Page 6 of Virgo Queen
Then her stare swerves to Jae.
Poised two stairs below me with his lithe frame caught in a crouch, beaded braids streaming around his lean hungry face and hot amber eyes, my guy stares back at her with equal fascination.
In the awkward silence, the soundtrack skips in the basement. The tune morphs from some Eurotrash shit to the perky beat of Katy Perry’sBirthday.
“Ah, sounds like they’re calling you,oui?You got yourfais do dodownstairs.”Jean-Emilien’s voice thickens. “Unless, maybe, you want to stay?”
A snarl of anticipation rumbles from my chest. That primal sound—or more likely the offer we’ve nowbothgiven her—seems to shatter whatever trippy spell she’s under.
“Okay,” she says, and my heart stops beating.
Then she rushes ahead. “I mean, thanks for the offer, but you don’t have to be so polite. I, uh, wouldn’t horn in on your thing, three’s a crowd and all that. So, um, bye.”
I’m still trying to sift through that geyser of words so I can decide which of her several mistaken assumptions to tackle first when she bolts downstairs in a long-legged scramble and a flash of silver sparkles.
Again.
“Fokk,”I grumble as she vanishes around the bend. “That went well.”
Jae flexes his fingers to retract his wicked claws and stares after her with burning eyes. “So we just gonna let her go then,amou?”
“What do you think? Clearly, she couldn’t be less interested. She’s been avoiding us all semester. And she literally just ran away from us twice.” Even to myself, I sound disgruntled and surly as fuck.
Jean-Emilien has Valyrian recessives, which makes him part telepath, and his bloodthirsty shifter instincts are totally feral. Those are instincts I’ve learned to respect. And trust.
So when my guy talks, I listen.
“Ah, that just means she wants us to chase,oui?”His fangs descend and his wolf eyes fire with golden heat. “You like to chase, Draco. The chase, she’s what you live for. And me, I was born and bred to hunt.”
Chapter Three
Mallory
“Happy sweet sixteen, McSnicker.” Last year, when we were both freshmen, Ronin Pendragon’s lazy grin would have turned my knees to quivering blobs of jelly.
Even now when I’m completely over him, my former crush looks edible, with a yard of silky black hair spilling around his wicked face.
I’m still so unsettled from everything that just went down on the stairs (including the combustible sight of Draco Mars’ erection, ohmygosh, a hundred percent full frontal for which I was definitely not prepared, that’s why I almost broke my neck!) Consequently, I barely even notice Ronin’s powerful frame, poured into butt-hugging pants and a silky button-down shirt that’s open halfway down his chest to reveal the flaming black dragon inked into his golden skin.
“So, I’m actually twenty.” I focus on Ronin’s words instead of his chest and scare up a wry grin. “But thanks? I mean, for coming to my birthday party.”
“Anytime, love.” He’s not flirting (much), because he talks like that to everyone.
Besides, he’s already turning away from me to toss a gift-wrapped present—too pretty to have been wrapped by anyone other than his new girlfriend—carelessly toward the gift table with the rest of my birthday loot.
Maybe that’s why I never got anywhere with this guy all freshman year, when I was secretly crushing? Because he thought I was fifteen at the time?
Figures.
Those bitchy witches from our rival house at Villa Tiberius say I have the body of a twelve-year-old and hair like carrots. With my frizz and my freckles and my general deficiency in thewitchcraft department, I’m the Little Orphan Annie of the Icarus Academy (only taller and with a higher GPA).
But I’m not going to ruin my special night with a pity party.
Not when I’m standing right next to a whole table piled high with actual wrapped presents, which came as another magical surprise (even if a bunch of those presents are repurposed or flat-out gag gifts, because we’re on an island in the Med, hidden behind magical wards, and the supply plane only flies in once a month).
Anyway, I’ve already had the birthday gift of a lifetime, haven’t I?
I watched Jae Labête giving head to Draco Mars.
