Page 86 of Gemini Kings
Lucius
“Lucius?” Zara’s whisper twines through my dreams, where my wolf lopes through the wintry forest and howls at the moon. “You better wake up. I think I screwed up. There’s a problem with the dragon.”
Although that isn’t the sort of problem anyone wants to wake up to, my eyes are already open, pupils dilating to absorb the shadowy contours of my bedroom. Red coals still glow in my banked fire and the moon still floats in my window.
Not long after midnight then.
Neo and I have barely fallen asleep.
My sweet boy still slumbers where I’ve settled him, his big body curled under the blankets with me spooned around him, my arm cinched tight around his bare waist, my perennial erection tucked safely behind my pajamas (although it’s also wedged shamelessly against his buttocks), my face buried in his soft curls so I can breathe in his scent of sage and Zara and innocence while we sleep. Oddly, he also smells quite strongly tonight of Vasili and… iodine?
He’s a deep sleeper, this pupil of mine. His slow snores drone on without a hitch.
Zara leans anxiously over us, her tiny body swimming in her fur-lined Academy bathrobe, lips parted and breathless, towel-damp curls tumbled around her worried face.
She holds a burning candle.
This means she’s blown all the fuses in thedomusagain, which still happens occasionally when my queen enjoys a particularly strong climax. Under my instruction, she’s begun to make real progress controlling her lethal witchcraft. But she’s nearly in heat (just as I am myself). Clearly, her control over her power is slipping.
“Sorry about the lights,” she whispers. “Racetrack’s in the basement at the fuse box getting everything switched back on. Uh, pretty much the whole house is awake—except Ronin. His heat’s totally hit. Vasili’s staying with him.”
I’m concerned enough about all this that I’ve already unwound myself from Neo’s warm bulk to sit up.
“Thank you. I see. I’ll get up.” Hastily I sweep my sleep-tumbled hair into a knot at my nape. It’s really too long now to be practical, but the entire polycule objects to my cutting it.
The combination of my sudden activity and his fated mate’s anxiety finally rouses Neo. Struggling awake, he mumbles thickly, “Zara? Babe, wha’s a matter?”
His brawny arm spills from the blankets to grope for her.
She clutches his hand tightly in both of hers and lets him pull her in close against our bed.
It’s his question she’s answering. Still, her wide eyes cling to mine. “I almost fucked the dragon.Almostbeing very much the key thing.”
In the wake of this admission, my concern mounts swiftly. “Why is the entire household awake? It’s after midnight on a school night.”
In truth, I’m hardly surprised that she and Maxim have been intimate (although I’m a bit surprised she stopped) since I expected nothing less when I welcomed him into thisdomus.A dragon queen requires a dragon king to carry her through her heat. Her powerful sexual needs are half the reason I argued to the Dean that we admit Maxim.
That decision means I’m solely responsible for Maxim’s conduct.
I made a judgment call that, despite his barbaric upbringing, this junkyard dog would master his savage shifter impulses, just as I myself have done. Now I wonder if my optimistic assumptions have placed every student on this island in danger.
Zara applies herself to my question, but her face is shadowed with guilt. “They’re all awake because Maxim woke everyone up.”
I strive to project an air of calm for everyone’s sake. “And where exactly is Maxim?”
My question is answered by the distant scream of an enraged dragon. I’ve heard such a thing only once, at a shifter solstice festival in my childhood, but it isn’t the sort of cry one forgets. This is a banshee scream to send ice cascading down any man’s spine. Even my wolf huddles low in a protective crouch.
Thank God that dragon is well away from thisdomus.
But, Christ, he’s probably awakened half the Academy by now with his bugling.
“Yeah,” Zara says softly. “He’s up there. Just… circling. For a good hour now. I tried calling… you know, telepathically? But he won’t come down. I didn’t hurt him or anything, and we didn’t actually fuck. But he wanted to—hereallywanted to—and I wouldn’t let him. Not without the rest of you. And I won’t. Because I’m… I’m afraid of…rising.”
At last, the contours of the current crisis take shape in my mind. I have further questions, of course, but they can wait. At the moment, Zara looks more defiant than actually frightened, because of course she’s Zara.
“Let’s talk about the subject of your rising later, my dear.” Holding her worried gaze with mine, I relieve her of the fire hazard of that dripping candle before she sets the bed alight. I thrust the candle safely into the sconce on the nightstand.
Still gripping her hand, Neo pushes up to sit, his sleepy face firing with concern. “I should’ve been there with you. He should never have touched you without us being there. Oh God, babe, did he hurt you?”
