Page 55 of Gemini Hunted (Dark Witch Academy #5)

Zara

“Apparently now they just let anyone in the joint,” I tell my ex-bestie, adding an eye roll for attitude. “There goes the fucking neighborhood.”

I’m leaning in on the snark to cover up everything else I’m feeling, and I’m probably overdoing it. I’m choking on that bitter cocktail of anger and betrayal, garnished with residual loss and heartbreak, that I can’t seem to stop sipping.

So, for a chaser, I sling back a shot of resolve.

I mean, it’s not like I’m surprised to run into her. I didn’t even need my erratic dash of Valyrian foresight to know she’d be here.

Waiting for me.

So she can kill me. That’s the most likely scenario.

Though I am kinda surprised that she seems to be here alone.

“Evidently so.” Cleo’s shimmering stare slides over me, next to naked in my soaked lingerie, then shifts to Mordred’s ossified kraken, zapped while climbing from the pool. That’s when her head tilts and her tone turns curious. “That one is a friend of yours, yes?”

Her flicker of interest triggers my possessive side. This quantum superheat I’m suddenly rocking makes my hairpin emotional trigger ten times touchier.

Oh, fuck me.

Fuck me hard.

Now I’m overwhelmed by a sudden vicious impulse to tattoo that kraken’s gorgeous copper skin with a warning label that reads Property of Zara: Hands Off. Complete with lightning bolt.

Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’ll gladly— so gladly—share Mordred with V and all the warlocks in our polycule. But not with the celebrity supermodel ex-girlfriend, ex-BFF, ex-accomplice, ex-everything who betrayed me.

My inner dragon snarls and claws at my chest like the alpha bitch she is. She wants out , so she can protect her kraken mate from this rival queen, like now .

Clearly sensing my raging dragon with her own shifty senses, Cleo’s eyes widen. Her human pupils elongate to vertical slits.

Settle down, showgirl, I tell my dragon sternly . I got this.

My dragon trumpets a protest that thunders in my ears.

Over all this internal racket, it’s really hard to strategize. Still, I know how to stake a claim. I know how to keep what’s mine.

I tuck the Horn of Ceres securely against my side, prop a hand on my hip, and announce to Cleo, “You can stop thinking what you’re thinking. That kraken’s way more than a friend. He’ll be one of my kings.”

I mean, assuming my warlocks agree.

But that’s a complication Cleo Ferrari, who’s never met a guy she can’t have, doesn’t need to know.

“ Alora. You always did have… exotic tastes.” My ex’s gaze roams my face, the teal ponytail almost long enough now to graze my ass, the no-doubt defiant line of my mouth, the row of silver studs rimming my ear.

Then the jut of my pierced nipples, pressing against the soaked lime lace of my French brassiere.

She’s taking inventory.

Sure, I might be the only girl she’s ever been with. We had a “bi for you” relationship happening, one reason she got inside my defenses so easy (unless she was lying about that too). Still, she doesn’t look like she minds what she’s seeing.

But her choice of phrase gets my hackles up.

Exotic tastes.

“You used to like that about me,” I say tartly, because isn’t that how we both hooked up with each other and Xiao in the first place? Literal solstice orgy on the beach in Bali. “Speaking of which… where’s Xiao?”

Since I still can’t believe Cleo has the moxie to face me alone.

Much less kill me.

Her perfect face tightens in a tiny frown. “I sent Xiao home to Hong Kong. He’s a relationship we have both outgrown, no?”

Stoked by this bullshit, a fiery coal of anger flares in my gut. She acts like she’s not even responsible for her own ally. Too bad for her I’m not buying it.

Will she still blame Xiao once I’m lying dead at her feet?

Yeah, no, that’s not happening. The witching world needs me alive and queening it. I need me alive and queening it. So I can enjoy my HEA with my warlocks and our babies.

Testing her resolve, I take a menacing step forward. Cleo falls a wary step back, then totally stands her ground. Her dragon pupils telescope wide in warning.

Is she that afraid of me? Or is this one more disguise from her bag of tricks? A trap she’s baiting just to lure me in?

Cleo Ferrari, alone and vulnerable.

My idiot heart gives a ping at the thought. At least my gambit got me one step closer to the Ceres statue. But Cleo still stands squarely in my way.

Which is a metaphor for our whole fucking relationship since the night of her big reveal.

Since then, I’ve learned to respect both her half-Fae speed and her vicious streak.

“Nope.” I pop the P for emphasis. “Way to downplay all that shit Xiao pulled. I’m not buying it. Your boy toy literally tried to slit Ronin’s throat on your mom’s royal yacht—not to mention put a bullet in me—at my own twenty-first birthday bash.”

