Page 133 of Gemini Queen
“Mmm-hmm.” A smug smile curves my lips, and his topaz eyes fire with pleasure.
You rocking a mating bite under that sexy dress then, love?
Could be,I volley back, letting Neo listen in.
“Wow, seriously?” Neo whispers, his arm tightening around my waist.
Thankfully, he sounds awed rather than jealous. Once he realizes I’m going into heat, I’m guessing he’ll be downright grateful to Lucius for biting me.
And I’m really starting to wonder if my baby shifter genes might give me enough bang to the bite to deliver a little mating nip for Neo.
“Well, look at you, Mr. Mercury.” Still gripping me with a proprietary hand at my hip, Ronin turns to Neo. “You look tasty enough in that tux to lick like an ice cream cone.”
Their mouths meet in a sweet kiss, and I sneak a peek at Vasili to see how he’s taking all this. I’m even wondering if he just picked up my mental byplay with Ronin, since those two are linked. I’m wondering if knowing I plan to stick around and queen it’s going to unleash Vasili’s closet monster.
My warlock’s hands are thrust deep in his frock coat pockets and he’s definitely watching.
But he’s got his walls up again.
Shit.
I can’t read a thing in his shuttered face.
When he sees me looking, he deploys his infuriating eyebrow. “At least we’ll be late enough to make a fashionable entrance. If we time it properly, we’ll manage to disrupt the Dean’s holiday toast, which is always interminable.”
But he says it, for him, without malice.
“Looks like we’re off to see the wizard. Or at least the witch.” I loop one arm through Ronin’s and one through Neo’s and stick out my tongue at Vasili (which I know is childish, but he brings it out of me). “All freaking five of us.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Vasili
It seems entirely likely that I’m bespelled.
There’s simply no other explanation for why I’m undertaking my notoriously grand entrance, at the premier social event of the academic year, in the company of the Gemini queen, her deplorable mate whom I’ve always volubly despised, and the secret lover I’ve spent years pretending to hate.
Not to mention I’m doing all this under the heated stare of my rival alpha, the perennially remote and untouchable headmaster I’ve inexplicably coerced into accepting my mating bite.
Then there’s the fact that I’ve never before bitten anyone in my life, never even conceived of it, since I’m typically far more interested in hiding my loathsome fangs than drawing attention to them by burying them in someone’s flesh. For one thing, I’m Mogadon, not shifter. For another, Lucius and I have been circling each other and snarling since the day I pitched up at Icarus, newly exiled by the darling family I haven’t seen since, and totally devastated by their repudiation.
Now, thanks to my ungovernable actions and my unpremeditated bite, inflicted upon my rival on pure impulse while I was drunk and horny, I harbor the sneaking suspicion there might have been just enough shifter DNA in my saliva to send Lucius Aries into heat.
A heat with my name written all over it.
A development which would be—at the very least—a damnable complication.
Of course, I adore complications. Scorpios actually excel at them. Still waters run deep, darling,et cetera.
Bully for me then, because these days, thanks to the utterly mystifying set of choices I’ve made since the night Zara Gemini appeared and upended this entire Academy, my personal life has never been more complicated.
Thus, it’s safe to conclude I’m bespelled.
Nonetheless, the show must go on. I’m Vasili Romanov, I’m the Scorpio scion, my enemies are watching, and I’ve an image to uphold. So I swank into the cavernous expanse of the student commons—bedecked with colored lights and tinsel by the overly enthusiastic student cheer club, good God, like someone’s planted a bomb in a Christmas tree and lit the fuse—as though I fucking own the place.
With the Gemini queen of the witching world prominently displayed on my anti-monarchist arm.
Aside from offering her the privilege of appearing on that arm, I’m doing my considerable best to ignore our rebel queen.
