Page 166 of Gemini Kings
Or any of my mates.
Not when she’s doing her damnedest to kill them.
Inside the tunnel it really is pitch black, and I only have night-vision and infrared in dragon form. I pick out a little weak starlight that trickles through the grated ventilation shafts set at intervals in the ceiling. I stick out a hand to find the rough wall and use it to guide me as I hurry down the slanting tunnel. My ass stings and smarts like hell from that dragonfire that grazed me.
But I’ll heal.
I don’t even want to think about all the damage Max absorbed from that bitch’s claws and teeth. Or, God, how much blood he must be losing—
“I can smell your fear, little cockroach,” Anastasia whispers. I can tell by the echo that she’s standing in the tunnel mouth. I’ve had to slow down in the dark, which means she’s pretty close behind me. Definitely closer than I’d like.
A cold trickle of fear slides down my spine.
The monster’s heavy breathing fills the air as she oozes in after me.
I force out a laugh, even though I can barely quiet my gasping breath, and nothing about any of this is funny. I laugh with derision to enrage her and draw her in.
“I can smell your filthy cunt!” she hisses with her thick accent. A claim that’s really gross and hopefully not true. “That cunt you used to lure away my faithful son! He was supposed to bemymate.Myking. The one I killed all others to protect.”
Whoa. Jesus. We’re in crazy town.
“Those little beasts from your rival college, without me to lead them, against you they could achieve nothing,” she sneers. Which pretty much tells me who paid those Tiberius brats to hurl that Molotov cocktail. “All such things, it seems, I must do myself. Even then, to defend you, my son turns on me—his own mother! For this offense, I will more than kill you. I will make you suffer!”
She’s right behind me. I can almost feel the brush of her hot breath on the back of my sweating neck. She’s full shifter, so she can probably see better than I can in the dark.
Behind us, the door to the tunnel clangs shut. Neo’s standing behind it, and sealing us all in here together, that’s his job.
Now, babe,Neo whispers through our bond, shoving what Lucius needs me to do in my head.Do your thing.
“Smell this, you sick fucking excuse for a mother.” I obey Lucius on blind faith, do my thing, and drop flat to the stone ground.
Meaning now I’m totally within touching distance of a psycho killer with professional assassin skills, but never mind.
I’ve fought with my bare hands before.
Over near the door, locked with us inside this horror show dungeon, Neo hits the light switch. The bare fluorescent bulbs that stud the tunnel ceiling light up in a blue-white blaze that makes Anastasia—who isn’t expecting it like I am—spit out a Russian curse.
In the harsh spill of light, I catch a split-second glimpse of an apparition that’ll be branded on my brain forever.
A freakishly tall, naked amazon of a woman with Max’s golden hair and slitted eyes, her corded arms blackened with burns from Ronin’s psi fire, her saber-teeth bared in a hateful snarl, her taloned hands curled and reaching to gouge my eyes out and rip my face off.
Then, from the tunnel depths, a blur of chestnut fur springs over me with a vicious snarl that raises every hair on my body straight up.
Lucius’ wolf launches through the air over my prone body, buries his teeth deep in my enemy’s skin and flesh, drives her sprawling and screaming with rage to the ground, and rips out the bitch’s throat.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Vasili
Dear God, I look like an absolute fright.
There I am making my Hollywood debut, framed in the geriatric screen of the ancient TV in Max’s guest studio at thedomus, the vintage VCR player whirring away as it spools through the bootleg tape of Zara’s rather dramatic succession announcement.
The image is mercifully blurred (since no twenty-first century tech, including digital photography, functions properly behind the wards). Still, I can clearly see that my shift from warlock to dragon to warlock last Wednesday utterly ruined my smoky eye and obliterated my lip gloss.
As for my wind-whipped hair, darling, you should simply pretend not to notice (if you can).
I look like a fucking haystack.
