Gemini Queen

I pause in surprise, but his staff’s already sweeping around to knock my legs from under me. I vault straight up and barely avoid the takedown.

My downstroke catches his upstroke in a parry hard enough to make my bones vibrate.

“Why aren’t you in class?” I pant, backing off a step in case he’s had enough, having failed to ambush me with his sneak attack the way the imp clearly intended. “Never tell me Master Aries’ latest lecture on our inexorable march toward extinction failed to hold your interest.”

Ronin’s teeth flash in a savage grin. Instead of answering, he twists into another blistering attack, his inky tail of hair flying wide. He’s toed off his boots for stealth, but he’s still wearing tie and blazer and the rest of his rig, which hinders his impressive range and gives me a slight edge.

I’ll need it with him, because he’s listed as the Academy’s top-ranked fighter for a reason.

I deflect his scything blow with a grin of my own. “Very well, Pendragon, keep your sullen silence. If that’s the way you’d like to play this.”

We advance and retreat over the training floor, staffs connecting in a hail of staccato blows. He’s a thing of violent beauty, this enemy of mine, because we are deadly enemies in the entire world’s eyes.

By the time the witching world discovers our secret, we’ll have brought our ruling royals and their entire corrupt regime to its knees.

But today I have a different axe to grind.

“Why didn’t you come to my room last night?” I deflect his jabbing blow from my face—a blow that would have broken my perfect nose if it landed—and follow up with a sweeping riposte that would shatter his teeth, except he parries it. “I waited up for you.”

“Missed me, did you?” He grins and ducks my savage counterblow. “Entire domus was in an uproar, love, what with the Gemini bitch pitching up. I’m fairly certain Lucius and his wolf didn’t sleep a wink. Didn’t seem prudent, me creeping round the halls with a boner for my horrible rival.”

“Yes, well, your horrible rival doesn’t care to be kept waiting,” I purr, circling away to break his deadly rhythm. “Don’t do it again, or I’ll make you suffer.”

“Is that a promise then?” Ronin pivots to keep me in view, which is certainly wise. I’m still pissy at him for ignoring me, and I’m dead set on taking him down. “Out of curiosity, how will you make me suffer?”

“Hmmm.” I lower my bo and pretend to think it over. He’s a bit off today, because he actually takes the bait and lowers his guard as well. With a sudden grin, I dive in and administer a brisk tap to his ribs that will surely leave a bruise. “How will it be if I don’t permit you to climax for a full month?”

“Oh, I dunno, mate.” The bastard actually props his staff against the floor and leans against it as he pretends to think. “Suppose I’ll just have to make my long-delayed play for Neo Mercury. Believe he’s the only male student on this island I haven’t fucked—”

My lips peel back from my teeth in a snarl. With sudden savagery, I lunge for him.

He isn’t expecting it—as I’ve already said, he’s off today—so for once, my unpremeditated rush catches him off his formidable guard. He goes flying back, staff sailing from his hands, and lands flat on the mat with me straddling his hips.

I press my staff lengthwise against his throat to pin him.

“Neo Mercury is entirely out of bounds,” I hiss, keeping enough pressure under his chin to immobilize him. “Besides, you blockhead, he’s fucking straight.”

An assertion I’m virtually certain is a lie. But never mind.

“You sure about that?” His amber eyes mock me. “Is he out of bounds because you’re jealous over me? Or because you’re hot to pop his cherry yourself?”

My lip curls in disdain. As if that would ever happen. Mercury may be built like a Greek god and hung like the proverbial stallion, because you don’t share a bathhouse with someone without noticing that sort of thing. But his entire clan are sniveling royalists. Mercury harbors grandiose delusions of marrying the next queen and becoming the next king and making all of us bend the knee to him and his royal bitch.

As for myself, of course, I’m an unrepentant rabble-rouser.

Even leaving politics aside, Neo and I despise one another. We’re opposites in every single way. He’s only at the top of the Dean’s List because I don’t care enough to topple him from his pathetic pedestal.

The real problem with Ronin rubbing Neo and his presumably unpopped cherry in my face is that I’m fiercely jealous—not of Neo’s affection, but of Ronin’s. Mercury just so happens to be buff, built, rich, the smartest boy in school (after yours truly)… and, at the very least, bi-curious. The reason I know this is because he’s been eye-fucking my boyfriend for months.

I don’t want him anywhere near Ronin.

Now don’t mistake me. Ronin can fuck anyone on the planet he likes—except Mercury—because I’ll tolerate Ronin’s tawdry one-and-dones to indulge him.

But he always returns to me.

