Page 159 of Gemini Kings
“I couldn’t stay away any longer,” he explains with a shy smile. “And we all miss you, so Zara sent me to bring you home. If you’re still working…?”
“Actually, I’ve just finished grading the last examination.” I snap my briefcase closed and permit myself to savor the warm glow of belonging to someone. Indeed, I relish this unprecedented sensation of having several someones actually give a single flaming damn if I stay up working half the night. “I’m just packing up, Neo. Why don’t we walk home together?”
Intense interest in his academic results kindles in his green eyes, although they’re rather difficult to see, since his glasses are steaming. “Lucius… that essay on the dangers of contested succession in your History exam… I’ve been so distracted that it’s been really hard to study. I hope you’re not too, um, disappointed in my grade?”
He’s so anxious about his grade that he’s already rushed around my desk. He seems fully prepared to drop to his knees and clasp his hands in entreaty, as though I’m some sort of religious icon and he’s praying to me for mercy.
Before he can fall to his knees, I slip my arms around his waist and urge him gently forward to straddle my lap between his muscular thighs instead.
“Well,” I explain to his worried face, “the grades post tomorrow. But I dare say you’ll keep your spot at the head of the Dean’s List, First Boy.”
“Really?” At once, he flushes rosy with pleasure.
“Yes, really.” I can’t resist the urge to adjust the glasses sliding down his nose, which then leads to me stealing one of his sweet, yielding, minty-tasting kisses. “Perfect score on your Alchemy exam, so well done you. In addition, Mistress Agrippina has awarded you extra credit for tutoring Maxim in Genetics. Even though he won’t sit for exams until finals, that was a true kindness on your part.”
“Gosh, it was nothing, he was just all worried about getting sent away, and I wanted to make him feel better.” Neo straightens my tie and smooths my lapels and fusses over my rumpled late-night attire in his adorable way. “What about Zara? How did she do? She’s really been worrying about her results, pretty much all night. You know she gave you permission to tell me.”
Despite the somewhat questionable ethics of this entire situation (by which I mean, this scandalous relationship I’m now sharing with five of my own students), I know this to be true.
Zara keeps no secrets from Neo any longer.
“Well, she won’t make the Dean’s List,” I say wryly. “Science of Witchcraft in particular is her Waterloo. Nonetheless, she’s earned a solid pass in all subjects. Pass with distinction in History of Witchcraft and Lightning Magic. She’s managing to do better in Common Magics as she catches up with her peers, after her late start midway through the academic year. Overall, really, I’m quite pleased with her progress.”
“Oh, wow, that’s so great!” He’s so excited that he throws his arms around my neck and hugs me.
I allow myself to smile at his excitement and breathe in his clean sage-and-lavender scent (although he also smells quite a bit like Zara and Ronin and me, since we’ve all three been all over him, and rather insatiably).
I don’t tell him I’ve already telephoned Zara’s results to the Dean, so that she’d agree to lower the wards for that infernal news crew.
Time enough tomorrow to worry about that news crew.
“How are you feeling, my boy?” I ask instead. “How’s your bite?”
“Aches a little,” he says casually, rubbing his affectionate face into my neck to absorb a bit more of my mating scent.
His casual demeanor leaves me undeceived.
He’s desperately hoping that lingering ache from his bite is a belated indication that his mating heat is looming.
In truth, that bite of hisishealing rather more slowly than I’d like, despite Zara’s commendable diligence in tending him.
Still, irrefutably, he isn’t in heat. He was bitten days ago, yet he’s cool to the touch. Someday soon, the sharp needle of certainty will burst his fragile bubble of hope.
“I’ll take a look when we’re back at thedomus.” I kiss him again, purely for the joy of it. We’ve all done so much fornicating in various configurations (although by no means all of them, not just yet) to get Zara through her superheat, Ronin through his, and me through mine—and Neo has been so sweetly and transparently delighted to accommodate my every advance—that I’m finally getting past this lurking sense of guilt over my inexhaustible carnal passion for this innocent student I’ve been teaching and guiding for years.
In fact, the incendiary notion of bending my star pupil over this desk where I’ve tutored and counseled him since freshman year for a quick hard fuck right now holds a powerful appeal.
But it’s better tonight to wait, really, until we’re all back at thedomustogether.
After all, the six of us are still navigating certain tensions.
I ponder those tensions quietly while I bundle up and lock up and tromp through the narrow streets through the silent swirl of snowfall, with Neo’s gloved hand tucked in my coat pocket for added warmth.
Beyond any doubt, the worst of those tensions churn around the twin vortices of Maxim and Vasili. Those two are still navigating which of them will eventually bend for the other—both emphatically alpha, both damnably aloof and proud and arrogant, yet both very clearly enamored with each other—which introduces a certain electric tension to our cozy domestic arrangement.
Until they work through the delicate contours of the power dynamic between them, they’ve mainly indulged as a ménage (or a foursome) and kept Zara (and at times Ronin) firmly between them.
Admittedly, that choreography has worked out explosively well.
