Page 59 of Gemini Kings
Across the room, the dragon snarls back. I half-expect him to unroll a forked tongue and spray blinding venom in my face like his loathsome wyvern brothers.
“Now, gentlemen, stop growling. Both of you. And I’ll ask you both to keep civil tongues in your heads.” Firmly Lucius plants himself between us, exerting every ounce of his own alpha authority, as though he’s fearful we’ll tear each other to bloody ribbons. (Admittedly, the thought has crossed my mind, and I do have my knives.)
Lucius’ stern warning look tells me he’s picked up the thought.
But I’m so wrathful I scarcely care.
I don’t dare even look for Zara, who’s lurking so ominously silent behind me, her psychic barriers locked down tight—a degree of restraint that can’t possibly last.
I do catch a glimpse of Racetrack gaping at this Shakespearean drama from the settee, her half-eaten marshmallow fallen to the upholstery in a gooey mess.
“I want that warlock’s blood,”Rasputin grinds through clenched teeth, glaring straight at me with his dragon eyes. I do hope he’s not about to shift and bring the roof down. “He has dishonored me. He refused to fight me fairly and left me for dead—”
“If I wanted you dead,malchik, rest assured your odiferous corpse would be rotting in the Nevada desert—”
“Mr. Romanov is a member of this faculty and is to be treated as such.” Lucius speaks over both of us (I know, how rude!) and sweeps his commanding stare over the room at large. “As for Mr. Rasputin, he is our newest student and resident of thisdomus. He merits the same courtesy as any other member of this cohort.”
Well,fuck.
That hideous utterance confirms every horrid suspicion teeming through my brain.
“Oh dear God, then it’s actually true,” I groan in absolute disgust. “He’s enrolled. He’s moving in.And now you want me to tutor that fucking dragon.”
Chapter Thirteen
Maxim
Of all the enemies who dwell in this place, where I am now trapped by my own choice deep in hostile territory behind wards I cannot escape, it is Vasili Romanov who poses the greatest danger. He would kill me if he could, just as I would surely kill him.
Yet it is she who consumes me.
My dragon queen.
Zara.
I have thought of nothing else since the night I plucked her from the sky. She of the lightning gift, she who knows no fear, she of the flaming eyes and the savage heart, she who commands gods to worship her.
For I am surely the closest creature to a god who walks this earth and rules these skies. And I do as she commands.
Beyond any question, I worship her.
Now this queen of mine lures my gaze away from Romanov (which is no small thing, for he is compelling in his own way, this deadly enemy of mine, with his hidden blades and his catastrophic beauty).
My sovereign draws me away from his terrible light to circle her irresistible flame.
She has claimed the space before the fiery hearth like the goddess she is. There she stands and eyes me, hip cocked, head tilted, stocking-clad toes tapping the floor. Her entire body simmers with impatience. Her aquamarine eyes are narrow with suspicion and her lush mouth is tight with anger.
Clearly she is angry with me for pursuing her, pursuing her to this island, pursuing her into the very sanctum of her home.
But I will pursue her anywhere.
I will pursue her to the ends of this earth.
There is nowhere I will not pursue her, wherever I must, to claim her.
She is wearing another man’s clothing, which rouses all my protective instincts and makes me savage with jealousy, because it should be I who clothe her, I who comfort her, I who covet and protect and spoil her. My keen dragonish senses are swimming with the scent of these others who have mounted her and rutted with her and spilled their seed inside her.
Under the captivating perfume of her mating scent which fills this house like a compulsion no male can resist, she reeks of their passion.
