Page 79 of Gemini Queen
This is kids’ stuff. I’m fucking twenty. Of course Vasili’s back there too, and I wouldn’t put it past him to be directing the whole assault. He’s definitely not doing squat to stop it.
Long story short? I’m steadily adding to the tally of scores I intend to settle at this Academy.
Zerxes is going on my hit list too. This guy could definitely do a better job keeping order in his classroom. The entire student body seems to be terrified of him, and clearly for good reason.
Like he can hear my thoughts… which, you know, he can… my substitute prof pivots toward me in a cloud of ink and sangoire and extends his long pointer straight at me.
“Let us turn our attention,” he drawls with sepulchral doom, “to recessives.”
My stomach squirms and I shift in my seat.
Because the lightning voice is a recessive trait.
“The strongest magical gifts in the witching world,” Zerxes breathes, “derive from recessive genetic traits, which the four arcane races have endeavored to strengthen over the centuries through meticulous genealogical records and selective breeding. Our future queen is a case. In. Point.”
With deadly softness, he pads toward me. “Twelve vast families, named in antiquity for the twelve signs of the zodiac, comprise the four races. Among those twelve families, only three have managed to minimize the genetic pollution of earthbound human DNA in their magical lineage, and therefore to concentrate those recessives in their formidable offspring. Those three elite families are of course the Aquarius, the Aries, and… the Gemini.”
Prowling past my desk, he pivots and pounces. “Tell us about the lightning voice, Ms. Gemini.”
I swallow hard, because telling this roomful of jerks who hate my guts about the lethal genetic legacy that killed my mom and eighty-seven innocent people is the last thing I feel like doing. As in, the very last. Unfortunately, I don’t think Severus here has any intention of letting me wiggle off the hook.
Fortunately, because it’s Genetics class, I can hide behind the science.
This doesn’t need to get personal.
I clear my throat and square my shoulders. “I have the lightning gene because both my parents carried it. So did my brother Damien. But it’s sex-linked to the X chromosome. And since it’s recessive, you need an XX to express the trait. Guys are an XY in the chromosome department, so it’s dormant in Gemini males.”
My mom was born Gemini, she’s like my dad’s third cousin or something. But I have zero intention of mentioning my mom in front of this apex predator. Not to mention those cackling jackals in the back row. This whole room knows the lightning voice killed my mom.
If I’m not careful, someday it’ll do the same to me.
“Correct.” Zerxes stalks back and forth before my desk, stabbing his steel-tipped pointer at the flagstones for emphasis. “The lightning voice is a recessive trait that only expresses in Gemini females. Your sons will carry the gene, but they won’t express it. Only your daughters can inherit the full force of your mighty gifts, and only if you mate a purebred arcane… orarcanes, plural… with powerful witchcraft bred into their DNA.
“The wielding of this potent witchcraft carries both symbolic and magical import; every time a queen casts a spell, she strengthens the entire witching world. Therefore, this exercise of your witchcraft—andyour attendant mating—are in fact sacred duties and the most essential functions to be undertaken by you, as our queen, for the preservation of our power. And the survival. Of the entire. Witching. World.”
Which pretty much puts my substitute prof firmly in the monarchist camp. That makes sense, I guess, since both the dead queen and my shitty brother were in Zerxes’ cohort at Villa Tiberius.
The prof looms over my desk to pin me with his intensely blue eyes. “As our future queen, these sacred obligations are among the many reasons why your choice of mate is so momentous.”
Yeah, we’re not talking about my choice of mate. But I’m pretty much on my own here in terms of fending him off. Neo’s off somewhere taking Honors Science of Witchcraft with the Dean. Vasili’s been lurking in the back all period, but of course he’s no help. He’s probably enjoying the fuck out of this entire ordeal. I’ve already noticed he and Zerxes—the two alphas in the room—seem to give each other plenty of space.
That’s kinda the way it works here, and in the witching world generally. We’ve all so crossbred there’s plenty of alpha shifter splashed around the gene pool. I’ve even got a dollop myself.
When alpha shifters meet, either they fight or they fuck. If that’s not what they want, they tend to give each other a pretty wide berth.
I’m guessing Ronin’s got a little alpha too, though not enough to shift. But I’ve seen him submit to Lucius and Vasili, so he seems like more of a switch than a pure alpha. He’s actually supposed to be sitting in this class with me, but he hasn’t shown since Neo and I blew his mind and his load in the gazebo…
Master Zerxes hums in the back of his throat. With a spurt of horror, I realize I’m projecting. With his Valyrian gifts, my prof’s hearing every word.
Heat rushes into my face.
Hastily I concentrate on building the wall between us like Ronin taught me. The prof gives a sharp inhale and leans over my desk, and I know he’s sensing my resistance to his psychic intrusion.
And that he doesn’t much like it.
“Your perception is remarkably astute,” he murmurs, so soft they must barely be able to hear him in the back. Yet the whole room’s riveted, you could hear a flea sneeze in here, with my classmates straining to catch every word that passes between us.
My queen. You’re everything they’ve ever called you and more.
