Page 1 of Gemini Hunted (Dark Witch Academy #5)

Zara

The shark comes at me out of nowhere.

Minutes ago, I was somersaulting backward off the Filibuster ’s gunwale, with my dive mask and regulator held to my face so the choppy wind-whipped surf off Icarus Island wouldn’t knock my mask loose or my mouthpiece off.

Despite the danger of this stunt we’re about to pull, I was even enjoying the tropical warmth of the Med. I mean, the water’s warm in comparison to the gale-force winds that buffeted our bodies in the dinghy.

Of course, we’d need to do this dive on the edge of the worst tropical cyclone this ocean has seen in decades.

Encased in a black wetsuit, Ronin’s powerful frame knifed into the churn beside me, sleek and deadly as a barracuda, dark ponytail streaming in his wake.

Holding his own mask in place with one hand and gripping his speargun with the other.

Barely lit by the little lantern in the Filibuster ’s prow, I curled my arms overhead in the diver’s universal signal to the pilot to give the all clear .

As the rubber dinghy motored away under Neo’s careful steer through the boulder-strewn surf, I ducked under the wavetops, switched on my flashlight to get my dive buddy and me both oriented, and used the fins strapped on my feet to propel myself deeper.

Ronin swam at my side, speargun tucked close to his streamlined body. Guarding my ass the same way he guards my heart.

For better or worse, all our words have been said.

Back on the yacht a nautical mile out, we left Vasili and Zephyr practically at each other’s throats.

And not in a good way. (They’re warlocks, not vampires.)

Ronin and me?

We agreed to get under this tropical storm, like, ASAP. Top priority. Under the violent churn of this storm-tossed sea, our prize is waiting.

God knows, these powerful currents haven’t been making this deadly contest any easier. I’m a strong swimmer and a hella experienced diver. But this is red flag weather—and then some.

Plus I’m tiny.

These waves have been throwing around my little body, hindered by my gear and the heavy cylinder of compressed air strapped to my back. Making me bob along the dangerous tides that swirl around the rocky cliffs of Icarus Island at midnight like a buoy busted free from my anchor.

Until a whiplash of vicious undertow ripped Ronin from my side. In a blink, his powerful body was gone. Vanished.

I swept the beam of my flashlight through the inky depths and reached through our telepathic bond.

Ronin! You okay?

After an alarming silence, his reply bounced back like a sonar ping.

No worries, love. I’ve got this. Meet you in the grotto, yeah? Current’s headed straight for it.

The worst of my tension eased its grip. Ronin’s solid in the water, trained and certified in the choppy surf of the Irish Sea. Plus he’s more than my dive buddy.

So I trust him.

Same way he trusts me.

Besides, it’s not like we have a choice. That big fat zero currently sitting on our team’s scoreboard for our witch academy finals isn’t gonna correct itself.

Roger that, I shot back. Stick to the plan—and watch yourself till I get there, for real. See you at the grotto.

I thumbed the button to bleed air from the inflatable BCD zipped around my torso, shedding buoyancy and swimming deeper, looking to hitch a ride on the same current.

Struggling to sink under the surge and get farther away from the highly visible orange dinghy having its own problems in this storm, even with Neo’s capable hand on the tiller—

That’s when I see the shark.

Arrowing straight up from the inky depths into the searching beam of my flashlight.

Like that fucker’s just been waiting for us to stop dicking around and make our play for the enchanted artifact hidden in the Emerald Grotto that every witch and warlock at this Academy is hunting.

The steel-gray wedge of a sharky head, nightmare jaws grinning over a corpse-white belly the size of the Goodyear Blimp, explodes from the darkness like a shout.

A spurt of elemental terror plunges my body into an icy vat of fight-or-flight shock. Adrenaline floods every cell and synapse of my body like a bolt of lightning.

Except I can’t summon lightning when I’m submerged.

Even though I am an actual lightning witch.

As the shark barrels toward me, a yell claws up my throat and bursts past my lips in a rush of bubbles.

I barely remember to keep my teeth clamped around my mouthpiece, so I don’t lose my oxygen source and drown.

