Page 46 of Gemini Kings
You know, until he pushed me away.
Now I focus on keeping it together and not rushing through thedomuslike it’s on fire and scaring people. Dez and Racetrack are down at the commons for lunch with the other students, and the great room where we all study and hang out at night is nice and quiet, with cold winter light pouring through the glass doors from the peristyle courtyard, coals banked and glowing in the central hearth, the big steel fridge humming in the kitchen, and the geriatric furnace chugging away doggedly like a beast in the basement.
I try to go slow, but it’s no use. I climb the stairs two at a time and trot down the open hall that overlooks the great room, past Vasili’s closed door and Ronin’s open one (his duffel’s thrown on the bed, but no one’s in there) straight to Zara’s bedroom… I mean,ourbedroom.
Sure, I have one of my own down the hall where I store my clothes and books and stuff. But I really live in here with her.
My beloved.
Her room and her bed is where we all sleep. At least, it’s where all of us guys sleep.
With Zara.
Lucius and I kept sleeping in here while she was gone, just to feel closer to her (in my case) and in order to smell her and his alpha and Ronin (for Lucius).
Yet now, for some reason, I feel like I need to knock. This might seem unreasonable since it is my own room and all. But everything’s been all weird and off kilter since the other three left.
I mean, since the other three leftus.
All of a sudden I feel awkward, standing there stranded in the drafty hall with my big hands and my big feet and my glasses sliding down my nose again, my breath too loud in the stillness.
Awkward… and unwanted.
Why did she leave me behind?
I’d expect it from Vasili, because we’re still kind of frenemies (at best). But Ronin’s always so nice to me these days, he holds my hand and kisses me and fucks me all the time like he can’t get enough of me, he’s the only guy I’ve ever been with that way, and I’m like secretly in love with him? So it hurt.
But what hurt the most was being left behind by Zara.
I clear my throat, push a hand through my curls which have to be all messy from the run and from making out like that with Lucius, tell myself firmlynotto blush, whatever I do, and knock.
“Neo?” Sounding all sleepy and befuddled, Zara’s voice seeps through the wood. Either because she knows my knock, or because she can sense me through our mating bond. “Why’re you knocking? C’mon in here, baby.”
Oh gosh, it’s no use.
Pleasure rolls through me and warmth rushes into my face.
Her eagerness to see me hums through our bond. My heart floats up like a helium balloon. Despite everything, she’s so happy, so happy to know I’m out here. I fling the door open and bound into my fated mate’s boudoir like the big eager German Shepherd Vasili used to sneeringly call me (you know, before the ceasefire. Now he mostly just sneers.)
Zara’s creamy stucco walls are glowing in the snowy light that’s streaming through the glass doors at the foot of her bed. There’s a fire crackling and dancing in the hearth to chase away the chill. My mate’s hot pink suitcase, covered with punk rock decals and dive shop stickers, lies open on the mosaic floor with her wild club clothes and freshman schoolbooks already spilling out of it and flung willy-nilly across her desk and vanity like a clothes grenade’s gone off in here.
The blue velvet curtains on her old-fashioned bed that are meant to stop the drafts are tied back, the way Lucius and I left them this morning. And right there, curled up under the duvet, Zara and Ronin are snuggled up together half asleep, with my fated mate’s wonderful mermaid head tucked up against Ronin’s shoulder.
Even half asleep, Ronin looks wary. He knows they messed up leaving me behind, he knows it, and he looks kinda guilty too for ghosting my calls.
Good.
He pushes a swath of hair out of his sexy eyes, levers his sexy body up on one elbow, and mumbles in his sexy British bedroom voice, “Morning, Red. Aren’t you the sight for sore eyes then?”
Ronin always sleeps naked, except for that gorgeous dragon tattoo breathing flames across his chest. Under those blankets, he’s naked right now.
And I, like,reallymissed him.
But I’m not going to get all distracted.
“It’s afternoon, for your information,” I tell them, closing the door behind me to keep the heat in. “And how can you possibly be sleeping? You guys are insomuch trouble I can’t even tell you. Not to mention you just missed like a week of class, and midterms are next week. Don’t you care if you pass?”
What I really want to ask is how they could just come home and crawl straight into bed without looking for Lucius and me first.
