Page 55 of Gemini Hunted
The axe hurtles at me out of bloody nowhere.
One tick I’m tracking that slinky Cajun werewolf through a brambly thicket into a hidden tunnel that sneaks into hisdomusthe back way, straight to the condemned dungeon basement of Villa Caligula. But the shifty fuck’s too fast for me and I don’t have a torch, so I lose Jae Labête in the shadowy maze inside.
I fucking lose him.
The next tick, barely visible in the dim gray light leaking through a narrow slit of skylight, there’s a medieval battle axe tumbling end over end straight at my noggin.
I swear and leap aside, diving into a somersault that softens my bruising collision with the bone-breaking stone floor. The axe clangs into the wall where I was literally just standing, then clatters to the flagstones at my heels.
Rolling to my feet and sprinting along the wall so I’m harder to target, I summon up a pulsing ball of orange psi fire and hurl that shit at the threat.
My fireball lights up the space like a flaming comet.
In a flash, I register the vast underground cavern of thedomus’s rainwater cistern, built in Roman times but still somehow functional. Under the skylight, a long rectangle ofspooky ink-black water recedes into the distance between a double row of pillars.
Dripping gobbets of liquid fire like lava, my fireball sears toward a lurking shape—broad shoulders bristling in a spiked leather jacket, skull sporting a military buzzcut of white-blond hair, eyes glowing the wintry gray-blue of whitecaps in the Celtic Sea.
The bloke curses in Icelandic and dives behind a pillar as my fireball crackles past.
“Whoa!” A nearby flashlight winks on. Above the light, I spy the pale oval of a concerned female face. That’s Mallory McSnicker.
The girl peeks out from behind another pillar and frowns sternly at my assailant. “Geez, we totally talked about this, remember? Talk first, violence last—as in, literally the last option. Draco, you could’ve killed Ronin.”
“Goodfokkingriddance, you ask me,” my attacker grumbles from behind his own pillar.
“Draco Mars? That you?” My indignant glare ping-pongs between Mal and the pillar that hides her warlock. “Blooming hell, mate.”
“Yeah.” His chiseled, square-jawed face emerges warily into view. “You done lobbing fireballs at my head, Pendragon?”
“Depends,” I say dryly. “You done hurling axes at mine?”
“Helvitis.Been a body count already this Dean’s Challenge, you feel me? When it comes to keeping my girl safe, I don’t apologize for shit.”
Hearing that intel, at least I can respect his motive.
Draco emerges cautiously from behind his pillar. He’s a grumpy fuck and he’s never much fancied me, probably because Mal used to crush on me, and he remembers my one-and-done days and thinks I shagged her or wanted to (which I didn’t).
Too innocent to suit my fancy.
Then and now.
“Thanks, Draco, that’s really sweet. But I’m one hundred percent safe with Ronin.” Now Mal comes fully out of hiding, looking all First Girl proper in her plaid schoolgirl skirt and neatly buttoned blouse, socks pulled up to her bony knees, wild mane of copper curls tamed into pigtails with scraps of green plaid ribbon. The knapsack buckled to her back is bulging with textbooks, a hall monitor’s first aid kit’s strapped to her waist, and she’s toting the electric torch that provides the only practical source of light down here.
In other words, typical McSnicker.
Like a Girl Scout, she’s always prepared.
I’m eyeballing the shadows her torch doesn’t penetrate and wondering what happened to the werewolf (not to mention my own wolf, because Lucius is definitely supposed to be here) when the rapid echo of running feet fills the space. The brimstone whiff of rutting dragon hits my nose a beat before Max bursts in, golden eyes flaming and face fierce with rage.
Our dragon gives a good roar that makes the walls tremble. “Who threatens my mate!”
“Easy, love. Just a miscommunication between Mars and me, that was.” I downplay the whole murder attempt just to placate him. He’s excitable, Max is. If he shifts in here, he’ll bring the roof down.
Not so easy on my mates, is it, being bonded to the strongest telepath on this island? Especially now, when Max has his alpha dialed all the way up, because mating rut. Thank gods he’s not smothering me to death the way he does V and Zara.
He’s protective enough as is.
Now Max catches sight of the fallen axe and his nostrils flare. He eyes Draco with open suspicion. “What kind ofmiscommunicationinvolves a medieval weapon… and my mate!?”