“You’re determined to provoke me today, aren’t you, darling?” Still pinning my lover to the mat with my staff, I straddle his hips and lean over him. The intimate contact brings my body flush with his lean sinewed torso, which delivers an instant jolt of heat to my cock. “Do you truly consider that wise?”

Ronin’s lids drop over his fiery eyes and his throat ripples as he swallows. When he answers, his voice drops two octaves. “Say I do provoke the great and terrible Vasili. How are you going to punish me?”

A wicked thrill of pleasure kicks my pulse into overdrive and shoots an arc of electric current through my shaft. The air floods with the dark musk of my Mogadon mating scent.

Clearly he’s in the mood to be punished and, Christ, I’m more than in the mood to oblige.

Holding the staff in place with one hand, I deftly loosen his tie with the other. He grins at me lazily, fully aware of the beast he’s just woken. Having unraveled his tie and draped it loosely around my own neck, I leave my staff lying crosswise over his throat to make my expectations clear—I want him to lie still and wait for me—then wrap my fists in his shirt.

One hard clench and his buttons go flying, revealing the black dragon spewing flames across his delicious chest and that flat column of abdominal muscle I never grow tired of tonguing.

I bend and drag my tongue over the burning silk of his abs and chest in a long slow swipe.

Damn, he’s hot to the touch. He tastes like salt and he smells like ambergris, but he’s been long enough away that he no longer smells like me. Instead, he’s redolent with a teasing hint of rose-and-vanilla sweetness.

And, more blatantly, the predatory reek of wolf.

My head snaps up to skewer him with an icy glare. “Did you fuck Lucius?”

Ronin’s eyes are heavy with arousal and his dick under his trousers is rigid. My sudden demand makes him frown and lift his head. “What’s that?”

“While the two of you were in Singapore,” I grind out, furious with him for making me ask twice. “Did you fuck him?”

“Oh fuck,” he grouses, head falling back to the mat with a sigh. “Bloody hell, not this again. Vasili, you’re not allowed to get jealous over Lucius.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.” I toss the staff aside and drag Ronin up by his open blazer to sit. “You reek of his fucking wolf.” Not to mention our fucking queen. But she’s a more complicated topic, one I intend to address separately and at length. “Did. You. Fuck. Him.”

“He fucking bit me, all right?” Ronin shifts under me like he’d really fancy me getting off him. That’s just too bad, because he’s insane if he thinks I’m backing off now. He knows Lucius makes me utterly mental.

“A mating bite?” I demand, incensed.

“A disciplinary bite. It’s nothing.” He shrugs his shoulders with a wince. An actual fucking wince. Now I’m more than suspicious.

I’m experiencing a mounting sense of concern.

“Let me see.” I push his blazer and shirt off his shoulders, ignoring his half-hearted effort to fend me off. My gaze narrows on the square of white gauze taped to his shoulder and speckled with blood.

“What the actual fuck?” I don’t think I’ve ever been more outraged. “Ronin, he hurt you. He hurt you.”

My damn stomach is tangled in knots and I find I can barely breathe. That fucking wolf bastard hurt my love.

I swear to Christ I’m going to tear out Lucius Aries’ throat.

“Pretty sure they’ll expel you from the Academy if you tear out a teacher’s throat.” Ronin grins suddenly, because of course he’s Valyrian, and he’s gotten me so worked up that I’ve forgotten entirely to shield my thoughts. “Does it really bother you that much?”

Well, we’re certainly not embarking on that conversational voyage. I spend my days terrorizing the entire student body and my nights shielding my thoughts from the island’s dominant telepath to ensure he never guesses the alarming intensity of my foolish feelings. Feelings which render me dangerously vulnerable if anyone ever learns the truth.

He’s my greatest weakness and my deadliest secret. If anyone ever hurts him, they’ll destroy me.

And there are so many in the witching world who yearn to destroy me.

“You need this wound tended and this bandage changed, and this isn’t a point I intend to negotiate,” I state firmly, gathering my wits to rise. “I’ll fetch the first aid kit. You’ll stay right here if you know what’s good for you—”

“Vasili.” His hands land on my waist.

And I’m such a pathetic slave to the dangerous witchcraft of Ronin Pendragon that I freeze obediently, precisely as he wishes, and wait patiently (for me) to hear him out.

“Well?” I raise my signature eyebrow and give him the Romanov look.

“I missed you too,” Ronin murmurs, his gaze dropping to my mouth. “Like… a lot.”

A frustrated groan claws from my throat. I dive down and he lunges up and our mouths collide in a scorching kiss.