Page 29 of Gemini Hunted (Dark Witch Academy #5)

Mallory

This is the most dangerous spell I’ve ever tried to cast.

Knowing Draco and my long-lost brother are both outside with the others, hurling themselves into danger to protect me from an AIB kill squad while I invoke this dangerous magic?

Knowing my friend and her entire harem trust me, Mallory McSnicker, the carrot-haired running joke of the whole Academy, to save the day?

Knowing it’s on me and my mediocre witchcraft to defend the rightful queen and keep the torch of rebellion alight?

Not helping.

Now the distant tyrannosaur bellow of Max’s dragon (scary as heck) startles me so badly I fumble and drop my amethyst.

Welp, there goes the last chunk of crystal I need to ward the four quadrants of that protective pentacle I’ve chalked into the rough stone floor.

Propelled by my jittery nerves and that dragon’s frustrated roar—or just by my usual clumsiness—the precious crystal skitters across the floor with a chink-chink-chink that echoes off the ancient walls.

“Darn it!” I lunge after the stone and trip over my own big feet, clunky in my saddle shoes.

As usual.

I end up sprawled on the floor, palms abraded and knees stinging, nerves jangling in alarm over my near-faceplant.

But the blush scorching across my face?

That’s worse. Way worse.

Way to go, McSnicker. I swallow down a sigh of resignation. It’d be so great if you could save the witching world without tripping over your own feet. Just once.

You know, for a novelty.

“Whoa, Mal, you okay?” Zara stops pacing to scoop up the fallen amethyst and rushes to help me up.

But Jae reaches my side first.

“Eh, bébé , you be more careful, you,” my guy murmurs tenderly.

While I scramble to get my feet back under me, Jae wraps an arm around my waist from behind. Which definitely heats me up, both in my face and… other places.

For reasons.

My distracted brain rushes straight to the savage way my werewolf shoved me facedown over Draco’s dorm room bed this morning, spread my quivering thighs wide, and railed me until my knees turned to jelly and I creamed all over his dick.

Then Draco cleaned us both off.

Really thoroughly.

With his tongue.

I’m still breathless and tingly with that memory and wondering how this can even be my life now—hooking up with not one, but two of the hottest, sweetest, most protective warlocks in the whole witching world—when Jae’s wiry strength pulls me to my feet.

I suck in a badly needed breath to compose myself. Then I turn into him and nestle into his feverish shifter heat, tucking my flushed face into his neck and breathing in his comforting scent of bayou moss and patchouli.

“I am being careful,” I say into the side of his neck.

The feel of my mouth on his skin makes his wolf rumble. His hot hands close on my waist and pull me closer, right into his sinewy hips and thighs.

I nuzzle his neck and sneak my arms around his lean waist for a hug to reassure both of us. The beads and juju dripping from his dreadlocks tickle my forearms.

You worried about our amou ? Jae whispers through our bond, because he’s part Valyrian and a major telepath. Even if he completely refuses to bite me, due to some paranoid fear about his shifter recessives taking over and turning me into a monster like him.

(Even though he isn’t a monster.)

“I believe in Draco,” I whisper into his neck. Honestly, I still can’t believe this fierce and beautiful man is my lover. He and Draco both. The only lovers I’ve ever had. Our whole relationship feels like a dream, and I don’t know where we’re going.

But there’s one thing I know for sure.

“I believe in you too, Jean-Emilien Labête,” I tell him. “I believe in you both.”

Ah , bon. His wolf growls and mutters in his chest. Take more than a few mangy hyenas to bring down a badass like Draco Mars, eh?

“I know. He’ll be okay. They all will. They have to be.” I pull in a shaky breath, loosen my desperate clutch on my boyfriend, and step back.

My gaze shoots straight to Zara’s worried eyes and puckered brow.

“They’ll all be okay,” I repeat, for her sake.

Lucius Aries (who’s my History of Witchcraft prof, a faculty member I typically try to impress) and Neo Mercury (who vies with me every semester for that top spot on the Dean’s List, but it’s a friendly rivalry) hover at her shoulder and look concerned.

Both watching me with doubt written all over their patient faces.

Even that blue-haired Fae with the webbed feet and the wicked grin is watching me from under the reservoir. I know he is, I can sense that stuff, even though I can’t see him. It’s a survival skill. His kind and mine—the Dark Fae and the Light—we’re ancient enemies.

I swear I can feel him lurking down there, coiled against the grate of the rusted portcullis embedded in the back wall, where the rainwater flows to the septic tank.

Crap.

Now everyone’s concerned.

I mean, except Vasili.

