Page 51 of Gemini Hunted (Dark Witch Academy #5)

But what matters most right now is that he’s following Lucius’ lead. I mean, for now. If Jae goes full shifter and lets his monster out, he’s non-sentient.

Then all bets are off.

“Oh, crap.” Neo cuddles our kitten to his protective chest. “The AIB kill squad. I thought we got rid of them? Those hyenas must be tracking our scent.”

V rises like a rearing cobra and zips across the dark shaft to my side. He doesn’t alight, but hovers just above the ground, his combat boots glittering violet in the electric twilight of our flashlights.

“They’re functioning as hunting hounds,” V hisses, face vicious. “Driving their prey— us— straight to the hunters.”

“Quickly.” Zephyr unsheathes his double swords, already humming with blue witchfire. “Everyone up the stairs. I’ll summon Xhevith. His rising will alert our mates. Then shall we become the hunters.”

Neo’s decanting our kitten gently into her carrier (she’s protesting, two little white paws shooting out to grip the duffel, but he patiently persists) while Mordred scrambles to his feet and summons his trident.

Mal’s guys look to her for guidance, but she’s looking at me.

More whoops and cackles rise from the darkness behind us. Still distant, but those hyenas are closing in. Clearly, they know we’re close. My brain is racing like a hamster on a wheel. The pulse of the Horn fills my ears with a second heartbeat.

At this point, I can sense that artifact like an extra limb. The Horn of Ceres wants down the shaft, down that deep dark cobwebby hole in the ground (because of course it does).

And the artifact’s draw is pulling me in.

Uneasy and resistant, my inner dragon squirms under my sternum. She doesn’t like when I dive, especially not a tunnel dive like this one, where there’s not even room to shift in a crisis.

To be honest, I’m not wildly crazy about the whole idea myself.

But I don’t see any alternative. The only other certified diver in our polycule is Ronin, and he’s not here. Besides, as we’ve already established, it needs to be me specifically who returns the Horn to the Vault.

C’mon, showgirl, I tell my reluctant dragon. We gotta woman up and do this.

Ignoring her grumbles and moving as fast as I can, I toe out of my saddle shoes, peel off my knee socks, and start giving orders. “You guys take the stairs. Follow Zephyr, he’ll lead you to Xhev and the others. I’ll, uh, go this other way. With the Horn.”

While I finish stripping down to my skivvies, I simultaneously deal with the expected protests from Neo and Zephyr and an alarmed Lucius. But Mal, after a single piercing look, helps me make the case and gets our Scooby gang organized in an impressive display of hall monitor efficiency.

Vasili, atypically, is silent.

But silence—for him, right now—is a behavior I interpret as support.

He’s never hovered over me like a traditional alpha (because he doesn’t have a single traditional bone in his long, lean, sexy-pretty-dangerous punk-rock warlock body).

He’s never tried to shelter me from the big bad world.

He trusts me, in a unique way most of the others try to emulate but can’t, to take care of myself.

It’s obvi to me that he’s worried. But he’s trusting me to handle my shit.

That’s what I’m doing right now.

While I strip down to my boy-cut briefs and bra, V commandeers my discarded clothing (which I’m gonna need again after), rigs the slim one-liter pony bottle of precious oxygen into the harness, and straps the lightweight gear over my shoulders.

Unlike a standard tank which goes behind, the mini scuba tank sits in front between my boobs.

While Jae and Lucius backtrack down the tunnel to scout for the bad guys, I delegate Zephyr and Draco to take Mallory and Neo (and the kitten) upstairs. For the bookworms—our First Boy and First Girl—combat isn’t their strong suit, and I want them both safe.

Besides, Zephyr needs to be fully linked up with Xhevith to trigger the next piece of our plan.

I expect Zephyr to kiss me before he goes, one of his fierce feral Dark Fae King kisses—smelling like burnt amber and dragonhide—a farewell kiss to make my toes curl. Especially with me standing there, practically naked, in my lime-green lingerie.