As I twist to snatch the serrated dive knife from my belt, flashlight playing wildly over the streamlined contours of the shark attack I’m about to experience, I have a split second to process that I’m gonna be the first dragon shifter queen in the history of the witching world to get eaten by a great white shark.

My inner dragon, who’s afraid of the water and can’t swim a stroke when I’m shifted, bugles in helpless rage.

Still caught in the wind-whipped currents near the surface, an errant riptide spins me away from the shark’s grinning snout.

Helpless in the cyclone’s grip, I sweep my knife in a wicked slice.

(Thankfully, it’s a U.S. Navy combat blade and made for this shit.) I’m aiming for the carnivore’s dead black eye.

Too bad, as I go spinning past, I only manage to score the gunmetal-gray snout.

Despite my sucky aim, a random pass of my flashlight (which I’m clutching in a death grip) plays through the water over an inky swirl of blood.

I could swear that shark snarls at me.

Right before the monster’s freight train momentum sweeps him out of sight with a powerful flick of his rear caudal fin.

My breath, amplified by the Darth Vader rasp of my regulator, scrapes loud and ragged in the undersea hush.

My panicky heart hammers against my sternum in the dark, sending frantic electrical impulses that shout here I am for any shark in sensing distance.

My skinny beam of light searches desperately (and fruitlessly) through the murk.

That’s when the thought that’s been tugging at my sleeve for attention finally penetrates the clamor of alarm bells ringing in my head.

A great white is a cold-water shark.

There are no great whites in the Med.

Which means the shark that almost swallowed me in a single gulp must be our resident great white shifter.

Malcolm Uranus.

Malky’s a nasty piece of work, even nastier than his brother Lev. He’s part of the House Tiberius clique of bullies that supports my vicious bitch of a rival for the witching world throne. Those bullies are taking their finals as a team, just like me with my house.

And with one prize, there can only be one winner.

I can’t see him anywhere. But I know he’s out there.

Ronin! I broadcast in all directions and hope like hell my guy’s still in receiving range (because he’s the strongest telepath at Icarus, but even he has his limits). Shark! I think it’s Uranus.

I wait for the powerful ping of Ronin’s callback…

And wait.

Hey, Adam? That’s my nickname for my guy, who’s a literal doppelg?nger for Kylo Ren from Star Wars. You still with me?

Nada.

Cheese on toast.

Not good.

Has that shark swallowed him in a single bite? Or has the riptide swept me way beyond my mate’s impressive psychic range?

I sneak a peek at the illuminated dial of my dive watch.

Check out the compass and depth gauge on the dial to orient myself and steady my jittery vitals.

Already forty feet down, so swimming for the surface would put the shark under me, which any kinda Jaws fan could tell you is a bad idea.

Besides, what the hell would I do up there on the surface?

By now, Neo and the Filibuster are long gone.

Steady there, showgirl , I tell myself (and my fretful dragon). We got a job to finish down here. Then we can vamoose.

Grimly I swing my flashlight east toward shore. That’s where I’ll find the Emerald Grotto. That’s where I need to go.

Plus, the entrance to that undersea cave is too snug to accommodate Malky’s big ass shark.

My searching beam sweeps across a thick stub of stalagmite—one of the frequent rocky pinnacles that litter this coast and make it so treacherous. (That’s why the yacht’s moored so far out.) I put my fins to use and swim for cover, working crosswise to the current’s strong pull.

When I reach the rocky crag, crusted with coral and thick with fronds of seaweed that sway hypnotically with the tide, I tuck in against the thing, putting its reassuringly solid bulwark squarely at my back. I need to be careful not to get tangled up in the foliage.

But if I do, that’s why I have the knife.

Besides, I really wanna lose that shark before I cross the open stretch of cove to the grotto.

Floating in a kelp forest with my O2 tank scraping the rock behind me, I clutch my knife and flashlight and wage a brief inner battle. Chilled to the bone by the unforgiving knowledge of the next thing I need to do.

Then I suck in a breath, pull up my big girl panties, and switch off my light.

This far down, impenetrable darkness descends like a blanket.

The harsh mechanical rasp of my breath fills my ears.

I work on slowing my respiration, so my frantic heartbeat isn’t ringing the dinner bell for every shark in the neighborhood.

