Page 163 of Gemini Kings
She screams in hatred and I roar in response.
Because yeah, she’s a girl dragon. There’s no barbed tool jutting between those muscled hind legs.
By this point, I’m putting two and two together. I know Max has a sister dragon (that bitch Vasili was supposed to mate), but I’ve learned from my research that, among dragonkind, size means age.
Which means this big red monster isn’t a young dragon. Nope. She’s an old one.
She’s Max’s mother.
Anastasia.
The matriarch of the Sagittarius clan. The one who beats her own children till they’re scarred to the bone and traumatized for life. The one who kills her own mates after she fucks them.
The one who kills for pleasure.
The one the AIB pays to kill for them.
And guess who’s been walking around on a kill list, off and on, since I split from the Gemini clan’s loving bosom years ago and never looked back?
Guess I’m back on somebody’s list.
Bet she slipped in with the news crew (you know, in human form) when the Dean lowered the wards.
Sweet Jesus. My rump’s already burning from that fireball I barely dodged that just blistered my booty. I’m not gonna have the same stamina or the same fighting skills in the air as this big behemoth.
But what I do have is the lightning.
And the speed to lead this bitch away from my warlocks and anyone else who could get hurt.
I pretty much pivot on my tail in midair and dive for the slope. Big Red hisses like a pot boiling over on a hot stove and plunges after me. A quick look back shows me her tail’s smoking and blackened. Which means, if I’m reading this psycho right, she’s not only gonna kill me if she catches me.
She’s gonna make it hurt.
The belching cough of a flaming dragon hits my ears. The sulfurous reek of brimstone stings my muzzle.
I reach deep inside my already tiring body and twist aside.
As I evade, a familiar black shape hurtles past from below. Max roars like blazes and lets loose with his own fiery jet.
Big Red tilts to avoid his fire and screams like a nightmare. Son or no son, her head whips around and spews fire right at my mate.
Max twists aside, but they’re both so close these flaming fusillades aren’t totally missing their marks. The horrible charcoal scent of scorched dragon invades my lungs as I wing in a tight circle to come back around.
Straight ahead of me, Max and Big Red collide in midair in a thrashing, biting, clawing snarl. My guy’s not quite that bitch’s size, but as a guy dragon, he’s way bigger than me. And he’s wrathful as fuck. My dragon heart’s wedged in my gullet, because these two are just one writhing knot of hatred.
I’ve got a straight line of fire, but I can’t use the lightning when they’re all locked together like that.
I bugle with rage and soar past, raking an exposed red flank with my talons and snapping at that burned red tail as I whiz by. Big Red howls and savages Max’s exposed belly with her razor-sharp claws. He screams and buries his teeth in her throat.
Heart pounding in my ears like a war drum, I wing around for another pass. But I’m still out of range when that hideous red head with its demon horns swings around to gore poor Max’s snarling face. She barely misses his eyes. Her saber-toothed jaws split wide and that awful rumbling cough rises from her chest.
She’s gonna flame.
And she doesn’t even care if she flames her own fucking body if she can incineratehim—this poor, lonely, isolated, unloved son she’s abused and apparently hated, the same way she’s hated and ultimately killed every male dragon she’s ever encountered.
I roar lightning over her head to get her goddamn attention, because I’m the real business she’s apparently being paid to conduct.
But I can’t hurl lightning at her without hitting Max, and she doesn’t even blink at my intimidation display. Her wicked eyes flame red with hatred and madness.
