Page 31 of Gemini Kings
Speechless (for once) with fury, I glare right back.
Ensconced by my side, precisely where he belongs, Ronin voices a scornful snort and says loud enough for dragonish ears to hear, “Good luck with that, mate. Before you climb into my bed for a proper shagging, dragon, you can start with an apology for that cosh on the noggin. My blooming head’s still pounding.”
Zara pivots from her own stare-down with the brute to gaze at Ronin, her bubblegum pink lips falling open with indignation. It’s a reaction I’m viciously delighted to see, because it’s a highly effective counterweight to all that sexy the dragon’s cranking out.
“Oh. My. God. You fuckinghithim? What, from behind?” To my considerable pleasure, my queen gets right in the dragon’s grille and jabs him in the chest with an outraged finger. “What iswrongwith you?”
“He is rumored to be the best of all the fighters at Icarus. When I came to you, my sovereign, I needed him to be not present.” Maxim smolders down at her, all fierce intensity and imperial Russian ego (trust me to know). “Be thankful I did not kill him.”
Ronin chuffs out a grim chuckle, because he knows perfectly well just how our Zara’s going to react to a statement like that.
Even my own aggravation ratchets back a notch. It certainly doesn’t take a rocket scientist to discern that Maxim’s come to Vegas a-courting. But he’s going about the entire affair so ineptly that, truly, he’s dooming his own cause with our little queen with no particular persuasion required on my part.
What.
So.
Ever.
“Okay, big guy.” Pointedly she glances at her wrist, despite the fact that she lost her favorite dive watch, along with every stitch of clothing she was wearing, when she shifted. “You have two minutes to make me like you. Two minutestops. Then I’m outta here.”
“And let’s keep our performance G-rated, shall we?” I murmur, dripping with spite.
God knows this derelict gas station’s seen more than enough X-rated activity for one night, thanks to this priapic dragon with his furious erection.
For the first time all night, Maxim Rasputin actually looks uncertain. He lowers his savage head (as much as I’ll allow) and looks up at her from under his brows. “Saving your life when you fell from the roof… this was not sufficient?”
“Yeah, I appreciate it, but I woulda figured out that whole flying thing myself,” she says, with that absolute confidence I so adore in my mate. Truly, who knew this little queen would turn out to be such a badass? “The way I see it, breaking my fall doesn’t even start to make up for the fact you’re in cahoots with my freaking dad, you asshole. And don’t even think about denying it. His goons mentioned you—the Russian. They saw you as an ally.”
“You wanted your revenge on the… Oriental, yes?” he says, with no apparent awareness that the term in English gives hideous offense. Of course, he barely speaks the language and is blissfully ignorant of nuance, so it’s likely he meant no harm and one should make allowances,et cetera.
But naturally this dash of inadvertent bigotry does nothing to aid his cause.
“We don’t use that word around here,” Zara informs him in a tone that brooks no nonsense. “Xiao’s Asian.”
“The Asian, yes.” He frowns and ducks his head, looking for an eyeblink like he’s actually embarrassed by his caveman English. That moment of self-awareness passes quickly, of course. “Mick Gemini summoned the… Asian… because he wanted to lure you out and take his revenge on you, this daughter who defies him. And I myself have wanted nothing more from the very moment I learned of your existence, my sovereign, but to claim you as my mate. If I made this, how do you say, devil’s bargain to win you and pleasure you and protect you from all your enemies on this earth, for this I make no apology.”
He’s so earnest and so intense about all this that even I’m reluctantly impressed (despite myself).
Zara plants her hands on her hips and peers up at him, her painted toes tapping.
“Let me make sure I get this straight,” she says slowly.
Dear God, she’s going to utterly eviscerate him. My own toes are already curling inside my ravishing boots in anticipatory delight.
“First my dad set me up by dangling Xiao as bait.” She pauses barely long enough to let the dragon nod. “No offense, but I kinda figured that part out on my own. So you hooked up with my dad to get in on the action and, what, protect me from him?”
The unsuspecting idiot nods again.
Now my queen’s voice acquires a wicked edge that’s utterly delicious.
“But you planned from the start to stab my dad in the back.” Her hip cocks and her head tilts. “Was that whole betrayal scenario gonna go down before or after you killed my warlocks?”
“Ah, well…” Far too late, the buffoon senses danger, but Zara has the bit seized between her sharp little teeth, and now there’s no stopping her.
Truly, I could almost feel sorry for this dragonish fool of a Rasputin, if not for our unfortunate history.
Striding back and forth before him, Zara lets her voice rise. “Then, once you buried that knife in my dad’s back and gave it a good twist, you were gonna toss me over your scaly shoulder and fly me off to Siberia to start making babies? Which would also get me expelled from the Academy and deprive me of my magical education, possibly dooming the entire witching world to extinction. Because, you know, I’m supposed to save it and all and I’m still not sure how, but apparently none of that matters in dragon land.” She stops and spins to face him. “What part of all that’s supposed to make me like you?”