Instead, the Dark Fae King rakes me with a single piercing look that drinks in every detail of my entire being, from my determined expression to the stiffened nipples that press against my lace (because it’s chilly down here in the catacombs without my clothes).

Then his gaze swerves to Mordred.

Behind the eyepatch, Zephyr’s face hardens. His jade eye darkens to stormy green. His upper lip curls to reveal a tiny flash of fang.

The sex demon grins back, teeth flashing in his dusky face, and lets his dimples show. “Yo, cuz. How ’bout a kiss for luck?”

My breath catches in my throat. Because I’m honestly not sure whether Mordred is asking for a Dark Fae kiss for me or for himself.

Zephyr’s burning stare sears through me. “My queen is mighty. She crafts her own luck.”

His hand rises to touch his armored chest and his green head inclines in a bow—to me. Zephyr’s never done that before. The quaint gesture is like a cross between an old-fashioned love token and a royal salute.

We still haven’t talked since I fucked his cousin (second cousin, once removed) and basically asked to add Mordred to the harem.

I still don’t know if we’re okay, Zephyr and me.

But I take heart from that gesture, that oddly formal but somehow warming gesture, that breathes affection and soul-deep respect. You know, in an Unseelie kinda way.

So I grin and blow Zephyr a cheeky kiss. “Right back atcha, king of my heart.”

Neo gets a real kiss, all sweet and solid and bookwormy with many whispers of love, before he hurries after the others up the stairs.

I root through the pack to find my diving goggles and underwater flashlight, but we had to leave my fins behind on the yacht for space reasons.

By the time I buckle the dive knife to my thigh, open the little tank’s breathing valve, and run through my safety check, my jitters are gone—channeled into action—and my head’s in the game.

Which is totally a good thing, because my sharp shifty hearing is picking up scattered snarls and yowls from the catacombs that tell me Lucius and Jae have found the first of our hunters.

“Okay, so, we gotta vamoose.” I fling myself into V’s arms for a short but intense and yummy goblin kiss that tastes like butterscotch. All V’s kisses are yummy, he’s like the world champion kisser in our polycule, and we all fight to get them. “You going after Neo or Lucius?”

“Lucius. I won’t leave him behind. Zephyr will take care of Neo.” V isn’t the demonstrative type (to put it really mildly) but his ice-blue eyes glitter down at me with the broody protective fire I love in our dominant alpha. “I’ll go as soon as you’re submerged in that hideous shaft.”

My whole chest swells like a helium balloon with an emotion I don’t have any trouble naming. I gaze up at my snake, my Goblin King, the most complicated and horrible and terrifying and yet simultaneously damaged and fragile and precious of all my warlocks.

“I love you,” I tell him, from the heart.

“Hmmmm.” His pretty mouth curls in his sly smile. A hot light kindles in his glacial gaze. “I know. How dreadful for you. I’ll try to make it worth your while.”

Even now, he manages to make me laugh.

Shaking my head at him, I bite my lip, force myself to relinquish his eternally alluring body, and turn toward the burly blue-haired demon lounging against the wall, that sealskin pouch swinging against his hip.

Now the moment for levity has definitely passed.

Because, fuck or no fuck, this is the moment we’ll finally know if we were right to trust the demon.

I lock onto that sex demon’s smoldery purple stare, extend a royal hand like the badass queen of the witching world I fucking am, and tell him, “Moment of truth, Aquaman. Hand over that artifact and you’ll break V’s summoning spell.

Then you’ll be free to stay or go. It’ll be your choice. Either way you choose… I’m grateful.”

Vasili’s breath hisses softly in my ear.

Even though we’ve both fucked the guy, Mordred’s a demon, we can’t read his mind, and we really can’t know for sure what he’ll do once he’s loose.

And I’m not sure I really am ready for him to hand over the Horn and poof outta here like a genie.

I mean, he can apparate. It’s a demon thing. So he can literally vanish from this plane and our lives as abruptly as he originally appeared.

But the sounds of combat are rising. I’m twitchy with the ruthless psychic hunger of Lucius letting his wolf out. We’re flat out of time.

