Page 28 of Virgo Queen
His beaded braids stream in disarray around his taut shoulders and alert face.
But he’s one of the only people in this basement who’s not totally panicking.
His sinewy arms engulf my shoulders in a quick hug. I’m still (ridiculously) feeling too shy and uncertain to give him a full body hug in return. I mean, it’s not like he’s my actual boyfriend or anything.
I need to be careful and not get confused.
Awkwardly I raise my hands to grip his arms in a steadying squeeze.
“Mallory,chere.” In the smoky pandemonium of this basement, his golden eyes burn with concern. “We need to get out of this firetrap,oui?”
“No, actually, the fire brigade needs to fight the fire,” I say as calmly as possible. “If we can’t contain it, that’s when we leave. I’m on the brigade and I’m deputizing you. Come with me.”
His brow furrows and his mouth opens, but I don’t give him a chance to protest. I wrap my fingers around his hand and tow him with me toward the bar where the fire extinguisher is kept.
Due to the thickening smoke and generally poor lighting down here, it’s getting really hard to see. In my platform heels, I stumble over something and almost go down.
Cue my trademark McSnicker clumsiness.
The last thing we need, on top of everything else, is me breaking an ankle and adding a medical emergency to this crisis.
“Careful,chere.”Thank goodness Jae’s right there, gripping my arm to steady me against his wiry strength. “These shoes, they’re a menace,oui?”
“You may have a point.” Giving his hovering frame a wry look, I grip his arm for balance, toe out of my sparkly shoes, and gather them in one hand so no one else trips over them. Then we both pad barefoot across the gnarly floor, sticky with theresidue from generations of keggers and other excesses, (ick) to the abandoned bar.
Fortunately, the fire extinguisher is right where it should be, mounted behind the bar and clearly marked. I march over to the clunky red cylinder, wrestle it down from the wall, and spin toward the fiery den with purpose.
“Fout tonè!”Jae pulls me to a hard stop, puts himself between me and the fire, and bares his teeth at me in a grimace.
“I have literally no idea what that means,” I tell him as patiently as possible. “But I’m a hall monitor and I need to fight the fire. You can relax, okay? I know how to use this equipment. I’m trained for this.”
We’re eye to eye, toe to toe, almost mouth to mouth. Since I’m the tallest girl at the Icarus Academy, we’re basically the same height. I’m facing down the last purebred Cajun werewolf east of the Greenwich Mean Line.
Now my shifter—I mean,theshifter, because he’s definitely notmine—gives me a ferocious scowl. “Are you crazy, you? Me, I’m not letting you anywhere near that fire.”
I hug the extinguisher tightly to my chest. “It’s my responsibility. That means I have to do it. Besides, Zara’s in there, and Ronin, and Draco—”
“Ah,merde.” He huffs out a breath and snatches the extinguisher right out of my arms. “I’ll go. You stay here where it’s safe,oui?”
“Do you even know how to use that?” I give him a dubious look, because he’s never drilled with the fire brigade like I have. “It’s P.A.S.S. Pull, aim, squeeze, and sweep—”
“Mallory.” He shakes his head and looks for a second like he’s fighting a smile. “Me, I’ll manage. You wait for me here. Yes?”
I’m reluctant to leave him to it, but clearly, his mind is made up. Anyway, there’s more I can do, and the important thing is to get that extinguisher into action as soon as possible.
Realizing that he’s actually waiting for me to agree, I sigh and tell him, “Go!”
Deftly he shifts the extinguisher to one arm, sweeps me up against his lithe torso with the other, and claims my mouth in a hard hot kiss that makes me tingle.
I’m still gasping with surprise when he releases me just as suddenly and whirls away.
Then he’s off like a greyhound at the races (not that I’ve ever seen that, I’m an animal lover, so the entire sport is distressing). My whole body hums with the sizzle of that electric kiss I totally wasn’t expecting.
Was that, I don’t know, a goodbye kiss? A polite thank you for the hookup we just had?
I can’t let myself believe it means anything more. Otherwise, I’m headed straight for the Heartbreak Hotel.
Pulling myself together, I pivot back to the bar. Unfortunately, we don’t have running water down here, because of the whole medieval dungeon thing.
