Page 44 of Gemini Queen
This lot will consider that a challenge issued.
Clearly I’ve just been handed my cue to restore order. I step forward and level my erring students with a quelling look. “Ms. Gemini, you’re excused to return to yourdomusand get yourself cleaned up. Mr. Mercury, kindly collect the hall pass from my desk and render assistance.”
“I’ll get my own hall pass. I don’t need his help.” Zara powers past me, moving with purpose, determined to show this entire Academy she doesn’t need any of us.
Poor Neo is left standing crestfallen with stricken eyes to weather his fated mate’s rejection.
Dear God. It’s all I can manage not to raise my own eyes to Heaven for patience. “The rest of you miscreants have precisely thirty seconds to return to your seats and your studies before I begin writing referrals. As I’m the instructor to whom you’ll report for any conduct infractions, I trust you’ll proceed with suitable dispatch.”
This exigent reminder achieves the desired effect and inspires a brisk scramble among my still-snickering students.
It’s well known among these brats that detention with me is one ordeal that is best avoided.
I leave Zarina to her ablutions and Neo to his disappointment and turn toward Ronin, who hasn’t returned to class with the rest. My wolf wants nothing more than to rub against Ronin’s legs and start scenting, but that’s hardly appropriate behavior for a teacher.
“Mr. Pendragon, may I see you in my office after class?”
“No, you may not,” Ronin says sulkily, and stalks past me from the courtyard.
I’m left standing alone in the conservatory, with the smell of distressed fish dissipating in the air and the ache of impossible longing swelling in my heart.
Chapter Fourteen
Vasili
I grasp myboin sweating palms and attack my target with vicious intent.
The gymnasium in ourdomusshares a wall with thecaldariumin the Roman bath. In consequence, our gym is always far too warm. Today, I’m not even wearing mygi, the tunic and trousers I usually don when I practice my forms. Instead, I decamped straight here from the church to work off my aggression after my unsettling run-in with that bratty little queen.
Even after an hour of brutal exertion, I’m still too unsettled and far too angry to strip down properly.
Another flash of the queen’s fearless face sears through my mind like a bolt of lightning, blue-green hair floating around her shoulders like seaweed in a current, turquoise eyes incandescent with anger and glowing with power.
But the Gemini bitch, for all her unruly power, isn’t nearly powerful enough to challenge me.
Still, the fact that she doesn’t have the blessed good sense to fear me and submit to me, the way everyone else does in this wretched Academy, hurls fresh fuel on the smoldering fire of my rage.
Goblin King, indeed.
At the time, I was so startled by the little witch’s insolence that I very nearly laughed.
Barefoot in my trousers with blazer and tie abandoned, shirt half-unbuttoned and cuffs rolled back, I launch into another spinning pass at the training target, my six-foot staff whistling through the air. I’ve broken my opponents’ bones with theboin training, (mostly) by accident, and I’m certainly not holding back now.
I whirl through the air, footfalls hissing across the mat, the mutedthud-thud-thudof my weapon striking leather in a punishing blitzkrieg.
A finger of cold air brushes my nape, my sole warning that some fool has dared enter the gymnasium I’ve claimed as my exclusive province while my housemates are toiling away at their tedious classes. I spin in a rush, walls blurring around me. Mybocomes screaming down, fired by the full force of my fury.
The sharp thunk of my staff striking Ronin’s makes the walls ring.
I pause in surprise, but his staff’s already sweeping around to knock my legs from under me. I vault straight up and barely avoid the takedown.
My downstroke catches his upstroke in a parry hard enough to make my bones vibrate.
“Why aren’t you in class?” I pant, backing off a step in case he’s had enough, having failed to ambush me with his sneak attack the way the imp clearly intended. “Never tell me Master Aries’ latest lecture on our inexorable march toward extinction failed to hold your interest.”
Ronin’s teeth flash in a savage grin. Instead of answering, he twists into another blistering attack, his inky tail of hair flying wide. He’s toed off his boots for stealth, but he’s still wearing tie and blazer and the rest of his rig, which hinders his impressive range and gives me a slight edge.
I’ll need it with him, because he’s listed as the Academy’s top-ranked fighter for a reason.
