Page 121 of Gemini Hunted
I’ve noticed,I tell V through our mating bond, just for the comfort of the contact.
“And Lucius needs you, bad boy,” I finish out loud to V, so Mordred too can hear. “Okay, guys. Let’s go kick some sea dragon ass.”
Heart pounding against my sternum like orc drums in a Tolkien film, I press the mouthpiece of the mini scuba tank between my lips, fold my arms over the cylinder strapped to my chest, and drop over the edge into the shaft.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Mordred
Zara Gemini is more than a queen.
Hells’ bells, my girl’s a damn goddess.
I eel along at her heels through the cool flow of the underground river the shaft dropped us into. Her flashlight plays along the rough stone walls, slick with algae, as her sweet curvy body wiggles through the water like a mermaid.
I mean, if they had mermaids on this mortal plane.
Even in my human form, I got shifty senses, thanks to my kraken. Means I can sense the steady, tireless thud of Zara’s heartbeat pinging through my skin like sonar. I can taste the creamy peach of her mating scent in the back of my throat.
Like I said, that girl’s got rizz, for real. Her magnetic pull, that tidal force that’s been dragging me toward her since the first night I got a sniff of her unique personal magic back on Avalon? Shit’s way beyond the magical power of attraction she picked up when she became the Unseelie Queen. I’m not glamoured by her Unseelie crown. That’s not why I want her.
I want her because she’s Zara.
I want her because she’s mine.
I want everything she is and everything she stands for. Her and that found family of Lost Boy warlocks she’s knitted together like a quilt stitched in love.
Her and Babydoll and Cousin Z (the guy I’ve been crushing on since I was twelve)?
They’re the hill I’ll die on.
By now, the raw power of Zara Gemini’s pull sucks me after her like an undertow.
Girl’s a strong swimmer, even without fins or gear, and she’s handling the unexpectedly strong current and total lack of direction and disorienting underground darkness like a fucking Navy S.E.A.L. (They’re a thing on this plane, not some kinda seal shifter either, I read a story about these guys on the yacht.) The Horn of Ceres bobs at Zara’s hip, safely swathed in my pouch.
Still, I’m worried about the temp of this water.
Real worried.
Not that the cold bothers me, my kraken digs it, but Zara isn’t wearing neoprene. She’s naked except for a few scraps of lace. Her teal ponytail swirls behind her and her cute opal-painted toenails glitter in my enhanced eyesight.
I got a protective membrane that drops over my peepers when I dive. The gills behind my ears flutter open to filter in the oxygenated water I need to breathe and siphon out the spillage I don’t need. The saltwater tide buoys my big body and hugs me like a lover. My webbed feet propel me along behind my girl without effort.
I’m built for this.
But we’ve been down here a while, no lie.
And Zara’s little neon scuba tank only holds a few minutes’ worth of air.
When my girl curls around at a bend in the passage to anchor herself against a protruding rock—slick with seaweed—and shines her beam toward me, I’m ready to help. I lock onto her wide turquoise eyes, intent and worried behind her goggles. I know she needs her spare.
I anchor myself nice and steady next to her, sheltering her tiny body from the current’s pull, and help her swap tanks. A lotta divers would be freaking out, that’s the gods’ honest, this deep in a cave dive without proper gear, with only this meager stash of oxygen.
But Zara Gemini, badass queen of my heart, she be bussin’.
We finish the tank swap and she takes the lead again, kicking strongly with the current, the pale beam of her flashlight bobbing before us. Her strokes are sharp with urgency, because now we’re on her last tank.
And we’ve gone way too far down the shaft to turn back. Especially against this ebb tide.
