Page 44 of Gemini Kings

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“Neo,” I say firmly for both their sakes, “stop trying to undress me for a moment and listen. The effects of a mating bite can be dangerously unpredictable, especially when the recipient has no Protean DNA and thus is not a shifter. Since you yourself are not a shifter—”

“Neither arethey.” He looks positively mutinous, but he’s finally stopped unbuttoning me, at least temporarily, which I tell myself is a good thing. It is.

No, really.

“Both Zara and Vasili have shifter recessives,” I remind us all patiently. “In Zara’s case, there’s actually enough shifter in her DNA that our mating bites have apparently now triggered her own latent ability to shift.”

He nods, because he overheard the earful I received on the landline before breakfast from the outraged arcane senator who read me the absolute riot act over my wayward student’s disastrous antics in America. Neo’s a senator’s son himself, so he understands how bad this is, and how desperately hard the entire ruling class must now labor to cover up Zara’s indiscretions and protect the secrecy of the witching world that is so essential to our precarious survival.

Of course, Neo doesn’t yet understand the full price Zara is about to pay for those indiscretions.

Very soon now, they’ll both learn.

Then there will be literal hell to pay.

“But Ronin doesn’t have any shifter. He’s almost pure Valyrian.” Neo’s trusting gaze lifts to mine, and every thought of witching world politics slips from my mind.

Merciful Christ, I can see his hurt lurking deep within. I even fancy I can feel it like a dull ache in my chest. My wolf wants so badly to mate him that I’ll have to be exceptionally careful not even to give this boy a love nip during foreplay.

This is yet another reason, if I needed one, why I shouldn’t be getting involved with him like this.

“I never meant to give Ronin a mating bite. He’s always been so rebellious, I meant to administer a disciplinary bite to make him heed me, but my wolf had other ideas. You know there’s art as well as science in witchcraft. Mating bites aren’t a precise craft.” I pull in a long breath and clench my fists. “We’re all exceptionally fortunate Ronin suffered nothing worse than a bad bout of mating fever—which could have killed him, had it been left untreated as he stubbornly intended—and some uncomfortably intense heats. I won’t roll the dice and tempt fate like that a second time.”

“But Lucius.” Neo grips the lapels of my tweed coat in tender protest and stares imploringly into my eyes. “It’s my body. Don’t you think it should be my decision? Once you’ve explained the risks, shouldn’t it be my chance to take?”

“You’re still so very young,” I sigh. “You’re the scion of the Capricorn clan. A powerful warlock and an exceptionally gifted alchemist with nearly pure Kryll DNA. You’re all but destined to be elected to your father’s seat on the Arcane Senate. You’re our queen’s fated mate, the only one of those she’s got, even though we’re all in love with her. You’re certain to be one of her kings when she ascends.”

As I articulate his vast potential, my certainty swells and rings in my voice like a bell. “I won’t risk the life of a future Gemini king of the witching world, while the arcane races hover on the brink of extinction, to salve anyone’s wounded heart. Not even yours, my boy.”

“So what you’re saying is,” he says slowly, his voice thick and uneven, “I’m sweet and all, I’m everyone’s baby, but you still won’t bite me and you still won’t mate me. You won’t even let it be my choice?”

His head is bowed and all that tousled hair has sort of flopped forward, and I wish desperately that I could see his face.

Just a short while ago, I might have lifted his chin to sweeten his disappointment with a soft slow rain of apologetic kisses.

But now I dare not waver.

“I’m sorry, Neo, but I simply won’t.”

“Okay then.” Head still ducked, he twists abruptly to unlock the door. “Guess I’ve got my answer.”

I can’t help reaching for him, but he slips deftly out of my grasp, pivots away from my imploring face without ever once meeting my gaze, and jerks open the door to leave.

I’m staring at his rigid shoulders and averted back with my whole chest aching when he says briefly, without turning, “I was gonna mention I saw Vasili heading down from thedomustoward your office in the crypt. Sneering of course, just typical Vasili, but looked like he was going where you told him in that note you left him. I guess you better go talk to him.”

Then he simply leaves me to it.

This behavior is extremely unNeolike, because he’s typically quite social, and we’ve always enjoyed each other’s company even before we became… romantically involved, as I suppose I must now acknowledge that we are. But if the alternative that would satisfy him means risking his life and the fate of a future king by biting him and mating him, I’ll take this stiff and heartsore option.

This unhappy and unmated but breathing option.

Still, that doesn’t mean I have to like it.

Swallowing another worried sigh, I button my shirt and knot my tie and clear my mind as best I can for the coming ordeal before I follow him dutifully out of the classroom and descend grimly to the crypt.

Chapter Ten

Neo