Page 25 of Gemini Kings
“Hey.” Now I get right up in his face, rising on tiptoe so I can glare at him properly. “Vasili’s the biggest badass in the whole Mogadon race. He’s the strongest warlock at Icarus. He’s the Scorpio scion and he doesn’t give a shit about his family and he’s worth twenty of you, lizard brain. He’severything.”
Color darkens the jut of this dragon’s Russian cheekbones and his pupils slit with rage. His upper lip curls back to bare his teeth in a snarl. He doesn’t seem to have permanent fangs like Vasili.
Of course, in dragon form, this guy’s fangs arewaybigger. In dragon form, he looks like he tears out throats with those saber-tooth tiger fangs of his.
“You fancy yourself to be in love with him, yes?” he growls.
“It’s not some freaking fancy.” I plant my hands on my hips, but he’s still not listening.
“He is unworthy of you,” he says, soft and savage. “Vasili Nikolaievich Romanov is my inferior. As are they all, to the last man. If these mates of yours will not accept this, if they will not know their place, then I will kill them. Just as I killed those men in the chopper who gave me offense.”
I swear to fuck, if he doesn’t stop threatening to kill my warlocks, I’m gonna do real damage.
Which reminds me of something else I’ve been meaning to raise.
“Yeah, about that.” I poke a hard finger into his unyielding chest. “Those men back there. The ones you flambéed with your Godzilla breath? They were just dudes doing a gig. Some of them probably had kids and stuff.”
“Meaning?” Looking curious, he cocks his head.
Sweet Jesus, the balls on this guy. It’s all I can manage not to roll my eyes.
“Meaningyou can’t just go around killing people, Maxim.”
His golden eyes go lidded. “I reserve for myself the right to go around killing these people who are trying to kill my mate, Zarina.”
Clearly, we’re not getting anywhere.
“It’s Zara,” I grit through my teeth. “And I’m running outta ways to say this. But let me try once more. I. Amnot. Your mate. I’mtheirmate.”
I figure the point bears repeating. Because he just doesn’t seem to be getting it.
“Then I will kill them,” he growls, low and guttural. That seems to be the pointhethinks bears repeating. “All your so-called mates. Indeed, that way is most efficient. Losing your mates will bring on your superheat.”
“Mysuperheat?” I don’t even know what the Sam Hell this guy’s talking about. What is this, some dragon thing? Like the African savanna? Are we a pride of lions, with the new guy killing the competition so the female goes into heat? “Okay, listen up. You lay a single scaly claw on any of my mates, you big iguana, and I’m gonna electrocute your ass like you wouldn’t believe. Am I your broodmare or your fucking queen?”
He looms over me like a force of nature and smolders, intense as fuck, while he stares into my eyes. “You are my universe and I am yours. There is no one on all this earth for me but you. We are the last of our kind. And I will prove this to you, my Zara. I will prove this here and now, my body with yours, to your utter satisfaction.”
He reaches for me. Adrenaline shoots through every synapse in my already hyped-up body and a flood of my Mogadon pheromones spikes the air. And, just in case you’re wondering, that’snotmy mating scent.
At least, not totally.
It’s more like aggression.
He isn’t asking. He’s taking. And I’m not in the mood to tolerate that shit.
My fists sweep up by instinct, body twisting into a vicious sidekick that never lands.
Because a force of nature that’s way more terrifying than this big lizard in a rage has just arrived.
That would be the force of nature called Vasili Romanov.
Not to mention the full force of Vasili’s telekinesis, fueled by a thousand years of Mogadon genetics, going full Avenger on Maxim’s ass.
With a flick of his hand, Vasili’s witchcraft hurls Maxim Rasputin fifty feet backward through the air like a scrap of paper and crushes him flat against the gas station wall.
Where the shifter writhes, pinned against the wall a good five feet in the air. Somehow still breathing after an impact that could easily have killed him.
“Little Maximka,” Vasili purrs, absolutely silken with menace. “Privyet, malchik.How long has it been, darling? Four years since our cozy seaside summer? And yet somehow not a thing in the world has changed. You still covet what’smine.”
