Page 9 of Gemini Hunted
“Hopefully he’s gonna do like Zara asked?” I offer. “Flying decoy, like Max, on the other side of Icarus?”
Those two guys—Max and Zephyr—are two of the most visible warlocks in Zara’s harem, at least when they’re on the wing. So their job is to draw Cleo and her gang of hunters away from the Emerald Grotto, where Zara’s new powers tell her the Horn of Ceres is hidden. Max left, grumbling and suspicious, to do his part hours ago, like Zara told him (even if under extreme protest, due to the fact that Max is in the middle of a mating rut and really broody).
But Zephyr balked and wouldn’t go at all. Just flatly refused to leave his bride unprotected.
That exact phrasing is what set Vasili off.
Like our queen is Zephyr’s and not ours.
Like the rest of us aren’t strong enough to protect our cherished one without Zephyr.
“Hope so,” Ash mutters. “With him, it’s kinda hard to say. Sparrow’s all up in his head about that demon.” Neatly he collects my empty mug, rinses it out, then parks it next to his in the galley sink. “He’s been pretty twitchy since Mordred showed up outta the blue like that for Zara, then skedaddled before the rest of us could nab him like we planned.”
“Half incubus, half kraken,” I agree morosely, because Mordred the demon shifter has been on all our minds. “Definitely doesn’t help that Zara still won’t tell us what he said—or did—when he materialized last night. Plus Zephyr already hates that demon’s guts for trying to usurp the Dark Fae throne. Just what wedidn’tneed following us from Avalon.”
“Truth.” Ash slings a brawny arm around my neck (which is contact I have to remind myself firmly isn’t meant to be sexual) and steers me toward the door. “Guess it’s safe for you and me to come out now. Anyway, you gotta hop back in that dinghy soon for the pickup. Maybe you can take poor Lucius with ya. Figure the guy could probably use a little breather from all that Vasili drama.”
“That’s a safe bet.” My wry grin dissolves into a worried frown. “I just wish we knew where Cleo’s hiding. We really need to find her, Ash. Beforeshefinds Zara.”
Chapter Three
Zara
I’ve never been this close to Cleo in her sea dragon form.
I mean, until a few days ago, I didn’t even know my ex-bestiehasa sea dragon form.
I know her favorite champagne and the type of oyster she pairs it with. I know the cons that always work best for her when she grifts and how to use her shady skills to my advantage whenever we’d run a heist. I know how to massage her aching feet after those endless hours she spent walking the runways during Paris Fashion week, while I burgled high-end hotel safes to finance our living-on-the-edge lifestyle. I know how to make her laugh and I know how to make her moan.
What I don’t know is what happens next.
With my heart jackhammering against my sternum and my mechanical breath rasping fast and noisy in my ears, I stare through my visor straight into oblong golden eyes the size of serving platters. In the blinding glare of my flashlight, as a school of tiny purple fish darts between us, the protective membrane drops over her orbs. Her pupils constrict to menacing vertical slits.
My throat closes in dread. I angle the flashlight out of her eyes and let it play warily over the rest of her.
Sweet Jesus. She’s massive.
She’s a monster.
Nostrils pinch closed over a wicked muzzle split by rows of needle-sharp teeth. Snaky tendrils of crimson sea dragon crest undulate like eels in the tide. The slow rhythmic flare of gills opens and closes behind her vast jaws. The sinuous coil of her body glimmers—merlot with glints of copper—in my wavering light.
My hand is so unsteady, with the adrenaline rush flooding every synapse, I can barely hold the flashlight.
My own inner dragon has never confronted another queen, except those scrawny ferals on Avalon who always cringe and defer to her. In any population, my dragon has always been the dominant queen.
If not the only queen.
Now she’s snout to snout with a rival who’s older, bigger, possibly stronger than she is.
And shereallydoesn’t like it.
While my agitated dragon trumpets and batters her wings against the fragile shell of my human skin, I’m holding off my shift by my fingernails.
You can’t breathe underwater, showgirl,I remind my inner queen, teeth clenched around the mouthpiece of my respirator so hard my jaws ache.And you can’t swim either, remember? If we shift down here, we’re shark meat.
My dragon emits a frustrated whine. But she eases back (a little) on that forced shift bullshit. Of course, like any diva, she resists and resents the hell outta every inconvenient shred of logic.
But it’s still the truth.
