Page 52 of Gemini Kings
Pity he’s so damned unethical.
“I suppose you intend to suspend me.” Still prowling before my desk, he utters a bratty huff that seizes me with the violent impulse to punish him with kisses. Of course, this is an impulse I forcibly suppress. “What do you fancy that will achieve? Unless you’re planning to teach Mogadon Magics yourself—as a non-Mogadon—you’ll simply have to face the music.” He waves an airy hand. “There’s no getting rid of me. I’m indispensable.”
“You’re certainly insufferable.” Grimly I eye my wayward colleague, who merely smirks at my ire. “As you yourself have taken pains to note, you’re more than merely a student at this Academy. But you’re only provisionally a member of the faculty—a status which is easily revoked.”
A hint of shock flickers in his perfect face before his mask of insolence slips back into place. “Are you actually threatening to fire me?”
If only I had that luxury.
I swallow a sigh.
Vasili Romanov is more than my student, my colleague, and now—greatly to my shock the night he bit me—my alpha. I’m also fighting tooth and claw the insidious suspicion that I’m falling in love with the brat.
That’s one complication the volatile dynamic at this Academy, in ourdomus, and within our harem definitely doesn’t require.
Well, our relationship has never been simple, his and mine. These days, it’s damnably complex. What I’m feeling toward him now is far more than professional disappointment for his shortcomings. I’m suffering all the lovesick heartache and injured ego of a man whose lover doesn’t trust him enough to take him into his confidence.
But what I’m required to say to him has nothing to do with emotion and everything to do with duty.
“No member of this faculty is indispensable, Mr. Romanov,” I say sharply. “Yourself included. But you’re new to this role. Fortunately, the faculty handbook contains a procedure for instructing unsatisfactory teachers.”
He utters a scornful snort. “What do you imagine you’ll do? Bite me the way you did Ronin? Ostensibly to enforce your discipline until, oh dear, the target of your formidable wrath goes into heat?”
He looks utterly appalled by the concept, as any proper alpha would be. He’s never been bitten and, to my knowledge, he’s also never been fucked. Not from, well, the receiving end. Vasili emphatically does the bitingandthe fucking in our bed. But I too am alpha—toward everyone in our haremexceptVasili—and suddenly my wolf is slavering at the prospect of bitinghim.
God, to have him under me. To have him submit tomefor once, gasping and mindless with pleasure.
I clear my throat and shift in my seat to ease the sudden hot swell of my shaft against my zipper. I can barely manage to meet my new colleague’s wary gaze when I’m this hot to fornicate with him but, somehow, I manage it.
“I’m placing you on an improvement plan,” I state briskly.
Naturally, he sneers.
I clasp my hands on my desk and give him my sternest look. This is the most delicate and difficult element of our confrontation, the moment I’ve been dreading. If he balks outright at the Dean’s edict, there will be no salvaging either his academic career or his graduation prospects. To minimize the likelihood of his defiance, or perhaps merely to preserve the fragile and precious harmony of our polycule for just a little longer, I’m determined to tell him no more now than I must.
I drum my fingers on the desk and keep my voice level. “I’m endeavoring to put the fear of God into you. You claim to be the dominant alpha in this harem? Then, by Christ, it’s time for you to act like it. Work with me like a responsible adult to protect our queen. Stop aiding and abetting her worst impulses. As you’re all too well aware, she’s criminally reckless.”
“Well, of course she’s reckless, darling.” He rolls his pretty eyes. “She’s Zara. Reckless is her middle name. She’s like a tiger in a cage at this Academy, chafing and snarling at the bars. Besides, that wretched ex-lover of hers betrayed her—twice over, as it happens—and she wasn’t about to let that stand. She would have claimed her vengeance, Lucius, either with or without us.”
This, of course, is nothing less than the truth. Yet it maddens me to hear his defiance.
“Then you should have come to me!” I snap, smarting under the lash of his betrayal. “You should have allowed me to manage her.”
“As if anyone could.” His nostrils flare in derision.
This is another truth I don’t care to acknowledge.
“Nonetheless,” I forge on grimly, “I must know that I can rely upon you to temper our queen’s rash and dangerous instincts, her rebellion against the strictures that are meant to keep her safe, both now at this Academy and later on the throne.”
“Why rely upon me? She’ll crown that imbecile Neo who was born and bred for it, then Ronin and perhaps you—but never me,” he snarls, with a sudden flash of bitterness that startles me. “Believe me, no one wants a queer king on the witching world throne.”
“For the love of God.” I gaze at him in utter astonishment, because he’s never been obtuse. Can he possibly believe this nonsense, or is he merely toying with me? “You’re her alpha and the most powerful warlock in her harem. When she’s ready to ascend, you’ll be the first consort she crowns. What I need to know now—what the Dean needs to know—is that you possess the maturity and the discipline to behave responsibly when the time comes. To state it plainly, what’s required now on your part is a demonstration of your obedience.”
“Obedience! How precisely do you propose I demonstrate a quality I don’t possess?” He’s stopped pacing to loom scowling over my desk, arms folded across his chest in what could easily pass for hostility.
But he’s my alpha, and underneath all that contempt he wields like a blade, he’s… hurting. He’s been hurting since he fired off that allegation that no one wants him ruling because he’s queer.
I must proceed with care now, because I’ve no wish to hurt him worse.
