Page 128 of Gemini Hunted
That look makes me feel diminished, like an erring schoolboy, same as always. But that was always my father’s default mode when it came to managing me.
To diminish me.
Too bad for him, I’ve outgrown that charming tactic. I’ve outgrown his ability to hurt me.
At least emotionally.
Too bad for me, he’s always hadotherways to hurt me.
I keep a wary distance, because I know how brutally swift he is with a knife. (Who do you suppose taught me to use mine?) He’s Nikolai Romanov, head of the Arcane Investigative Bureau, and he clawed his way up that lethal ladder the deadly way. So I very carefully don’t eye the stairs behind him.
Still, he knows perfectly well where I’m going.
I deploy the Romanov eyebrow. “You can’t stop me,papochka,so you might as well save your breath.”
His own Romanov eyebrow lifts in response. “Oh, but I’m not trying to stop you.”
“Truly? Do tell.” Seeing my own familiar mannerism reflected in his face makes my chest ache. To hide it, I flash him the smug smirk he’s always hated. “You and your AIB hyenas. Your little kill squad may have given Lucius fleas, by the way. You’d best do a louse check on yourse—”
“Vasya.” My father’s quiet voice hardens. Now he eyes me with grim resignation. “It may interest you to learn that, in response to certain… unforeseen developments, I’ve chosen to alter my strategy.”
Something twists in my tender heart that feels a bit too uncomfortably close to pain.
But it can’t be that.
Because I learned to stop loving him, stop longing for his love in return, so very long ago.
“I suppose now you intend to kill me.” Try though I might, I can’t quite leach the bitterness from my voice. “It was always going to end this way, wasn’t it? I’m the queer son. I’mdefective. I’m the shameful secret you tried to hide away. But as one of Zara’s kings, I’ve now become a public disgrace.”
“Malchik.” Now it’s his turn for emotion, his smooth tenor vibrates with it, and I blink in surprise. Because one, he never allows himself to feel, and two, he hasn’t called memy boyin years. “Whatever else you are—you’re my only son. You’re the scion of the Scorpio clan. You were always meant to rule, that was my plan for you from the cradle.”
His slender body shifts, brow pinching with a hint of discomfort. If he were anyone else, he’d be wringing his hands and pacing. “For a long while, during your rather unfortunate adolescence, I believed your… sexual eccentricities… rendered you unsuitable for the crown. Over time, I’ve come to realize, my perception was in error.”
Belatedly Irealize I’m gaping at him like a dead fish. I close my mouth with a snap. “What exactly are you saying to me? And if you do intend to kill me, you’d better make it snappy,do,because Zara needs me in the Vault.”
“Bozhe moi. You are the most aggravating son any man could possibly have.” Under my taunting, the steely Nikolai Romanov finally gives way to a small sigh. “I’m not threatening to kill you. I’m proposing that I join you.”
Chapter Thirty-One
Zara
“Apparently now they just let anyone in the joint,” I tell my ex-bestie, adding an eye roll for attitude. “There goes the fucking neighborhood.”
I’m leaning in on the snark to cover up everything else I’m feeling, and I’m probably overdoing it. I’m choking on that bitter cocktail of anger and betrayal, garnished with residual loss and heartbreak, that I can’t seem to stop sipping.
So, for a chaser, I sling back a shot of resolve.
I mean, it’s not like I’m surprised to run into her. I didn’t even need my erratic dash of Valyrian foresight to know she’d be here.
Waiting for me.
So she can kill me. That’s the most likely scenario.
Though I am kinda surprised that she seems to be here alone.
“Evidently so.” Cleo’s shimmering stare slides over me, next to naked in my soaked lingerie, then shifts to Mordred’s ossified kraken, zapped while climbing from the pool. That’s when her head tilts and her tone turns curious. “That one is a friend of yours, yes?”
Her flicker of interest triggers my possessive side. This quantum superheat I’m suddenly rocking makes my hairpin emotional trigger ten times touchier.