Vasili Romanov is still the most terrifying bully in the whole Academy. Even though he mostly ignores me, like I’m (thankfully) beneath his notice. Especially since he hooked up with Zara, who kinda curbs the worst of his sadistic excesses (at least, when she’s around).

When she isn’t, he’s still the terror of the student body.

To my intense relief, Vasili’s lying in wait, all the way over near the outer door. Spying. To give us as much warning as possible in case those hyenas slip past our perimeter.

Which is more than a hypothetical danger.

Get it together, McSnicker, I tell myself firmly, studying the circle of worried faces around me. You’re not exactly building confidence here.

More than anyone else, I know how important it is to instill confidence and keep calm in an emergency. I’m not only the First Girl on the Dean’s List. I’m also a hall monitor. That makes me the safety warden of our dorm.

I’m trained for this stuff.

“Everything okay here?” Zara asks cautiously, holding my fallen amethyst between two fingers like she’s afraid it’ll burn her.

“Uh huh.” I nod so vigorously a curl springs free from my pigtail and dangles over my eye.

Zara studies the chunk of amethyst she’s gripping. “Then I’m guessing you want this back. Right?”

“Um, yeah, thanks. We’re almost ready for the incantation.” I tuck that wayward spiral of carroty curl behind my slightly pointed ear, pluck the amethyst from my friend’s fingers, and position it at the pentacle’s north corner, right at the spot I’ve carefully marked with my compass.

I’m about to ask for the grimoire Neo’s been poring over when a shrill, ear-splitting screech! lances through the skylight.

Geez Louise, that’s awful.

That sound practically makes my ears bleed.

I know what it is. That piercing nails-on-chalkboard scream is the cry of a hunting dragon.

Not Max.

But that acid-breathing green monstrosity who answers to the Dark Fae King.

I swear every hair on my body stands on end.

As the secret heir to the Seelie Queen, I’ve lived my life in perpetual dread of the Dark Fae King.

He’s been my personal bogeyman for a really long time.

Even though we never actually met (since I’ve been hiding from him) until today.

I know Ash says he’s safe and all. But hearing and believing are two really different things.

I’ve been mourning Ash… and hiding from Zephyr… for years.

“Take it easy. That’s only Xhevith,” Zara tells me gently, referring to the screeching dragon. Probably because they all just saw me flinch at the sound. “He’s just sounding off. He’s actually a big softie.”

I gape at her. That dragon is a softie ?

“I happen to know Avalon dragons are carnivorous,” I mutter. “The Dark Fae unleashed them to hunt down the Seelie and eat us in the bad old days. It’s in the lore. But whatever.”

Zara actually giggles, like the thought of a Fae-eating dragon is funny. (This is one of the reasons her enemies call her the Mad Queen. I mean, her inappropriate laughter.)

When everyone else in the room is peeing their pants in terror, Zara Gemini laughs.

“Xhev won’t hurt you—and neither will his rider, I promise.” My friend’s gorgeous face softens and glows. “What went down with Zephyr and Ash after the, uh, abduction… it isn’t what you thought, Mallory. Those two are, like, crazy in love. They really are. They’re sweet together.”

Honestly, it’s all I can manage not to roll my eyes.

I’m not letting Ash, at least, wiggle off the hook so easily. Not after all the crap his disappearance put me and our whole family through.

“Your Unseelie, he’s a killer, oui ?” Jae tells Zara. His honey-gold eyes burn with violence. “If he even looks at Mallory any way she doesn’t like, he’ll answer to my wolf.”

Zara’s saved from having to reply to that when an airborne Vasili zips into our huddled circle, combat boots sparkling with violet glitter. The Academy bully alights in our midst with a vicious glare.

“Dear fuck. Why on earth are you all standing around?” Vasili tidies his windblown mane with an irritable flick of his punk-rock hand.

“Team Zara isn’t doing particularly well out there, just in case anyone happens to be wondering.

That AIB kill squad is extremely well trained.

They’re using the tree cover to particularly inspired effect. ”

“What does that mean?” I ask timidly.

The Academy bully immobilizes me with his basilisk stare, like he’s literally turning me to stone. “It means Maxim can’t flame in the forest without incinerating half the island. And His lah-dee-dah Radiance isn’t having any discernible effect from the air either.”

“Ah, merde ,” Jae groans.

“I’d give us another three minutes… if I’m being generous. Then that pack of cackling hyenas will be gnawing our bones,” Vasili snaps. “So hurry. ”

My heartbeat leaps and bounds like a terrified rabbit.

This degree of direct attention from the Academy’s most notorious bully is exactly the kind of notice I’ve spent my whole life striving like heck to avoid.

Get a grip, McSnicker, I remind myself. Zara’s counting on you.