Page 2 of Gemini Hunted
Like that fucker’s just been waiting for us to stop dicking around and make our play for the enchanted artifact hidden in the Emerald Grotto that every witch and warlock at this Academy is hunting.
The steel-gray wedge of a sharky head, nightmare jaws grinning over a corpse-white belly the size of the Goodyear Blimp, explodes from the darkness like a shout.
A spurt of elemental terror plunges my body into an icy vat of fight-or-flight shock. Adrenaline floods every cell and synapse of my body like a bolt of lightning.
Except I can’t summon lightning when I’m submerged.
Even though I am an actual lightning witch.
As the shark barrels toward me, a yell claws up my throat and bursts past my lips in a rush of bubbles.
I barely remember to keep my teeth clamped around my mouthpiece, so I don’t lose my oxygen source and drown.
As I twist to snatch the serrated dive knife from my belt, flashlight playing wildly over the streamlined contours of the shark attack I’m about to experience, I have a split second to process that I’m gonna be the first dragon shifter queen in the history of the witching world to get eaten by a great white shark.
My inner dragon, who’s afraid of the water and can’t swim a stroke when I’m shifted, bugles in helpless rage.
Still caught in the wind-whipped currents near the surface, an errant riptide spins me away from the shark’s grinning snout. Helpless in the cyclone’s grip, I sweep my knife in a wicked slice. (Thankfully, it’s a U.S. Navy combat blade and made for this shit.) I’m aiming for the carnivore’s dead black eye. Too bad, as I go spinning past, I only manage to score the gunmetal-gray snout.
Despite my sucky aim, a random pass of my flashlight (which I’m clutching in a death grip) plays through the water over an inky swirl of blood.
I could swear that shark snarls at me.
Right before the monster’s freight train momentum sweeps him out of sight with a powerful flick of his rear caudal fin.
My breath, amplified by the Darth Vader rasp of my regulator, scrapes loud and ragged in the undersea hush. My panicky heart hammers against my sternum in the dark, sending frantic electrical impulses that shouthere I amfor any shark in sensing distance. My skinny beam of light searches desperately (and fruitlessly) through the murk.
That’s when the thought that’s been tugging at my sleeve for attention finally penetrates the clamor of alarm bells ringing in my head.
A great white is a cold-water shark.
Thereareno great whites in the Med.
Which means the shark that almost swallowed me in a single gulp must be our resident great white shifter.
Malcolm Uranus.
Malky’s a nasty piece of work, even nastier than his brother Lev. He’s part of the House Tiberius clique of bullies that supports my vicious bitch of a rival for the witching world throne. Those bullies are taking their finals as a team, just like me with my house.
And with one prize, there can only be one winner.
I can’t see him anywhere. But I know he’s out there.
Ronin!I broadcast in all directions and hope like hell my guy’s still in receiving range (because he’s the strongest telepath at Icarus, but even he has his limits).Shark! I think it’s Uranus.
I wait for the powerful ping of Ronin’s callback…
And wait.
Hey, Adam?That’s my nickname for my guy, who’s a literal doppelgänger for Kylo Ren fromStar Wars. You still with me?
Nada.
Cheese on toast.
Not good.
Has that shark swallowed him in a single bite? Or has the riptide swept me way beyond my mate’s impressive psychic range?
