Page 135 of Gemini Queen
She slides a wary glance my way, because she’s a survivor and I’m a snake and she understandably believes she can never dare trust me. She’s wondering if I’m about to slip one of my hidden knives between her ribs.
“I think that’s close enough, Goblin King,” she warns me, breath hitching.
“Oh, I beg to differ,” I murmur.
Because I intend to getmuchcloser.
Her pulse flutters in her throat and her fascinating breasts rise and fall under that snug little dress, but under my touch she’s so combat-ready she’s lethal. It occurs to me I’m precisely one martial arts maneuver away from being flipped ignominiously onto my aerobicized ass.
“Now behave, darling,do,” I drawl. “You’re supposed to be my date, and Zerxes is watching.”
Her face shutters tight and her eyes flash purple. But she’s far too clever to look toward the platform under the dome where Lucius and Zerxes stand flanking the snowy-haired Dean, who’s tottering on her cane and saying something about healing energy for poor Agrippina, still down but apparently holding her own.
Well, good for Aggie. She’s a scrappy old dame.
I’ve never been one for skulking in the rear, so I lead our little quartet through the massed and staring commoners to the forefront of the lot. This gives us VIP access for the show. Under the decorative arch the cheer club’s erected to give the nod to Janus, the Roman god of doorways, Lucius looks yummy enough to devour whole up there in his vintage black tux, long and lean under slim-cut coat and buttoned vest, with a snowy white cravat knotted under his chin. He’s stern and unsmiling, firmly grounded in his public persona, all that chestnut hair pulled back from his grim face and throttled in his usual ponytail.
But the way he’s staring at Zara and me and Ronin, even innocent Neo—literally burning holes in our clothes with his hunting wolf eyes—tells me our headmaster’s mating heat is raging nicely. This church is cold and drafty as a Russian train station, but Lucius is sweating in his tux, fists clenching and unclenching under his ruffled cuffs. And I can see from here that under his trousers, he’s hard as tungsten.
I did that to him. With my bite.
Apparently, even latent shifter genes are potent. Because the very notion that I’ve mated him, that I’ve bonded my alpha, that I’ve persuadedhimto submit tomybite, makes my entire body vibrate with a ferocious surge of possession and rapacious sexual purpose that’s really rather astonishing in its intensity.
What Lucius needs most tonight is to be ridden long and hard and put away wet.
I certainly intend to oblige.
I’m no natural telepath, but we share a mating bond now, he and I, and color darkens Lucius’ scything cheekbones. He locks onto my stare with his whiskey eyes and his wolf growls in my head.
You’d best behave yourself tonight, Mr. Romanov, and wait until I’m damned well ready for you and your antics,he says sternly.I’m working tonight and I won’t be distracted.
Whatever you say, pet,I purr in response.I do so enjoy a good hunt. But make no mistake. You will be mine tonight. Mine and hers. And we all damned well know it.
To that, he doesn’t say a word. His silent acquiescence to my little moment of domination makes all the blood rush straight to my cock.
Zara’s buzzing with tension under my arm, and I realize she’s riveted on the other man looming over our diminutive Dean.
Bucephalus Zerxes.
The headmaster of Villa Tiberius cleans up well enough. He always has. Tonight he’s looking positively dapper, that powerful build encased in a black tux sharp enough to slice and a cobalt bow tie the exact shade of his eyes. The holiday lights burn in the pale sweep of his silver braid, but the light’s unkind to the lines that bracket his ruthless mouth. His heated stare sears through Zara precisely the way he used to stare at Cybelle.
I happen to know Zerxes is one of the few Mogadon at this Academy, aside from myself, who can levitate. Which would normally make him a suspect in the slain wolf incident. However, there’s the little matter that Zerxes doesn’t actually want Zara dead. He’s a royalist to the point of being a zealot.
Which means that, rather than wanting her dead, Zerxes wants Zara very much alive and breathing in his bed.
Which also happens to be where he very much wantedme, once upon a time, together with him and Cybelle and Damien. He wanted all three of us underneath him in Cybelle’s revolting harem.
You can believe I was an extremely hard no to that proposition.
The doddering Dean finishes up (finally) with some holiday banalities and her annual toast, innocuously delivered with the innocent fizz of ginger ale. There’s a smattering of polite applause from thehoi polloi, someone dims the lights and hits the music, and the Academy’s premier social event finally achieves liftoff.
This first dance is traditionally a slow one. I turn toward Zara with anticipation sizzling through every synapse. After all, she is my date, and this is what datesdo—
“Neo, baby.” She twists deftly out of my arms and nestles up against Mercury. “Wanna dance?”
Of course, he wants to dance. He’d want to stand on his ridiculous purple head if that’s what his precious mate wanted. He leads her happily into the open space under the mirrored ball and wraps his adoring arms around her.
Precisely as I’d meant to be doing myself.