(Not that the possibility of multiple sharks in my immediate neighborhood is a thought I wanna dwell on).

Shit.

I can’t feel Ronin in our bond, like, anyfuckingwhere.

Neo, who’s my fated mate and thus also linked to me, is way outta range.

With any luck, Neo’s back at the yacht with the rest of my unhappy harem, talking down Zephyr (a non-diver) from his testosterone-fueled threat to hightail it after me. All of them weathering these worsening seas till we rendezvous at the extraction point—with the artifact.

With any luck, Ronin’s at the grotto already.

With any luck, Ronin’s got the Horn of Ceres snatched and securely squirreled away in his game bag right now.

Fuck. We’re never that lucky.

Or maybe Ronin’s much closer. Searching for me. And I just can’t feel him because there’s a nullifying object in play. Possible, because the bad guys at House Tiberius have one of those. Yeah, like a magical artifact that blocks the telepathic bonds between me and my warlocks.

This alarming mental calculus, which I’m doing to stay sane and not piss myself in a shark-fueled panic, ticks along to the inevitable outcome.

If Malcolm Uranus is in the water and there’s a nullifying object in play, that must mean she’s close.

My ex-bestie, ex-partner-in-crime, ex-lover. Ex-everything. My vicious rival for the witching world crown.

The mortal world knows her as celebrity supermodel Cleo Ferrari. To the witching world, she’s the current queen’s chosen heir.

Cleopatra Aquarius.

To me, she’s always just been Cleo.

My entire body prickles with a thrill of alertness, like a smack of jellyfish stinging my skin in the dark. My survival sense is already going haywire (because shark). But the cold finger of nerves sliding down my spine magnifies that creepy sense of watching eyes tenfold.

I literally can’t stand it.

Just waiting in the dark for the steel vise of carnassial jaws to close around my torso—from above or below—and bite me in two.

I’m breathing too hard, sucking down precious oxygen. Close to hyperventilating, judging by the swirly sense of vertigo that’s overtaking me. If not for the solid presence of the big rock at my back, I’d be totally disoriented in this floaty darkness.

That sense of being watched by hostile eyes deepens. The floating tendrils of my ponytail tickle my face like ghostly fingers. Ropes of slimy seaweed slither against my limbs like snakes. Cold seeps through my shortie, my naked legs are icy, and my chest is tight.

No matter how deeply I breathe, I can’t seem to pull enough air into my lungs. Maybe my O2 is already running low. Maybe my valve is leaking. But I can’t see the gauge (which is on the tank behind me).

Straight up, I can’t see fuck-all down here without my flashlight.

I’m a goddamn sitting duck.

This is bullshit.

I’m Zara Gemini. Royal wild child. Badass general of the witching world rebellion.

I can’t stay here forever, cowering against this rock like a clingfish. People up there are counting on me.

Plus, what if Ronin’s in trouble? What if my dive buddy needs me?

The best thing I can do right now—the only thing, TBH—is to follow the plan and head for the grotto.

Shark or no shark.

Overcome by the drive to take some action, any action, even if only to reorient myself and banish the bogeyman of my runaway imagination, I swing up my flashlight and switch on the light.

To my fully dilated pupils, the narrow beam is blinding.

As my pupils constrict to pinpricks, something takes shape in my little light.

A wicked wedge of head, sheathed in crimson scales and crowned with a crest of scarlet tentacles that float like Medusa snakes in the current.

Two malignant golden eyes, slit by narrow vertical pupils like a goat’s, glare into mine from barely six feet away.

A deadly muzzle parts to reveal a mouthful of needle-sharp teeth.

That head alone is the size of my whole self. Sensed more than seen, the vast weight of a massive body hovers in the twilight behind.

An electric jolt of recognition spikes my vitals, because this is a monster I’ve seen before.

Just never this close.

I’m staring straight into the clever eyes of a sea dragon.

The only sea dragon that exists in the whole witching world, because they’re supposed to be extinct.

Specifically, I’m floating—alone and helpless forty feet down, armed only with a knife—within killing reach of the sea dragon shifter who’s my most vicious enemy.

I’m staring at Cleo.

Here in her element, I’m pretty much at her mercy.