Page 22 of Gemini Hunted
In complete outrage, my glare crackles across the salon, past the grinning demon, to electrocute Vasili. I mean, metaphorically speaking. Believe me, if I could hurl bolts of lightning with my eyes, that snake would be a smoking crater in Neo’s dad’s carpet right now.
“Wait a sec. You fuckingbithim?”
That outraged question is mine, it literally flew out of my mouth on its own the second I got a look at that demon’s neck.
“Well, darling, I needed to communicate with him over a distancesomehow, didn’t I?” Vasili waves a slender hand, glittering with chunky punk-rock rings, in casual dismissal of my mounting fury. “Besides, it’s hardly a mating bite. It’s adisciplinarybite, simply to reinforce my authority over the creature. The exchange was entirely non-sexual, believe me.”
“Speak for yourself, babydoll.” The demon pivots to address him, every heavy shift of that potent male body screaming sex. “I’m an incubus, true? When you’re me, everything’s sexual. Including discipline, in case you’re curious.”
Vasili surveys his posturing with the look of supercilious disdain my entire harem has dubbed the Romanov eyebrow.
“You have cisgender hetero male written all over every inch of your ridiculous half-naked body,” Vasili says loftily. “I certainly assumed you’re straight.”
“I’m pan. And you’re drippy, for real. It all works for me. Works for me fiiiine.” Mordred lifts the Horn of Ceres to his mouth to cover his grin and eyes V over the gleaming crescent like he’s the fucking Cheshire Cat. “If you didn’t wanna get me off, guess you shoulda asked before you summoned me and then bit me.”
Vasili eyes him coldly over his cocktail. That snake looks like he already regrets whatever fuckery he secretly got up to with Mordred.
But not as much as he’s gonna regret it by the time I’m finished.
“Yousummonedhim?” I plant my hands on my hips and scowl at V. “Sothat’show he got over here from Avalon to this side of the portal? Jesus. How do you even know how to summon demons?”
Because I’m pretty sure they don’t teach that shit at the Icarus Academy. Not even in Senior Seminar, which V just finished.
I mean, Neo’s already devoured that whole textbook (even though he’s only a junior) andhe’snot summoning demons.
“That pointy-eared Unseelie tyrant you’re currently fucking possesses an adequate library of arcane texts in Avalon. I merely… borrowed one.” Vasili takes a delicate nibble of his cocktail olive. His cruel mouth curls in a secretive smirk. “Oh, darling, don’t look so worried. I intend to return it… and the demon. Eventually.”
Ronin mutters a foul curse under his breath. Neo snuggles up against Ronin for comfort and looks dubious.
Mordred just chuckles under his breath like he’s an imp instead of an incubus.
I glare straight at my dominant alpha. “Cheese on toast, Goblin King. Like we don’t have enough problems around here with this contest and Cleo and your dad and my superheat? Now we got this piece of work—” I gesture toward the demon “—who wants to overthrow Zephyr and steal his throne right out from under him? How could you possibly bite him… any kind of bite, even if it wasn’t supposed to be sexual… without telling us? What the fuck were you think—?”
“Now that’s where you’re wrong, baby queen.” Casually, like he’s lobbing a sandwich wrapper in the trash, Mordred dumps the priceless artifact he’s holding back into his sealskin pouch. “My brother Lothian—you know, the guy whose head got lopped off?Hewanted the Dark Fae throne, for real. Kinda fixation for that cat.”
Involuntarily my mind’s eye zooms in on the severed Fae head Zephyr left in my bedroom at thedomus. He called it a bridal gift… then seemed genuinely perplexed when I wasn’t delighted.
The last I knew, he buried that head in ourdomusgarden. To fertilize Dez’s roses.
I mighta mentioned that Dark Fae King I just mated is kinda feral?
“If memory serves,” Lucius says mildly, cupping his chin and surveying the demon with interest, “the late Lothian was a bit more than your brother. He was your twin, wasn’t he?”
“Yeah. Fraternal. But that don’t mean shit in the demon world. Me?” Mordred grimaces in the first display of (possibly) genuine emotion I’ve seen from him. “I went after Cousin Z’s throne because I was bound to it. Under a summoning spell.”
Keenly interested, Lucius leans forward. “Bound to it by whom?”
“By the Unseelie chick who summoned me outta the demon realm to Avalon. That dame was old school aristocrat, real cozy with old Queen Maeve. Zephyr was his mom’s rival for the throne, true? So my summoner, Maeve’s ally, she wanted Z gone. Condition of my release, you feel me?”
“What, never fancied that throne for yourself?” Ronin wraps a protective arm around Neo, who nestles trustingly against him, and chuffs out a skeptical breath. “Who’s this bloke trying to fool? Three pence short of a shilling, he is.”
Suddenly I find myself wondering if Mordredcanlie.
The pureblooded Dark Fae, like Zephyr, can’t.
But this guy’s half demon.
“Sure, hot stuff.” The incubus in our salon swings his sealskin pouch and smiles. “Ain’t saying I didn’t enjoy it. Got under Cousin Z’s skin, for real, so it was kinda trippy. But when babydoll here summoned me through the portal—” He gives Vasili an easy nod “—your dude broke my previous summoning bond. That’s how it works. Now I’m bound to him. He’s my new summoner. I gotta do what he asked when he summoned me into his circle.”
