Page 53 of Gemini Hunted (Dark Witch Academy #5)

Zara

I shoot for the surface using every spark of levitation witchcraft I possess.

All thrusters firing like I’ve got a fucking jet engine strapped to my ass.

Towing Mordred’s thrashing body behind me by the hand I have wrapped around his thick ankle.

The crushing force of the pressure curse drops away beneath me as we ascend.

But the pressure still threatens to pulverize my legs.

Feels like a deep-sea submarine dive… without the submarine.

I don’t even wanna think about what all these extra atmospheres of magical pressure are doing to Mordred. He’s under me, where it’s worse, and he’s upside down. His poor head. Beneath my grip, his ankle softens and flexes into a thick rubbery tentacle.

That’s his kraken, manifesting under stress.

As my face breaks the surface into open air, I suck in a starving lungful of precious oxygen. Chest burning, throat raw, I barely remember to scream the word that deflects the other spell, the one we knew about in advance, the one Vasili taught me to counter.

The ossification curse.

My hoarse yell triggers the protective counterspell that guards me against the Vault’s bad juju—that curse that locks down the whole Vault and calcifies any intruder’s flesh into bone. Like an instant Medusa effect.

But V’s potent counterspell snaps into place around me. I stay nice and fleshy. I don’t ossify.

How. Ever.

Mordred doesn’t have a mouth right now, just a beak. He knows the magic word, but he can’t say it. The tensile flex of his tentacle slips from my desperate grip. The vast weight of his body falls away beneath me into the deep.

Still levitating for all I’m worth, my body explodes from the water like I’ve been fired from a cannon.

Alone.

I don’t have a lotta control right now. Plus levitation’s still new for me, I’m not Vasili, I haven’t been flying like Peter Pan since my tweens.

I catch a wild glimpse of a bare stone altar rushing toward me, set between two tall torches, with some kind of massive statue rearing behind. I shoot between the flaming torches, skid across the altar’s surface, and land on hands and knees.

Hard.

My palms abrade and my knees scrape against stone.

Ouch.

A pained yelp slips out of me. But I’m still too winded from oxygen deprivation to give the good yell I need to express my feelings.

My empty scuba tank and mouthpiece are gone, along with my flashlight, but I’m still wearing my bra and panties.

The Horn swings forward in its pouch around my torso and hangs suspended under my tummy.

The Horn.

That fucking Horn.

I’m in the Vault. With the Horn.

All I gotta do now is deposit that artifact where it belongs. Exactly where it belongs. Wherever that is. But my attention’s really divided, because Mordred…

Oh, God, no.

Mordred.

Swaying on hands and knees, drinking in gulps of sweet air, crouched on the altar like a human sacrifice, I whip my head around to peer behind me, slinging my dripping ponytail out of my face.

The blazing expanse of the Academy Vault spreads before me, massive as a concert hall.

The whole room gleams like the walls are sheathed in gold.

The ceiling slops sharply to a pyramid point high overhead.

Lit by burning torches, set at intervals in the sloping walls, the underground spring that disgorged me gleams in taunting beauty.

It’s a round pool rimmed in blocks of sandstone, rocks glittering with mica, the water’s still surface painted gold with torchlight.

A tangle of solid stone tentacles, eyes round and staring, beak gaping wide in agony, lies draped over the pool’s rim like an artist’s sculpture titled Kraken in Distress.

I scramble around to view this nightmare squarely, then suck in a lungful of air that reeks of incense and shock.

“Oh, fucking hell .” Horror rips through me and shreds my heart to bloody ribbons. “Mordred.”

My brain whirls into a tailspin.

I don’t know how to break an ossification curse.

I’m not sure anyone does. The whole idea was not to trigger the thing in the first place.

I’m surrounded by a vast and deadly cache of enchanted artifacts, piles of brassbound chests, dusty crates and sarcophagi and coffins, stacks of ancient books in a cobwebby jumble against the sloping golden walls.

Too bad I don’t know what any of these objects are or how to use them.

Trapped in my chest like a bird in a cage, my dragon bates and roars with anguish and rage.

Save him, Zara, we must. Save our mate!

Even through the shrieking clamor of my dragon’s mental meltdown, the Horn pulses like a heartbeat against my pelvis.

Right over my uterus.

Sweet bleeding Jesus, that artifact has power.

Raw, primal, untapped power.

I mean, my newly acquired and still erratic clairvoyance has been transmitting the message on all frequencies from Day One. This artifact is strong enough to save the witching world. I just need to suss out how to use it.

Maybe it’s powerful enough to save Mordred too.

Still crouching on the altar, directly under the peaked roof of this vast solid gold pyramid I’m trapped inside, I scuttle back around and tip my head back—way back—to eye the statue looming over me.

This colossus is a pregnant chick, busty and ripe with child under flowing Roman robes, crowned with a wreath of fresh fruit and flowering vines, with a sheaf of wheat draped gracefully over one arm.

Pregnant. Fruit. Flowers. Wheat. All symbols of fertility.

I’m staring at Ceres, the fertility goddess. Her outstretched hand descends toward me, fingers curled around empty space.

A space just big enough to hold the Horn.

Well, I was hoping it would be obvi where to return the thing once I got here.

Clairvoyance or coincidence, I catapulted blindly out of that death trap of a pond and flew straight here.

Gasping, I fumble the pouch open and spill the Horn into my desperate hands.

The jeweled sigils of the twelve great witching houses, interspersed with arcane glyphs for fertility and abundance, spiral around the Horn in a dazzling procession.

In the flickering light, the symbols seem to move, twining around and around the curving cylinder in a way that makes me dizzy.

“Cheese on toast,” I whisper, loud in the humming silence. “This is the literal definition of a Hail Mary pass. Too bad I’m a lapsed Catholic, huh?”

Warm and pulsing with life, the artifact settles more deeply into my palms. My fingers curl tight around it.

Heat streaks up my arms and down my torso to pool between my legs.

The sudden tang of ripe peaches floods the air, cutting the suffocating sweetness of frankincense I’m already breathing in the heavy stillness.

Oh, fuck me. Literally. That ripe fruity tang is my mating scent.

The scent I exude when I’m fertile.

Under the soaked lime lace of my bra, my boobs feel heavy and tender. My nipples tighten and tingle. My chest gets tight and my breath gets quick. Yeah, I’m still wet from my swim, but the sudden hot flood of slick between my thighs is something else.

Instant superheat.

Like, the most intense superheat I’ve ever had.

A quantum superheat.

Whatever you wanna call it, now is not the time. But as soon as I save Mordred from the curse and hook up with the rest of my guys, I want all nine cocks (including Mordred’s two) at my immediate service.

Statue, showgirl, I remind myself sternly. Focus on the statue. Not your needy cunt.

Cradling the Horn carefully in my hands, I swing my legs around and hop down from the altar to the floor. The stone Ceres looms over me, hand outstretched in expectation, blind eyes turned down to meet mine. She’s almost close enough for me to touch the hem of her robes or her sandaled feet.

If I dare.

I take a step forward—

From behind the statue, a tall slim girl slips into view, impeccably dressed in a pristine Academy skirt and blazer, hair swept into a sleek merlot twist. Effortlessly glamorous as a runway model on a glossy magazine cover.

“Ciao, bella,” Cleo purrs, eyes wide and guileless behind her supermodel lashes. “And grazie. Thank you for bringing to me my artifact.”