Page 127 of Gemini Hunted
My brain is my most potent weapon, and I need all my well-honed wits in the midst of this racket tothink.
By now, we must be under the massive gothic cathedral that houses the Academy classrooms, perhaps directly beneath the faculty offices in the crypt. That’s where we’ll enter the Vault.
Still, the thought of all that weight and mass of rock suspended over my head is oppressive. And unsettling.
“For fuck’s sake.” I glare repressively at the howling wolves. “Mustwe announce our approach to the entire Academy? Be quiet, darlings,do.”
Lucius’ wolf stops howling and gives me a hangdog look. His chestnut ruff bristles as he ducks his head and vigorously scratches one shaggy flank.
Christ.
If those mangy hyenas have given Lucius fleas, truly, I’ll be vexed. But not nearly as vexed as I’d be to find fleas on myself or Zara.
Imustremember to insist Lucius de-louse before the next time we all share a bed.
Sparing me an evil glare with those glowing green eyes that would curdle anyone’s blood, Jae Labête too falls sullenly silent. Surely no flea would ever dare trouble that beast.
Suddenly, with a ferocious snarl, Jae bounds up the dark stairs in great springing leaps that carry him swiftly from sight.
“Shit.” I slide a knife from the cache hidden under my Academy uniform, cuffs dappled with hyena blood and rather the worse for wear, and swing my flashlight up the stairs. “Run along, Lucius, and see if you can catch that Cajun. The fool’s running blind. We need torendezvouswith Ronin and the others straightaway.”
The wolf chuffs out a breath in agreement and trots up the stairs.
Left alone in the tunnel with my flashlight, I spare a moment to reach telepathically for Ronin, to search the twisty channels of my diabolical mind for the electric hum of our bond. My boyfriend’s psychic presence is wickedly strong. I can typically feel him coming a mile away.
Tonight, however, that special space our bond occupies— that Ronin-shaped niche in my head and my heart—stays dark and empty.
My chest plinks with a sharp ping of worry. The distant echo of a howling werewolf, almost too faint to discern even with my acute shifter senses, makes my scalp crinkle.
I swear, that howl sounds positivity deranged.
Surely, that ungodly sound isn’t rising from the catacombs behind me?
Truly.
Are we to be spared nothing? The mere thought of the slain werewolf king, zombified and raging in his sarcophagus, gives me the yuck.
Swiftly I cross the pitch-black tunnel to follow the two wolves up the stairs, guarding Lucius’ back, same as always—
“Vasya.”
The low murmur of a Russian voice, speaking my boyhood nickname, slithers from the dark stairwell.
I jolt to a halt.
A tall slim form slips into view, dressed to slay (literally) in the sleek black exfiltration gear of the professional spy and killer he is. His body armor is singed and corroded from Xhevith’s acid. Still, clearly, the gear saved his life.
So much for Zephyr’s claim of having killed him.
A claim I knew, in the depths of my twisted heart, was too good to be true. Even though, clearly, Zephyr believed it.
Every cell in my body hums and sparks with an electric charge of alarm. If I were Zara, I’d be hurling lightning.
I don’t need to see the pale face, framed in a sleek fringe of espresso-dark hair, emerging from the shadows to know him. I don’t need to breathe in his scent, so painfully familiar to me from childhood, of expensive red cedar laced with the acrid perfume of Russian cigarettes. Those cancer sticks are a cultural weakness—and the only personal vice he tolerates.
“Oh, it’syou.” I dial up my pissy gay boy attitude to ten and give my father a disappointed moue, merely to discomfit him. “I wondered when you’d turn up, like a badkopeck.”
My father’s discerning eyes, chocolate flecked with gold, slide over my disheveled uniform and blood-splattered sleeves. “I could say the same of you.”
