Page 15 of Gemini Queen
Now, peeled out of that trashy dress, buttoned into one of my starched Oxford shirts and the turquoise lace panties Ronin produced from his pocket, with her colorful curls brushed out and her music video makeup sponged away, there’s simply no denying her beauty.
With her mile-long lashes lowered and her plush lips parted in sleep, she looks to be barely sixteen, though I know her to be on the far side of twenty. In truth, she’s barely six months shy of her twenty-first birthday—which is profoundly fortunate for all of us.
Once a scion reaches their majority at age twenty-one, they can no longer be legally compelled to attend the Icarus Academy. That’s one of the witching world’s many irrevocable laws. That law means I have precisely six months to train her rogue magic and tame her rebellious spirit and persuade her stubborn heart to follow the narrow path fated for her from birth.
The very path she’s rejected with determination and ingenuity for five notorious years.
As though she can sense my thoughts, which is entirely possible given her arcane pedigree, the girl murmurs and throws a restless arm overhead in her sleep. I spot an unattended graze on her palm, that small hand innocent and defenseless as a child’s despite the glitter polish I’ll ensure she removes before class commences.
Fortified with pungent antiseptic and healing plaster, I take my time with her, respecting the fragility of that soft skin and petite frame under her Malibu tan, cleaning and bandaging this last tiny injury with meticulous care. She’s precious to us, uniquely and unbelievably precious, her survival essential to our own.
To my heightened senses, the vintage scent of roses and vanilla rises from her skin and hair to perfume the air like incense. My wolf stirs under my human skin with a growl. He’s frisking to scent her all over until she’s redolent with the musk of fur and predator.
Until she smells like me.
I’m the only member of the Protean race currently resident among the Icarus faculty—this means I’m the only shifter, with our race the closest to extinct—though I’m not the only faculty who scents. It’s genetic instinct from our primitive past, this drive to mark and claim my students for their own protection. But there are strictly prescribed limits to the degree of teacher-student contact I’ll permit. Maintaining a decorous distance between myself and my students, given the power disparity between us, is a self-imposed rule to which I rigorously adhere. Thus, I’m constantly at war with my wolf, who’d like to scent my entire student cohort until they reek.
Admittedly, in Zarina Gemini’s case, that predatory impulse of mine is rather more… complicated.
Not for the first time, I’m cognizant of the fact that I’m more than the faculty’s only resident shifter. I’m also the only purebred male of any race currently resident at Icarus. The others are all hybrids to varying degrees, their DNA part human—part earthbound—reducing the recurrence of the arcane recessives that make any witch or warlock so lethal.
If I’d been a student instead of a teacher, Zarina Selene Gemini with her purebred pedigree would have been my fated mate.
Instead, it’s my duty to deliver this fiery rebel to Neo Mercury, perennial First Boy on the Dean’s List, the mannerly scion of the Capricorn clan, the teacher’s pet of my own cohort, and genetically the closest analog to a purebred male in the entire student body. In truth, Neo’s genetic pedigree is barely superior to Vasili Romanov’s, the other almost-purebred among the Academy’s male scions.
But no voting witch or warlock on the ruling Senate is willing to trust a volatile treasure like Zarina Gemini to an ungovernable reprobate like Vasili. Neo won that vote without half trying.
Despite my policy of principled neutrality toward all the students in my cohort, I can’t deny a certain sense of satisfaction at the outcome. Neo’s the ideal scion, the model student, the right choice. He’ll willingly be governed by me in this, as he is in all matters.
My relationship with Vasili?
Well, that dynamic too is rather complicated.
Frowning at the thought of the Scorpio heir, I lower a blanket carefully over Zarina’s properly cleaned and bandaged body, dim the cabin light for her comfort, and pour myself a snifter of Hungarianpalinka.
I’m fully aware I’m going to need it before I discipline Ronin Pendragon.
At present, the hard-to-handle Leo is showering in the plane’s luxurious head. With the plane in the pilot’s capable hands, I’m free to settle in behind the library’s substantial leather-bound desk, with Zarina’s sleeping body comfortably under my surveillance and my snifter ofpalinkaensconced at my elbow. I unbutton my tweed coat, unsnap my briefcase, switch on the desk lamp, and begin briskly grading my cohort’s History of Witchcraft essays.
As always, Neo’s assignment was submitted early, so it’s right on top. Flawlessly constructed, thoroughly researched, impeccably argued, his copperplate script earnestly advances the dominant hypothesis that the witching world’s four arcane races are genetic mutations ofHomo sapiens. And it’s certainly true that the four arcane races—the Mogadon, the Valyrians, the Kryll, and the Proteans—have been successfully passing undetected among the earthbound humans for millennia. Neo’s essay honors every convention, cites every source, and ticks every box in my rubric.
I award the Academy’s star pupil the full marks he deserves and jot down with my fountain pen a few more obscure sources he can research for extra credit. This is the sort of learning opportunity Neo invariably seizes. The Capricorn heir is intellectually ravenous, and he’s nothing if not a meticulous scholar. In fact, he’d be an entirely satisfactory ward in every respect if not for one unfortunate tendency.
His scorched-earth campaign of aggression with Vasili Romanov.
Despite all my efforts to mediate between the two, their armeddétentethreatens daily to ignite into open warfare. Which makes daily life for my cohort more than a bit tempestuous.
Refocusing on my work, I whisk through the rest of my grading with dispatch. Ronin’s been excused this assignment while we planned the Singapore job, which counts as field work in his curriculum.
Vasili’s paper arrived three days late, but at least this time he’s turned one in. The troublesome Scorpio heir, as is typical, takes the countervailing argument on the origin of the arcane races. Citing unorthodox sources unearthed from Old Cyrillic libraries in Moscow and Kiev, Vasili’s impassioned prose slashes fiercely across the parchment in defense of the alien hypothesis. To wit, he ascribes the genetic traits of the four arcane races to alien DNA, crossbred with earthbound human DNA during terrestrial visits by these hypothetical aliens in the time of the Roman Empire.
Vasili’s clearly turned in a first draft, but the Scorpio scion is blisteringly intelligent and a fearless writer. His provocative phrasing leaves Neo’s wooden prose eating his dust—a comparison which holds true in the classroom and beyond. It’s one of the primary irritants in their volatile dynamic.
Of course, Vasili’s assignment coasted under my office door at Icarus quite late. I deduct points for tardiness, but award him a solid pass.
“You must be grading Vasili,” Ronin murmurs, propping an irreverent hip against my desk. The warm dark spice of ambergris twines through my senses. While my mind’s been lost in thoughts of Vasili and ancient Rome, the Leo heir has finally emerged from his epic shower.
My gaze wanders from his leather-clad hips up his naked torso, all that golden skin etched with ink and glittering with moisture, damp hair spilling over one sinewy shoulder to caress the flaming dragon tattoo coiled across his chest. Our gazes clash, and one corner of his wicked mouth curls as though he knows precisely how vexing I find his inappropriate attire.
