Page 99 of Gemini Hunted
Too bad now isn’t the time or the place.
“Once we win this Dean’s Challenge?” I breathe in reply, all sexed-up and throaty. “Sign me the hell up for that.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Mordred
“Do you smell something funky?”
The Gemini queen’s whisper barely stirs the heavy silence as the chick and her warlock court wind down the tight coil of the catacomb stairs in single file, with me and my Horn in the middle, like a conga line on a cruise ship.
Only without the booze.
That’s a real shame.
From the front, where the redheaded witch’s broad-beam flashlight sweeps the dark like a lighthouse beacon, the professor’s whisper drifts back. “Indeed, I do. The odor is redolent of manure, rather like… livestock. Wouldn’t you say, Mr. Labête?”
“Ah, smells like a barn to me,oui?” the werewolf says in his thick bayou growl. “And under the stink of animal shit… I smell death.”
“Go figure.” Zara snorts and edges away from the grisly banister of human bones that mooches along inside the spiral stairs, guarding the deep black drop into infinity in the middle. We already shined our flashlights down there, but that pit’s hella deep.
Too deep to see the bottom.
“Animal, huh?” I take a good sniff myself, but my cranium’s already swimming with the creamy rose and citrus haze of Zara’s heat. Laced with the rich musk of Babydoll—my new lord and master—the drippy punk rock warlock with the cold hands and the hot eyes who’s breathing down my neck.
Just a whiff of Vasili’s Mogadon pheromones makes heat pulse through the double puncture of his bite on my neck. Despite the dank breeze wafting up from the abyss, that heat ripples over my bare skin and makes me sweat.
I already got one hand planted on Zara’s tiny waist, kinda guarding her from that scary drop. Now my free hand rises to find the inflamed punctures at the side of my neck.
From behind, the warlock’s cool fingers brush my heavy mane of hair outta the way. “Is my bite troubling you, demon?”
“Feels kinda achy,” I admit. “Might need you to kiss it better, bae.”
Because isn’t that what these alpha shifters are supposed to do? That’s what Lucius the prof said. Babydoll—Vasili—he’s supposed to take care of me.
It’s all I can manage not to laugh out loud. Like the mortals say, LOL. If he does take care of me, that’ll be a change. He’d literally be the first.
Babydoll’s hot whisper slithers into my pointed ear.
“It’s a mating bite. You need to be fucked.”
The heat pulsing through my body gathers in my junk. This time I give in to a low chuckle. “I amsototally down with that plan.”
Zara’s little hand snakes back to thread her fingers through mine. “Can I watch?”
“Me too?” The bookworm’s hopeful voice rises behind Vasili.
I’m kinda flattered at the attention, no lie, since I’m not even working right now to rizz anyone up.
Neo’s schlepping that kitten and a loaded backpack, but the guy doesn’t sound winded. He’s an appealing kid, for real, with those soft curls falling around his earnest face and those big eyes blinking behind his schoolboy specs. Definitely a royal favorite, the way Zara cuddles and loves on him. Plus I’ve seen Cousin Z give him that predatory once-over that tells me Neo Mercury’s got a hot date coming with the St. Andrew’s Cross fuck-me furniture suspended over the Dark Fae King’s royal bed back in Avalon.
“Ain’t got no problem with that,” I say from the heart. “Truth. Hells, you can all join right in if you—”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Babydoll says coolly, like the pissy little bitch he can sometimes be. “I’m your alpha.”
“Well, whatever you decide,alpha,” Zara says wryly, “you better decidesoon.I guess maybe you don’t know this, Mordred, but alpha shifter spunk is laced with biochemicals to break a mating fever.”
“Yeah, and that’s a major thing,” Neo pipes up. “Ronin got mating fever after Lucius first bit him. Only Ronin was sulking and wouldn’t let Lucius take care of him. He almostdied—I mean Ronin—before Lucius kinda took matters into his own hands, I mean paws. They’re both totally in love now, but that’s how Lucius and Ronin first hooked up—”
