Page 84 of Gemini Hunted
Now chunks of pillar are whipping through the air, tentacles coiling and flexing, deafening booms of rockfall making my ears ring. I try to shove forward (you know, to see better). But Lucius grips me firmly, with an impressive show of shifter strength, and drags me behind one of the few remaining pillars into a meager cover.
I strain to peer around the column and see through the churning melee of flying rubble. Is that the violet glitter of V’s favorite combat boots, the ones he’s fucking wearing?
That does it. The suspense is literally killing me.
I bellow in the lightning voice, “Sweet fuck, Aquaman. Will you please hold up!”
The tangle of tentacles quivers and stills. From the sloshing depths of the reservoir, one dark round eye, burning with amethyst fire, rolls curiously toward me.
“Take it easy with that shit, will you? You’re gonna bring the rest of the roof down.” Gently I detach from Lucius’ protective grip. But I have to steel myself to move into plain sight, away from the safety of my alpha, and inch toward the kraken (flesh-eater, natch, I read about them in Elementary Monsters class last quarter) lying in wait in the black water.
But I’m the queen and I do it.
“You take it easy,” I tell that kraken in my queen voice. His beak opens like he’s gonna talk back, so I raise my hand to silence him. “I thought I saw—”
“Youdidsee…” a familiar voice murmurs “…us.”
The silky purr of Vasili’s voice is followed by the actual Goblin King. He emerges from a billow of rock dust, atypically disheveled, looking like some 1980s rock star straggling homefrom the club after an all-night bender. His gilded shag of hair is tousled, his cuffs are stained with dried blood that I devoutly hope isn’t his, and he’s got a goose egg swelling over one eyebrow like he’s been in a bar fight.
Zephyr scrambles through the rubble at his heels, deft and graceful despite being coated with dust like he’s been rolled in flour, crossed blades jutting over armored shoulders, eyepatch slashing through sharp Fae features. A worn backpack dangles from his hand.
At the sight of these two, a starburst of relief lights me up like Fourth of July fireworks. My heart explodes in a pinwheel of joy.
“Oh, my fucking God.” I launch myself at both of them, both my mates. I’m way too wildly relieved to find them both alive and ambulatory to even wonder what they’re doing together (since they hate each other). “Thank fuck you’re both okay—I mean,areyou both okay?”
We meet in a jumble of limbs and bodies, because they’re both intent on holding me and kissing me first. So we end up in a three-way hug, their arms around my waist, my arms thrown over their shoulders, with me kissing both of them simultaneously, which means the two of them are also kinda kissing each other.
Mmmm.
Three-way hug. Three-way kiss. Three-way everything.
This I can handle.
The cloves-and-nutmeg spice of Zephyr’s kiss mingles with the juniper bite of Vasili’s. The hot lick of Zephyr’s tongue meets the snakebite prick of Vasili’s fangs.
Wow. These two guys together, the two most intense warlocks in my harem? They’ve never worked together like this before.
They’re… a lot. Almost too much to handle.
Even for me.
I pull back to suck in a desperate breath, the leather-and-brimstone reek of dragon mixing with the caramel and musk of V’s Mogadon mating scent. Because my dominant alpha is scenting really heavily. My fingers skate over the tips of Zephyr’s ears (erogenous zone, always makes him shiver) and sift through V’s moussed-up mess of hair. I’m checking for hidden injury beyond that scary-looking lump on his cranium, but not finding any.
Me backing off the kiss lets them turn into each other, eating at each other’s mouths with savage intent. Just a lick of fiery kiss that’s somewhere between a warning and a promise.
Mmmm, that looks tasty,my dragon queen purrs.
“Doesn’t it?” I whisper back, wondering what the hell I missed. Because, until this exact moment, these two warlocks couldn’t stand each other.
I mean, not that I’m complaining…
Without looking away, I sense Lucius coming up behind me. I reach back and pull him into the hug. V surfaces from whatever intense thing is happening between him and Zephyr to claim Lucius in a hard devouring kiss. My headmaster rumbles at V to reassure him too, then rubs his jaw against Zephyr’s to scent him, which makes Zephyr smile (just for a blink).
“Hey, group hug! Can I join?” Mordred’s baritone purr pulls me out of the moment.
The incubus is bipedal again, God help us all, wiry hips and quads encased in those scaly pants that cut across the sinewy flex of his Adonis belt. Those pants seem to be part of the demon dress code, like the sealskin pouch slanting across his naked chest. The substantial lump inside that pouch shoutsHorn of Ceres here, hello!to my newly triggered clairvoyance.
Thank fuck, we’ve still got the prize.
