Page 140 of Gemini Queen
His hands walk down my hips and settle right on my ass. “I’ve waited decades for a strong queen. A powerful queen. A queen who can summon lightning. A queen whose witchcraft is potent enough to save the witching world.”
“With you to guide me?” I pry his hands off my ass, resettle them firmly at my waist where they belong (if he has to be touching me at all), and glance around warily. Where the heck is everyone? The fog’s getting really thick, pea-soup thick, it’s like the mists of Avalon or something, and I wonder if maybe Zerxes is wielding a little common magic to make it that way.
The music is throbbing from the speakers, I can’t hear anything else, I’d have to scream to be heard myself, and I still don’t like calling for help. I fight my own battles, remember?
“With me to love you,” he whispers in my ear on an indrawn breath. “Your harem is magnificent, my queen. You’ve claimed this Academy’s strongest warlock in Vasili, our fiercest fighter in Ronin, and our sharpest intellect in Mercury. Even the shifter I’ll let you keep… if he’ll bend for me.” To my complete horror, his hot tongue traces my ear, and his breath roughens. “I’ll even make it… enjoyable for him… so long as he doesn’t fight me. How’s that for generous? You’ll find I can be an indulgent mate.”
Yeah, no, I won’t be finding anything like that anytime soon. A shudder of loathing squirms through me, which he totally fucking misinterprets. He moans and starts rubbing his body against me, which really turns my stomach.
“Okay, that’s my personal space.” I firmly reimpose the requisite inches of distance between us, but he doesn’t make it easy. I wonder if Cybelle really liked having such a pushy alpha, or if she was just too afraid of him to say no. “Listen up, buddy—”
“Ceph,” he reminds me. “With a harem as powerful as yours, you’ll need a strong alpha like me to keep your subordinate males in line. I won’t mind a bit, not with any of them.” The image slinks from his brain and crawls against my boundaries, and yeah, it’s pretty effing sexual. He hates Lucius, but he wants Vasili, and he certainly isn’t opposed to Ronin and Neo.
Great. Now he thinks he’s getting all of us in his bed.
He lowers his head to nuzzle my neck, right next to the wide swath of fabric that crosses my shoulder.
Now this whole thing is really getting out of hand.
“Ceph,”I snap, using my queen voice to stop the kissing and get his attention. “My harem is full, I don’t need any help handling them, you’re totally not my type, you’re touching me in a way I don’t want to be touched,andyou’re standing between me and something I really wanna get back to. So, even though I shouldn’t actually have to say this to my substitute teacher at a fucking school function, it’s thanks but no thanks on the whole mating thing. Got it?”
But, no, of course he doesn’t get it. He just keeps right on offending.
“Oh, I fully expect you to demand that I earn my place in your bed. That’s your right as sovereign—” Lips pressed to my shoulder, he chokes off and goes rigid.
A frisson runs through him and my skin prickles in warning. Even before his gilded head jerks up to skewer me with a murderous glare.
“He gave you his fuckingmating bite?” he barks, every word cracking like a whiplash.
What the actual fuck? Guess the psycho just smelled it on me. And now the guy’s gone postal.
That’s my cue to firmly detach his roaming hands from my unwilling body and exit stage left, but polite just doesn’t work with this guy. He wrestles me closer and scowls down at me, and I scowl right back. My ponytail starts floating and my palms start tingling.
I’ve had it with this asshole.
“He did. He bit you. And now you’re going into heat… forhim.” He actually hoists me off the ground so my arms are pinned at my sides and my boots are dangling two feet in the air—that’s how freaking strong this guy is—and snarls the words through bared teeth like he’s rabid. “I’myour alpha. I’m the father of the next queen. Not him! I swear on my soul I’m going to skin Lucius Aries alive and nail his pelt to my bedroom wall—”
“One sympathizes with the sentiment… ordid, until rather recently.” Vasili’s bored drawl beside me has never been more welcome. “At the moment, however, my primary pique is reserved foryou.Bucephalus Zerxes, I do believe you’re attempting to poach my date.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Zara
This moment right here? It’s the moment I forgive Vasili Romanov for every single hateful horrid thing he’s ever done to me since the day we met, even that time he tried to bully me into licking his boots.
Because the sight of the Scorpio scion gliding through the fog with his forked tongue dripping venom like the glittering serpent he is drags Bucephalus Zerxes’ attention fully away from me for one critical moment.
And a moment’s all I need.
No more Mr. Nice Girl.
While Zerxes holds me suspended in midair and glares blue murder at Vasili and snaps, “Did you know about this, Romanov? Did you know that mangy shifter—” I sweep up my booted foot and nail my bastard prof right in the balls.
Zerxes howls and drops me and I land on my feet because, hello, cat burglar. I hope I crushed his testicles to jelly, because that would settle things with Mr. Handsy pretty permanently.
But no such luck, I guess, because he’s still on his feet, even if he’s hunched over and groaning in agony. The second his head whips up and psi fire pulses in his eyes, I know I’m in major trouble.
“You spoiled littlewitch.” He lunges for me.
