Page 56 of Gemini Kings
Well, here’s hoping.
To distract myself from that no doubt ill-advised temptation, not to mention this rather insistent boner he’s given me that’s so glaringly obvious to the entire room given the fashionably snug fit of my breeches, I shift my gaze to the unaesthetic (to me) sight of Racetrack’s messy sprawl across the settee. I would’ve had to shove her aside to ream Neo across it. Of course, being Racetrack and notably gay, she’s spectacularly unimpressed by this smoking guy-on-guy encounter she’s just witnessed.
Wicked with all that frustrated lust Neo’s stirred up in me, I scowl at Racetrack. Predictably, she flips me the bird and scowls back.
“Your marshmallow is a fiery coal, Abigail,” I point out airily.
“That’s just how I like ’em. And don’t call me Abigail, you dick,” she says without heat, rescuing her flaming treat from the fire at last. “No one here missed you, by the way.”
“Oh, no doubt,” I say silkily. I swank over to lounge beside Zara and Ronin on the sofa, then lean in to kiss both of them—at leasttheymissed me, surely—before I toe out of my wet boots.
Hmmm, my girl gives me plenty of tongue, and her sweet mouth tastes like ripe strawberries. I hum with rising interest and return the favor. My queen sucks on my tongue like she’s imagining it’s my cock, which floods my shaft with a rush of tingling warmth and gives me all sorts of lovely ideas for later.
Dear me, she’s flushed and sweating from far more than the fire. Her mating scent of roses and vanilla perfumes the air quite heavily. I wonder if her heat might not be starting this very night. If it does, we’re all in for a wild ride, particularly if her heat sets Ronin’s off.
Truly, it seems we’ve barely arrived back at Icarus in time. Perhaps, indeed, I ought to have insisted we not travel at all until—
This charming interlude is well and truly broken by Lucius’ distinctive tread. Sadly, Zara sucks in a breath and ends our kiss, her worried gaze already darting to the vestibule.
Over the medley of Asian spices emanating from the kitchen and mingling with the revolting stench of burned marshmallow, I can’t smell a whiff of our headmaster.
But I’d know the cadence of his footsteps blindfolded.
All that earlier agitation, from which I was so briefly but delightfully distracted by Neo’s unexpected affections, comes rushing back. The prospect of prolonging my confrontation with Lucius, this time in front of the others, makes my skin itch. I’ve been doing my level best not to dwell on the fact that I’ll most likely have to lower myself to kiss the Dean’s ancient ass in order to avoid being both expelled and fired from the Icarus Academy with a single stroke of her vengeful pen.
Oh, I put on a convincing show at the crypt for Lucius. Convincing enough that I left the poor dear fuming at my horrible intransigence.
Still, despite my resistance, I suppose I’ll have to eat crow and spend every spare moment from now to graduation slaving away to tutor Mallory McSnicker or whatever poor nitwit Lucius has dredged up to punish me.
The very notion makes me sulky.
And I’m an absolute bitch when I’m sulky.
By the time Lucius climbs the short flight of stairs and enters the great room, still wearing his tweed coat and gripping his briefcase, with his chestnut hair swept into a knot and his expression carefully composed, it’s all I can manage not to say something cutting about his tardiness. Lucius is typically a stickler for being on time, and swiping at him would relieve the tension.
But he takes one look at Zara and Ronin bundled on the couch—his bonded mates, both of whom he’s bitten, and whom he clearly hasn’t seen since their return—and his predatory alpha instincts surge to the fore. He tosses his briefcase carelessly toward the hall table and leaps halfway across the great room to meet them in a single wolfish bound.
He’s nearly upon us when he masters the impulse and pulls up short, his scholarly features under his goatee a study in restraint and barely contained fury.
Zara, bless her wild heart, suffers no such scruples. She scrambles to her feet to meet her alpha halfway and envelops him in a desperate embrace, with Ronin a breath behind.
Leaving me cruelly abandoned and pouting on the sofa.
Lucius is no match for the two of them, at least he’s no match for themnow, when they’re both on the edge of going into heat. He drags them both hard against his rangy frame and rubs his face in their hair to scent them, eyes glowing red and fangs distended and face fractured with need.
“My dear ones,” he says hoarsely, his wolf lurking in his voice. “You sweet wretched imps. Promise me you’ll never do anything like this again.”
Well, now I’m completely jealous.
He certainly didn’t greet me that way at the crypt. I didn’t even get a peck on the cheek. Instead, I received a tiresome lecture.
He still hasn’t laid a finger on me since I returned.
“Don’t blame Ronin,” Zara mumbles into Lucius’ neck as she cuddles against him, standing on tiptoe to wind her arms around him. “Or Vasili. Blame me. It was all my fault. It was my idea. I tried to go without them. They tried to stop me, but they couldn’t.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Lucius growls through his fangs. “You think the prospect of you hurling yourself into a situation like that alone makes it any easier to bear?”
Neo utters a gruff noise from his corner that affirms this sentiment. Truly, I am beginning to wonder if we ought not to have consulted them, at least, before we went haring off. I’m even wondering whether our decision to indulge Zara’s little rebellion might have done lasting damage to the fragile trust the five of us have only just begun to build.
