Page 87 of Gemini Queen
Her throat moves as she swallows. “I’d never summoned lightning before, but I was coming into my power, and that’s the first time I did it. I was trying to focus it on the men who were hurting us, but it was fucking bedlam in there, lights out, alarms screaming, the roof on fire, and she was fighting me, she was crazy, she wanted to kill every person in that casino. I was trying to control it but… Lucius…”
She covers her face with her mittened hands and drags in a ragged breath. “I hither. The first and only time in my life I ever summoned lightning, I blasted my own mom. I blasted her to a fuckingcinder.”
This is it.
The secret truth she’s been running from for five lonely years.
I want to wrap my entire body around her to shield her from the pain. I want to swear on my soul that I’ll never let anyone hurt her. I want to rule at her side and make the entire witching world bow down to her in worship.
But every single thing I want with Zara Gemini is wrong.
The wind tears the black ribbon from her ponytail and sends it spiraling away in the wind. She pushes out a shaky breath, wipes her eyes with her mittens, and finishes in a whisper. “It was a mistake, all of it, I… can’t even remember much after that. But when the dust settled, eighty-seven people were dead. Including her. And I’m the one to blame.”
“Zara,” I breathe, while my wolf whines and scratches at my skin. He wants out. He’s desperate to comfort her. “My precious heart. You were just a child. Nothing that happened was your fault.”
“No, but it was.” She squares her shoulders and locks onto my gaze. Her hair flutters in the wind like blue-green flames. “Don’t you get it? If I hadn’t fought her… if I hadn’t foughtthem… if I just let those guys do what they wanted—”
“No! Zara—just—no.” As a scholar, words are typically my slaves, but today they utterly fail me. I know it’s far from wise, but I can’t help reaching for her.
Just to smooth the wild tangle of hair from her face.
I never wear gloves because my wolf won’t tolerate them, he barely tolerates me wearing shoes, and ribbons of her untamed hair wrap around my fingers. I can’t seem to stop myself from cradling her beautiful face between my clumsy hands and wiping away with my thumbs the silver traces of her tears.
Her skin is sleek as satin and cold as stone. Yet color and heat flood into her face under my touch.
My heart thunders, hard and fast, beating only for her.
“You can trust me, my queen,” I rasp through the tightness that clenches my chest. “I swear I’ll protect you. I swear I’ll teach you to claim your power. And I swear I’ll keep you safe.”
Her thick lashes flutter against her skin and her teeth sink into her lower lip. “I want to believe you, Lucius. I do. If there’s anything at all to that Royal Culpability theory, I don’t want the four races to die. But… now you know what happened… what I did…”
“You were a child who suffered an appalling assault.” My wolf bares his teeth in rage. “That will never happen to you again. If you hadn’t killed those men, I swear on my soul I’d hunt them down and kill them myself.”
Her mittened hand rises to land on my chest.
Even through all those layers between us, her chaste touch makes me burn for her.
“You think you’d kill for me?” she whispers, her face haunted. “You don’t even know me. Maybe I deserve what happened.”
I trace the sweet curve of her lower lip with my thumb. The immutable truth rises straight from my heart. “I may not know all of you. But I know that I’m yours.”
“My teacher?” A whimsical smile plays over her lips. “My mentor? My courtier?”
“Yes, damn it, all of that.” The words tear roughly from my throat. “If that’s all you want from me.”
Mischief flares in her turquoise eyes. I know with a swelling sense of inevitability that I’m doomed.
I’m hers.
She owns me.
I burn to shove her against the wall and wrap her legs around my waist and rut into her until both of us see stars. I ache to pin her face-first to the wall and pound into her from behind until she sobs with pleasure. I yearn to send her home with her panties shredded and her skin reeking of wolf and my seed dripping down her thighs, leaving absolutely no doubt in anyone’s mind that our queen is thoroughly mine.
My palate tingles under the press of my fangs, and I know my eyes are glowing red.
She sucks in a gasp and holds my wicked gaze.
Then, playfully, she tilts her head and muses. “I’m told I seem to be in a claiming mood. How much can I claim of you, Lucius Aries?”
