Page 88 of Gemini Queen
My wolf and I loom over her, my innocent witch of a student, like the monster in a Gothic novel. My voice comes thick with passion. “God help me, Zara. How much more of me do you want?”
“All of you,” she whispers, head tipping back, her gaze falling to my mouth.
My fangs descend on cue, always and forever hers.
“That’s it,” she breathes. “I want what you’re giving Ronin.”
From somewhere deep in the riot of madness that overwhelms all reason in my mind, a fragment of caution surfaces. “My… disciplinary bite?”
Her mittens wrap in the folds of my greatcoat and ease me close to her succulent body. “It’s a mating bite. You’ve claimed him. You and your wolf. Haven’t you?” My conflicted silence makes her face soften. “Well, I’m your queen and his. And I think you want to claim me too. Is that what you want?”
Dear God in Heaven, there’s nothing on this earth I want more.
I want her to be completely mine in every way. I want her naked and needy and writhing beneath me, crying out my name when I empty myself inside her deep in the night. I want her nestled close to sleep between Ronin and me, trusting our strength to guard her slumber. I want her ruling the arcane races and saving us all from extinction like the powerful witch I know she can be. I even want to know if she has enough shifter DNA in her heritage to shift her form if I teach her. I want her loping through the woods under the full moon with my wolf at her side, so that he too can have her.
There’s so very much I want.
But now, in this moment, what I want more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life is to bite her and mate her.
The deep shuddering toll of the bell, shocking in its volume, makes my bones vibrate.
Zara and I leap apart with a guilty start. She claps her mittens to her ears with a laughing wince. Thwarted in my criminal desire to obliterate this final flimsy barrier of propriety between us, I find I can release her and even back away a step—but no farther.
My wolf is maddened to be denied our prize.
I steel myself against the noise and thrust my hands deep in my greatcoat pockets. It’s impossible to bite her or court her or even speak to her amid all this great racket, so I have until the last gong to collect my shattered poise and reinforce my fractured resolve. I’ve arranged a double period in her academic schedule for this independent study, so no one else can claim this time with her. She’s mine.
Ours,my wolf mutters, doggedly insistent.We should claim her.
Somehow I turn away from her, this witch queen who’s bespelled us both, and prowl the belfry’s crowded confines to cool my blood.
We’ve begun to make halting progress, she and I, toward the only objectives I’ll allow myself to acknowledge—her command of her power and her ascension to the throne. My own desire to claim her must be subordinate to the greater good. Our imperiled people deserve no less.
By sheer force of will, I retract my fangs. By the time the bell falls silent, I’ve stoked my determination and mastered my lust.
With the temptation of my queen placed safely out of sight behind me, I square my shoulders and announce crisply to the rooftops, “Very well, Ms. Gemini. Let us begin our first lesson with a simple exercise. There’s plenty of ocean all around us and nothing there to be avoided. That’s where I’d like you to summon the lightning.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Zara
The taste of ozone still lingers on my tongue. Even though it’s been hours since my lightning lesson with Lucius in the belfry.
Our group dinner in thedomusleaves a lot to be desired. I’m frustrated and on edge from my unsuccessful effort to blast past five years of resistance and actually summon the damn lightning that seems to be always fizzling at my fingertips.
Today, the lightning was a no-show. My witchcraft was totally uncooperative. Probably because, even if I planned to buy into this whole insane premise that somehow it’s supposed to save the witching world, I’m still pretty damn conflicted about summoning it.
Story of my life.
And doesn’t that just fucking figure?
Ronin’s sexed up from his bite again and eyeing Lucius across the dinner table with a smoldering purpose in those tiger eyes of his that makes me hot every time I look at him. Someone’s going to be fucking him tonight, and I’ll love if it’s Lucius.
Especially if I can figure out some way to wiggle past my headmaster’s professorial ethics and get in on that male-male action.
Vasili’s still pissy and possessive and pretty much impossible to deal with. When he isn’t leveling long smoking looks at Ronin that nearly make the guy’s clothes ignite, he’s at his most abrasive. Bristling with open aggression toward Lucius, Neo, and me like he hates all our guts.
Which means Vasili is jealous.
