Page 56 of Gemini Hunted (Dark Witch Academy #5)

Her gaze drops to the Horn I’m cradling to my chest (also possible she could be checking out my tits, since I’m so close to naked in my soaked lingerie I’m practically indecent.) Slowly, her face changes.

Her lavender eyes darken to amethyst. Her pearly whites sink into the wild berry matte of her pouty lower lip.

I know that look.

It’s her conniving look.

The look I used to love calling her out for.

Tingling with adrenaline and instinct, I sidle out from between her and the altar. Just to give myself fighting room. My dragon bates her wings in my chest and tries to rise till my skin stretches tight around the shift I can barely stave off.

Dial it back, showgirl. I say when we shift. If we shift. Remember? Still, my ponytail starts floating. Sparks crackle at my fingertips.

Too bad I can’t summon real lightning in an underground vault with no windows.

What if I just bolt for the statue—?

“ Merda. I don’t suppose you will simply give me the artifact.

” Cleo sighs like my stubbornness is a real fucking nuisance.

“This would save us both a great deal of trouble, si? It’s the practical step, the safe step, which is why you will never do it.

If you would only acknowledge my claim, Zara!

I could protect you—and your mates—from my mother’s insecurity and her jealousy.

I could even protect you from Nikolai and his ruthless political schemes. ”

“Protect us? How?” I force out a laugh, though this whole sitch is so far from funny it’s tragic. Static crackles in my ponytail. “Cleo, they both want me dead . You couldn’t even stop Nikolai from filming us.”

I watch her face carefully when I say his name—and there it is again. Her silky lids flutter in a blink. The smooth skin between her waxed brows tightens in a pinch of pain.

There’s something there.

Something between those two, between Cleo and Nikolai, beyond all the prickly assassin-spy- protégée -mentor baggage my glamorous ex-BFF and V’s homicidal dad are toting around and juggling between them like knives.

Something.

I just need to suss out what it is. And how to use it.

My gaze sneaks past Cleo to the statue of Ceres looming over her. I’m so fucking close to victory I can taste it—

“Leave Nikolai to me,” Cleo says tightly. A fresh current of cunning arcs through her like voltage. “And if you wish to distract me while you return that artifact to the goddess and claim my rightful throne, this I cannot allow.”

Here it is at last.

The moment my ex-GF finally tries to kill me.

My pulse hammers in my ears.

“Too bad you don’t have a say over what I do, Sunshine,” I breathe. “Not anymore.”

Her eyes pulse gold like dragon orbs. “If you will not give me the Horn freely, bella, then I must take it.”

Humming with adrenaline, voice thick with witchcraft, my gaze locks on hers. “Come and get it.”

Faster than thought, she’s on me, in a blur of Fae swiftness way too quick for the human eye to follow.

But I’m not human. I levitate and zip to one side, barely evading her deadly takedown.

When I land, I stamp my foot to summon the little lightning.

A ripple of electricity crackles across the floor, a swiftly spreading circle with my body forming the epicenter.

The golden pyramid of the Vault rings above us like a church bell.

But Cleo’s already airborne, vaulting upward with that inhuman Unseelie speed to land on the altar.

She somersaults across the surface, springs to the floor a breath after the electric ripple passes, and plucks a shining shaft—taller than she is—from the jumble of magical artifacts piled against the walls.

I catch a single glimpse of the thing—a spear tipped with long-edged blades at both ends. In a flash, I recognize the weapon from a spellbook drawing Ronin (the weapons expert in our polycule) showed me once.

He called it a double-headed glaive.

Standing just beyond range of my still-electrified body, Cleo grips the edged weapon in both hands and starts spinning. “Say hello to the Glaive of Wind.”

Whipped into being by the Glaive, a slim column of air twists into a tornado between us. In a breath, the wind builds to a howl. It sucks at me with killing force.

Clutching the Horn to my chest with both arms, I sprint for the Ceres statue. The stone goddess waits for me, hand extended in expectation for her treasure.

I can almost touch her fingers when the wind whips under me and plucks me from the ground.

Now I’m the one who’s airborne.

And not under my own steam.

I can’t levitate in this shit.

While my limbs windmill for purchase, the Horn of Ceres flies from my arms and spins away on the wind.

I yell in protest and dismay, but the twister roars in my ears like a locomotive to deafen me.

The stinging scourge of my ponytail lashes my face.

The golden walls blur around me. I’ve got maybe a heartbeat to register that I’m about to be Hulk-smashed and smeared across all that gold like a bug on a windshield.

Then my inner dragon roars and her wings snap open. The shift sears through me, my world goes white, and all fucking hell breaks loose.