Judging by the photographic evidence of you and that Gemini girl displayed on every newsstand in the witching world—”

“Well, darling, don’t get your hopes up.” Rudely Vasili cuts him off. “I assure you, I didn’t suddenly wake up straight. I still adore a thick dick and a tight hole.”

Now it’s Nikolai’s turn to whiten. (I sympathize.)

My breath hitches and my own hole clenches. My alpha shoots me a mischievous look.

“Vasili, er, Mr. Romanov,” I say in a strangled voice. They both look alertly at me. “A bit more respect, if you please.”

After all, it’s my hole he’s talking about. In front of his own father!

The spymaster rebounds swiftly. “I’m well aware of your eccentricities, Vasya…”

“Oh, never mind all that.” Vasili strikes a pose in the doorway like a runway model and pouts. “Finding you lurking here in the crypt, papachka, is like living in a Shakespeare play. Only I can’t quite decide whether you’re trying to reprise the role of Macbeth’s bloodthirsty wife or the ghost of Hamlet’s father.” Vasili smirks at me, but his smile is strained. “How tedious.”

“Why are you here?” I ask Vasili pointedly. “You’re supposed to be teaching Mogadon Magics this period. Is something the matter?” My gaze flickers toward Nikolai. “Ah, aside from the obvious?”

“Well, pet, since you ask.” Every trace of my student’s petty spite vanishes in a blink. Vasili’s pretty face hardens to a mask of menace. “I tried reaching you telepathically, Lucius, but I couldn’t—not through these horrid wards you insist upon in here.” He pauses. “Take a numbing potion for that head first, do. You’ll need it.”

Of course he’s familiar with my migraines, and he’s sensing my pain through our mating bond.

In his own fierce way, he’s protective of me.

Conceding to my alpha, I dip a hand under my desktop for the potion. But my beast is already crouching and baring his teeth in alarm. My palate tingles under the press of my fangs.

“After the potion, what then?” I growl, gruff with wolf.

Nikolai listens closely to our exchange, no doubt cataloging every nuance of our complex dynamic in his coldly analytical brain. But he too is poised on the razor’s edge of violence.

“Then they need you—and your wolf—in the commons, darling,” Vasili says briefly. “Zara and Cleo are fighting.”

Chapter Nineteen

Zara

“Truly, Zara, you should have stayed away.”

My ex-BFF is totally the villain in this situation.

Obviously.

Yet, somehow, as she stands there posing in the big arched doorway of the student commons—looking like she just stepped out of a Burberry ad in her plaid skirt and knee socks, with her Academy blazer hooked casually over one shoulder—and commanding every eye without effort like the celebrity she is, Cleo manages to make her sigh sound all put-upon and tragic.

“Well, that’s a bummer. Sorry to disappoint?” Despite the nerves fizzing like seltzer in my gut and the heartbreak burning like ground glass in my chest, I plant a hand on my hip and whip up some Gemini sass. “Maybe the fate of the witching world is, like, more important than a little personal inconvenience. Just a thought.”

Never mind that I’m standing awkwardly in the middle of the nave, exposed and conspicuous, right under the big oculus window with my heavy backpack slung over one shoulder.

Plus I’m all alone, natch.

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