Page 96 of Gemini Kings
Lucius scratches his own shifter itch to tend and heal by nuzzling Neo’s newly pierced ear.
My bookworm slings a brawny arm around each of us and snuggles happily between us. His happiness warms me up better than the fire whose gentle heat is lapping at my back.
“I’m so happy,” he sighs out loud, so Lucius too can hear, just in case someone still hasn’t gotten the message. “Will I go into heat like the rest of you?”
“I think you might, baby,” I murmur, because that seems likely, though I really don’t know for sure.
The idea of sharing that with the rest of us seems to please him. Even though we don’t actuallyallgo into heat, because no one’s ever bitten Vasili (no one would dare).
But clearly my Neo’s been feeling excluded. And now he’s not. Whatever comes, I’m determined to give him every smidgen of alpha care he’s ever gonna need. I’m never gonna neglect him. I won’t ever leave him wanting.
Not even with this mounting distraction of my own superheat.
“Oh my dears,” Lucius sighs, his yummy baritone all ragged with sex and thick with foreboding. “Merciful Christ, we’re taking a terrible risk.”
“I don’t follow.” I rest my cheek on Neo’s chest and smooth the tumbled curls away from Lucius’ pensive face. “Why can you and Ronin and me all get mating bites, but Neo’s not supposed to?”
“Because you and I have shifter DNA, and I never meant to give Ronin a mating bite in the first place.” Lucius studies our bookworm with broody eyes. “As I’ve endeavored to explain to him, Neo’s DNA is pure Kryll. There’s simply no predicting how his physiology will respond to the biochemicals in a shifter’s bite.”
“I don’t care.” Neo sounds rebellious, and I realize this plot twist isn’t exactly a bookworm newsflash. He and Lucius actually talked about this, probably while I was off in Vegas spreading my wings and getting back at Xiao.
Which suddenly doesn’t seem to matter, like,at all.
Neo’s way more important.
“Shit.”Alarm skitters across my skin and clenches my heart in a fist. My tummy kinks and knots with dread. “Lucius. Are you saying my bite could actually… hurt him?”
“Quite simply,” Lucius murmurs, heavy with worry and regret, “I’m saying I don’t know. Truly, my queen, it would have been better if you’d never bitten him.”
Chapter Eighteen
Maxim
I will be the first to admit it. My romantic encounter with my queen could have gone better.
This morning, I am an unwelcome outsider in an alien land.
In these few hours I have spent in this deconsecrated church where classes are held, I have quickly realized I am the only pureblooded shifter, along with Lucius Aries, in this entire Academy.
This means I am the only dragon in Mistress Agrippina’s Genetics of Witchcraft class.
Clearly, my new classmates despise me. This may, or may not, be due to the fact that I surely upended this entire population of junior witches and warlocks from their beds, sweating and half-suffocating with terror, by screaming over their roofs in my dragon form, then circling and bellowing with rage until dawn.
For this, I make no apology.
My queen is in full heat, my dragon is in full rut, and my queen has refused to accept my attentions.
In truth, I could be doing far worse than circling and bellowing in this condition.
I am seated now in the very last row of Mistress Agrippina’s classroom. It is a tidy, industrious sort of place. Pristine snow piled on the windowsills sparkles in the afternoon sun. More sunlight slants across the old-fashioned rows of desks, barely occupied by a smattering of uniformed students. The ancient floorboards under these new Academy loafers that pinch my feet are scuffed and worn with age, but the wood gleams a rich russet in the sun. The air smells pleasantly of books and chalk and fresh wood shavings from the mechanical pencil sharpener bolted to the wall.
I gather this seat is, how do you say, prime real estate? Judging by the snide remarks and stink-eyes I am receiving, it is a privilege to which my fellow classmates seem to feel I am not entitled.
But I will sit nowhere else. I will not endure an enemy at my vulnerable back.
Every time in my life when I have endured true pain, it has been inflicted from behind. It took a great deal of resolve to overcome a lifetime of deeply conditioned instinct when I gave Zara my back last night. But my sovereign was determined to see my scars.
Even to touch them.