“But he did these things without my consent.” Her slitted eyes narrow and she purses her lips in a pout. “That night is precisely when I realized we have—both of us—outgrown him.”

I give way to a skeptical snort.

My self-control isn’t the greatest right now, with the Horn singing in my head like a choir, my dragon screaming to challenge her sea dragon rival, and my body on quantum superheat fire for a fuck.

Plus I still expect Xiao or Nikolai or those House Tiberius bullies to come slinking out from behind a crate. Even when my shifty senses tell me we’re alone in here.

“Yeah. While we’re on the subject of that night ,” I cradle the Horn protectively to my chest like a football and make air quotes with one hand “thanks for broadcasting that private warlock sex tape—you know, the one my guys and I never consented to you filming?—all over WNN. Thanks for humiliating Neo, trying to steal my crown, stabbing me in the back, and basically ruining my life on live TV.”

I tick off her offenses on my glittery fingers till I don’t have any fingers left, then tap my bare toes and scowl at my ex-bestie. “You gonna say that was done without your consent too?”

Shit.

I’m getting worked up despite myself, exactly when I need to keep a cool head.

She tilts her sculpted chin with a tiny wince.

I’m distracted all over again by the wide silk ribbon tied around her elegant neck above the prim collar of her schoolgirl blouse, knotted in a jaunty bow.

That ribbon isn’t part of the Academy uni, and neck ribbons aren’t trending on the runways, so I can’t figure out why she’s wearing it—

Until I recall, with a stab of remembered dread, the way Ronin discharged his speargun into her throat at seven fathoms.

Clearly, my ex-GF heals fast. Shifty-swifty. Faster than I do—just one more thing to hold against her. But Ronin’s aim was ruthless, and that injury was almost mortal. Shifter or no shifter, you don’t bounce back easy from a hit like that.

A pang of concern tightens my chest and hitches my breath.

Then I’m pissed all over again, this time at myself, for being so ridiculous and so soft-hearted and just so goddamn gullible.

For caring .

How many times does my bitchy ex-bestie need to betray me before my stupid heart gets the memo?

She doesn’t love me. And she fucking never did. She lied to me from Day One.

Just like you lied to her, my inconvenient conscience pipes up. You didn’t tell her who you really were either. Your whole relationship was built on lies.

“Your humiliation was Nikolai’s plan.” Something fractures in Cleo’s voice when she says the dude’s name, but you’d never notice if you didn’t know her like I do. “It was never mine. And it was Xiao and not I who filmed you with your lovers.”

Like she’s totally not responsible.

For any of it.

When it was all—every bit of it—done in her name.

If the bullshit in here gets any thicker, I’m gonna need galoshes and a raincoat. Plus the burn and ache of this quantum superheat between my legs is really straining my patience.

Despite the fact that I’m practically nakey and it’s uncomfortably cool down here in the Vault, I’m burning up. Not to mention the lingering tomb scent of myrrh and frankincense in this pyramid is clashing with Cleo’s ylang ylang perfume in a major way.

I shake my head till my ponytail flies, just to clear my brain. “Are you really gonna play Little Miss Innocent? With me of all people? Because trust me, Sunshine, it’s not a good look on a future fucking queen— ”

“ Cavolo, bella, I told him his plan sucked.” Finally, Cleo too sounds impatient.

I wonder if she can hear the Horn the way I can, if it’s eroding her control the way it’s eroding mine.

“Leave it to Nikolai Romanov to order a sex tape starring his only son to be broadcast on live TV—exposing his hidden queerness to the world—merely to serve a political purpose.”

In startled silence, I absorb the sucky impact of that pending revelation on Vasili. The only guy in my harem who’s ever broken into this Vault on his own. The one I’m hoping will come swanking through the front door with the rest of my warlocks in tow any minute now.

Assuming that part of our plan isn’t toast.

A fresh stab of worry for V and all my guys, including the ossified Mordred, needles my tone with spite.

“Yeah, well, you shoulda tried harder to exert some influence, bella . You know, since you aim to be the next queen, and your bitch-witch mom is the actual sitting queen? Like, maybe you could exert some agency over your own fucking minions?”

“My minions ? Is that what you think Nikolai…” Under the flawless facade of cosmetics she’s wearing, an intriguing hint of color climbs in her cheeks. “This entire damned situation is far more… complicated… than you seem to think. Unlike yourself, amore mio , I was never given a choice. Remember?”

“Don’t call me that,” I fire back. “I’m not your love and I never was.”