Page 108 of Gemini Queen
My impulse is the same as it always is with him, my talented and deadly prodigy, this rival alpha in my little pack. My instinct as a shifter is to give him his space and his privacy and accede to his demand for solitude.
But I’ve been giving Vasili his solitude since he joined mydomusthree-plus years ago, and keeping my distance hasn’t seemed to help. He doesn’t even go home for summer holidays like the rest of my students, and I have the sense it’s because there isn’t much of a home back at the Romanovdachanear Moscow or the family superyacht in the Seychelles to welcome him. They never contact him here either, and I sense they don’t want much to do with him, even if he is the Scorpio scion.
I struggle with my instincts for a moment, then slip into the room, because now there are two students who need me. “Where’s Ronin?”
“Sleeping with the little queen and Neo fucking Mercury after we broke his heat,” he says curtly. “She’s claiming both of them, in case their cozy little dynamic has escaped your notice. I’ll be exceedingly lucky not to lose him entirely. And if you’re going to write them all up for some sort of conduct violation, don’t fucking blame it on me.”
Ah. Perhaps this explains why my problem child here is so utterly out of sorts. Vasili despises Neo and his royalist clan beyond reason, and he’s jealous that his lover is sharing a bed with his rival.
But I suspect what’s truly troubling Vasili goes far deeper than that.
Vasili raises the half-empty bottle for a swig. The dry bite of vodka sears my lupine senses.
I vastly prefer Hungarianpalinkafor a sundowner myself, yet I find myself drawn inexorably closer to my troubled ward. Moving slowly so I don’t trigger his own instincts, I pad softly to the window seat. “Would you mind terribly if I join you for a nightcap, Mr. Romanov?”
This overture earns me a long look from his narrowed eyes. Against the backdrop of falling snow, his profile is delicate as a woman’s, all straight nose and sharp jaw and pretty lips parted over those little fangs he tries so hard to hide.
I keep my face open and my hands still at my sides. My goal is not to trigger him.
“Well, darling, it’s your funeral,” he says at last, and offers me the bottle.
I seize this moment to slide into the opposite end of the window seat, prop my back against the wall, draw my knees to my chest, and accept his bottle like a peace offering. The vodka scorches my sinuses and practically cauterizes my throat going down. Gasping, I take another long swallow of liquid fire before I pass the bottle hastily back.
Damnation. My eyes are watering.
“That’s a potent beverage,” I rasp.
“Only the best for a Romanov,” he mutters, turning back to the falling snow. He’s shutting me out again, the way we’re always shutting each other out.
“Mr. Romanov…” I begin, not at all certain how I mean to go on. I’m losing him as a student when he graduates this spring. In truth, I lost him long before that. I’ve been so careful of his shifter recessives, the same recessives that give him those fangs he loathes. I’ve been so scrupulous never to trigger him—or myself. We’re both alphas, even if he can’t shift, and nature intends one of two paths for the pair of us, neither of which I’ve cared to inflict upon him.
By giving him his space, I’ve left him alone.
Alone without a mentor for the obscure shifter legacy he hasn’t a clue how to manage. Somehow, tonight, he’s never seemed more alone.
And I’ve never felt more like a failure.
“Vasili,” I say softly. His startled gaze jerks toward me. His eyes are reddened, and I find myself wondering if he might have been weeping. An unfamiliar sentiment pings in my chest and twists my heart in knots. “I very much fear that I owe you an apology.”
“An apology?” His lips part in surprise. “For what?”
“For failing you as a teacher.” I reclaim the bottle from his slack hand and tilt it back for another blistering swallow. This drink is a form of penance for the cardinal sin of failure. “You’re the subordinate alpha in thisdomus. I’ve been so concerned to avoid fighting you that I’ve neglected my duty to teach you—”
“Who says I’m subordinate?” he sneers. The sudden spice of Mogadon aggression floods the night air. “I’m more your peer than your student.”
“Mr. Romanov, you’re a solid seven years my junior—”
“I’ll be twenty-three this summer. That’s six years,” he points out. “I’ll be teaching at this Academy myself next fall once the Dean accepts my application. Which, of course, she will.”
I’ve secretly suspected as much, but I’m quietly unsettled to hear my suspicions confirmed. Dear God in Heaven, we’ll never be rid of each other.
“Subordinate?” He flings the word at my head like a throwing knife. “I’ve more witchcraft in my little finger than you command in your entire shifter carcass. You’re a mangy beast with a knack for common magics. Whereas I’m the Scorpio scion and the most powerful telekinetic on this entire island. You can’t tolerate me because I threaten you.”
His accusation hits home with deadly accuracy. I know he’s saying these cutting things to warn me away. A day ago, even an hour ago, I’d simply have heeded his warning and gone.
But he’s wretched. And he’s alone.
Just as I’m alone, alone among the last purebred shifters of a dying race, and always have been.
