Page 156 of Gemini Queen
He pauses to tilt his head and study me. “Do you know, that’s the same dismissal Cybelle once uttered, when I extended to her the same proposition? She wanted your worthless brother Damien as her alpha, but he would never have controlled her harem. In fact, I myself had to exert… considerable effort… to persuade her to accept me as her alpha.”
Yeah, I just bet he did. Cybelle sounds like a total bitch, but I feel a flicker of sympathy for my predecessor now.
I tap my slippered foot on the floor and eye him. “How’d you do it then? Out of curiosity.”
“Why, I merely threatened the thing she loved most, aside from herself.” His purring voice hardens to ice. “I threatened her precious mother. What I know about the misdeeds of Messalina Aquarius, my former lover when we were both students at this Academy, would bring the house of Aquarius to its knees if those secrets were ever divulged. To protect her mother—and by extension, of course, herself—Cybelle welcomed me into her harem with open arms.”
A fist of distaste punches me in the gut. He forced his way into his student’s harem and her bed by blackmail and coercion. And guess what he thinks he’s about to do to me?
“How’d that work out for you, Ceph?”
His fingers lift in a dismissive gesture. “Her harem was an entirely different sort than the one you’re building. Cybelle demanded her mates’ complete devotion at all times, even mine, even if she did originally accept me into her bed under duress. Her mates were forbidden from pleasing each other, even those who’d been together before, which led to considerable… friction… within the harem. I kept them all in line and ensured that it was I, and not they, who filled her womb when she was fertile.”
“Whoa.” Now this I haven’t heard. “You saying Cybelle was pregnant?”
“She was,” he says softly. “She hadn’t been planning to give birth so young, but I saw no reason to wait. I cast a fertility spell that rendered her prophylaxis ineffective. Then I ensured the child she conceived would be mine.”
I feel sick to my stomach, and my sympathy for the dead queen gets stronger. I hug my middle against that sick feeling and mutter, “She might have wanted some say in that, don’t you think?”
“I truly believed that, once she conceived, she would welcome our child. How could she not?” He sighs. “But in this, admittedly, I miscalculated. She and your wretched brother schemed to abort our child to free themselves from me. I issued various warnings, arranged several little scares, hoping they’d turn to me to protect them from the threat. Instead, I overheard them plotting their escape from this Academy.”
That sick feeling is creeping up my throat. Under my robe, my skin is icy. Because I’m starting to see way too clearly where all this is going.
I can’t bring myself to ask what happened next, but no worries, this guy’s on a roll.
“I confronted them, we quarreled, they fled, I acted,” he finishes, like he’s wrapping up a book report. “Your worthless brother I would have killed gladly, but her I never meant to harm. How could I, when harming her meant harming our child?”
“But you did harm her,” I say carefully, my blood like ice in my veins. “Didn’t you?”
“Her death was a lamentable accident.” His cold eyes narrow. “His was not.”
“Then you’re the queen killer.” It feels important for me to say it out loud.
An ardent royalist, which means no one’s ever suspected him, hiding in plain sight.
I don’t even care that he killed Damien, because anyone who killed my ogre of a brother did the whole world a favor. But I care desperately that Bucephalus Zerxes coerced a student under his care into a sexual relationship she didn’t want, made her pregnant against her will, then terrorized and murdered her when she tried to escape.
And guess what he’s planning to do to me?
My palms are tingling and my power is rising. I suck in a breath to summon the lightning.
“Oh, I don’t think so, Ms. Gemini.” He sweeps up one hand, fingers curled in a fist, and suddenly I can’t move or speak. It’s like I’ve been encased in concrete.
I’ve felt this awful immobility before. He’s like Vasili, then, he’s telekinetic. Another warlock with multiple Mogadon gifts.
Just my luck.
My heart hammers against my lungs, but he is at least still letting me breathe. He doesn’t want me dead. He wants from me what he wanted from Cybelle.
This time, he’s sure as shit not going to get it.
I give the hardest mental tug I’ve ever given in my life to my bond with the guys. Imagine a tug-of-war contest between two rival teams, feet slipping in the mud, muscles straining, rows of hands locked around a rope thick as a power cable.That’show hard I’m pulling on the guys.
I can’t feel anything at the other end, but I can still think. Which means there’s plenty, actually, that I can still do.
For starters, I can play for time.
We’re both telepaths, so I can still talk too.