“Zang, baby queen, you got real rizz,” Mordred says softly, in that teasing drawl he hides his real feelings behind.

“Not gonna lie, I’m a sex demon. I’ve been with a lotta baes, all genders, true?

Mostly, they’re easy come, easy go.” He pauses and his blue head tilts.

“Mostly. But the two of you… and this whole found family you cobbled together… you hit different.”

I’m still working through his slang to what I think he means when Mordred unloops the messenger bag from his shoulder and tosses it, all casual, to me.

I catch the football in both arms with a gasp.

Under the suede-soft pouch, the solid weight of the Horn of Ceres sings in my head like a fucking choir.

Literally. It’s a fertility artifact.

Suddenly, with the thing clutched to my chest, all I can think about is fucking. All the blood rushes to my clit. My nipples tingle, my breath quickens, and my cunt floods with slick.

“Sweet—bleeding— Jesus ,” I moan, thick and husky with sex.

“My, my,” Vasili breathes, dark and low and delicious. “The way you smell , little queen.”

Oh yeah. My alpha is definitely feeling this shit.

It’s all I can manage to stagger away from both of them—both my guys and their delectable cocks—and drop the messenger bag crosswise over my own tingling body. Singing in my head like Pavarotti, the Horn of Ceres nestles against my hip as if it’s meant to be there.

It helps that the Horn wants in the shaft. Even while my pussy aches and clenches with the need to be stuffed with dick until my eyes cross, the artifact drags me toward that hole in the tunnel floor.

“Stop pushing,” I mutter at the damn thing singing an aria against my hip. “I’m going.”

The shaft opens at my feet, a still expanse of black water gleaming in silent threat. I switch on my flashlight and shine it around the depths. Mordred already told me it’s deep. But the only way to really know what’s down there is to jump.

With a sigh, I drop to sit on the edge and swing my bare legs over. Cold water closes around my feet, so cold I almost yelp and pull them out.

But that would be unqueenly.

I’m supposed to be a badass, aren’t I? I’m mighty . Even the King of the Dark Fae says so.

I’m fitting my goggles over my eyes when Mordred swings down to sit beside me, toting the spare scuba tank, and tugs off his boots to reveal his webbed feet. “Imma go with. I’ll carry your spare. Guard your back.”

The breath rushes out of my lungs in a ragged sound that’s practically a sob of relief.

He didn’t apparate.

He’s still here.

Here with me.

Only now, he’s here with me by choice.

I’d rather fuck him than fight Cleo, for real. That Horn hums and trills against my hip like an opera at the Met.

Fighting like hell to concentrate on something, anything beyond the Horn’s pull and the rhythmic pulse of heat in my hoochie, I tug my ponytail free of my goggles and tighten my head strap.

“Hey, thanks for that, Mordred,” I tell him softly. “I mean it. Thanks for still being here. But I’ve seen you shifted, remember? This hole’s way too tight for your big-ass kraken. I’ll carry my own spare.”

He shakes back his long hair and tilts his head to show me the parallel slits tucked behind his pointed ear. “I got gills, baby queen. I can breathe underwater in this form just fine.”

Wow.

Apparently I really am adding Aquaman (like, literally) to this harem. I mean, assuming Zephyr ever gets over the idea of adding his nemesis (and cousin, but the blood tie is so nebulous) to our polycule.

“Take him with you, for fuck’s sake,” V says shortly, from a good way down the tunnel.

The Goblin King is already levitating a good two feet above the ground, and I definitely wouldn’t want to be the first AIB guy he encounters.

“The demon’s still here, isn’t he? Without being bound by my summoning spell. ”

I’ve noticed, I tell V through our mating bond, just for the comfort of the contact.

“And Lucius needs you, bad boy,” I finish out loud to V, so Mordred too can hear. “Okay, guys. Let’s go kick some sea dragon ass.”

Heart pounding against my sternum like orc drums in a Tolkien film, I press the mouthpiece of the mini scuba tank between my lips, fold my arms over the cylinder strapped to my chest, and drop over the edge into the shaft.