Page 6 of Gemini Kings
Pay attention,he snaps through our bond.This wretched place is crawling with casino cops. AndMick Gemini’s storming toward you in an absolute rage. Tend your campfire while I deal with Daddy.
I rather fancy the notion of dealing with Zara’s homicidal parent myself. Truth is, though, my trick fire’s spreading fast. Way faster than I planned across all that flammable felt, and already lighting the carpet like it’s drenched in petrol.
Long story short?
This blaze is raging well beyond what I can tamp out with my gift.
And we don’t actually intend to burn the place down—even though I’d fucking love to do it—given the magnitude of the collateral damage we’d cause. This casino’s crawling with tourists, and Zara’s determined not to hurt a single one.
I’ve never been one to fret over collateral damage. But what does propel me into damage control mode is the fact that, if I lose control of this bonfire, I’ll put Zara in danger.
Even more danger than she’s put herself in already.
So instead of carving my way with my knives through this scrum of two-bit players, all clawing and scrambling and fighting for the nearest exit, I slip between two hysterical Gemini showgirls, bat one of their big peacock feathers out of my fucking face, and yank the fire alarm.
The whoop of the siren adds to the bedlam and just about splits my head open. I bark out a curse and wrestle the fire extinguisher out of its cradle. I’m bringing the nozzle into play when, in my pocket, my blooming mobile vibrates.
“Bloody hell, Red. Not now,” I mutter under the siren’s wail.
Neo’s been lighting up my phone all night long from the landline back at Icarus. In fact, he’s been lighting it up for days. Probably since the tick he got back from his Honors Science of Witchcraft class and tumbled to the fact we ghosted him.
Neo Mercury’s just about the sweetest male fuck I’ve ever had, an honest-to-gods virgin till Zara and I popped his cherry. He’s a genuine sweetheart who still blushes every time I talk to him, and I feel guilty as hell about kissing off the bloke.
Well, I’ll make it up to him later.
On my knees.
I’ll unzip those prep school chinos he fancies and suck him off till he forgets every academic fact lodged in that encyclopedic brain of his and unloads down my throat.
Even now, the prospect of Neo Mercury coming undone under my hands and mouth gives me an instant boner. Too bad both the bloke and my boner are going to have to wait.
I finally get the nozzle sorted and aim my extinguisher at the blaze—
The rapidchut-chut-chutof gunfire punches through the sirens and chews into the wall behind me. A stinging slice sears my shoulder. Heat spills down my arm.
Fuck. That’s a blasted bullet just grazed me.
I dive and roll for cover behind the burning table, clutching the extinguisher like an infant to my chest. “Who the fuck’s shooting? There’s bloody tourists everywhere.”
I’ve got nothing in the mate bond, which tells me Vasili’s got his pretty hands full running interference with Daddy Gemini and his hired muscle. And I haven’t felt a thing from Zara in the bond since she scrambled into that shaft.
Fuck.
My chest gives a ping, because I’m a wicked strong telepath and I definitely ought to be hearing her. Scowling, I finish my drop-and-dive and roll to my feet—
Right in time to find a security goon built like a rugby player looming over me and jabbing a flaming craps stick at my face.
I barely dodge the fiery stick and swing my extinguisher like a club. The cylinder slams into the bloke’s head and down he goes. Could be dead for all I care. Snarling at the rat-faced fuck for trying to take my eye out, I spin and spray a torrent of foam over the burning table.
A flicker in my nine o’clock’s all the warning I get before some kind of copper’s coming at me, one of the boys in blue, probably the guy with the sidearm that just winged me. I spray down his face with a creamy sputter of extinguishing foam. The copper swipes at his foamy face and squeezes off a blind round that ricochets wide and just about drops a fleeing woman.
Arsehole.
I could take the trigger-happy bastard out with a spurt of fire, but there’s rather enough fire about the place to contend with, even for a badass fire sign like me. Instead I sling my extinguisher into his chest like a bowling ball at ninepins.
The guy goes down with an agonized groan and hopefully a splintered rib or two, pistol flying from his grip. I kick it out of reach.
I don’t need a firearm when I kill.
