Page 9 of Gemini Hunted (Dark Witch Academy #5)

Zara

“Oh, bloody fucking hell .”

That astonished voice is Ronin’s.

Pretty much voicing my own thoughts.

He’s standing at the head of the stairs, barely wearing a pair of Max’s ripped jeans dragged hastily over his narrow hips.

The zipper’s still gaping to expose the sinewy vee of his Adonis belt.

His naked torso is dripping, black hair streaming water over his tawny skin and dragon tattoo belching inky flames across his chest.

His eyes are riveted on the gleaming golden horn resting oh so casually in that sex demon’s cocky hand.

“Blimey.” Ronin shoulders into the salon, zipping his jeans as he advances. “I could feel that blooming thing calling all the way from the loo.”

Mordred cocks his head to get a good look at Ronin. No surprise. That mate of mine is practically a sex demon himself. The kraken’s sly purple eyes acquire an appreciative gleam.

“Ronin, right?” Mordred gives him a slow once-over. “Whassup? Heard all about you from my cuz. You’re the guy who popped Cousin Z’s cherry. No lie, I kinda hate you for that.” One eyelid drops in a playful wink. “But can’t say I blame you.”

Wow.

Way to make friends with Ronin right off the bat.

Ronin and Zephyr literally just got back together after years of misunderstanding and wrenching heartbreak.

And those two getting back together is a really touchy subject for Vasili.

“What the fuck’s that to you, mate?” Ronin stalks toward the demon with a scowl and ranges himself squarely at Vasili’s side, with Neo. I can tell when Ronin gets a whiff of the sex magic clogging the air, because his golden eyes get all smoldery. Discreetly, he adjusts himself behind his zipper.

“My dears, I beg that we not get distracted,” Lucius murmurs. Even though my headmaster’s looking kinda distracted himself with his thick dick bulging like a cola can behind his own zipper.

I swallow and try hard not to fixate on the slick heat building under my yoga pants.

Right now, it’s really important that I not get distracted.

“Guess that’s the thingamajig, huh?” Ash says grimly beside me.

He’s watching my face instead of the Horn.

Plus his own face hardened the second Ronin showed up.

Square jaw knotting, furrow digging between his brows, Ash’s eyes flash liquid metal with caution—because he and Ronin also have major baggage they’re working through.

Let’s just say V’s not the only warlock in my harem who isn’t thrilled about Zephyr and Ronin hooking back up.

Ash is protective of Zephyr.

And Vasili’s over-the-top possessive of Ronin.

But for me and the two most directly affected—Ronin and Zephyr—their reconciliation means everything. Those two are in love, they have been for years, and they’re so beautiful together.

Anyway.

Everyone in this room is waiting for my answer.

“Yeah,” I say softly, eyeing the Horn. “That’s it.”

To my enhanced senses, especially this new clairvoyance I’ve barely started to channel, the ancient artifact hums and throbs with power. It’s an enchanted object—a fertility talisman—and the potency of its siren song is magnified tenfold by the sex demon who’s holding it.

A sigh slips past my breathless lips. “That’s the Horn of Ceres all right. The question is… what’s this demon planning to do with it?”

“Tell you true, that depends on you.” Mordred’s smoky stare lingers on my mouth in a speculative way that makes me suddenly warm and breathless.

Shit.

I have to actively resist the impulse to lick my lips.

The demon tilts the talisman so we can all admire the jeweled glyphs that sparkle in all that gold. The ancient sigils of the zodiac, a fortune in priceless gems, that signify the twelve witching world houses. Runes for fertility and abundance spiral around the golden crescent.

“Me?” Fighting like hell the sex magic this guy’s pumping out by the gallon, I plant a hand on my waist and pop my hip like Cleo on the runway. “Okay, Aquaman. I’ll bite. What do you want from me?”

The demon’s violet gaze slides slowly over my body, curves disguised by Neo’s Academy sweatshirt, legs showcased by my yoga pants. Under the heat of his stare, my sparkly toes curl in the carpet.

His slow grin widens till his white teeth gleam.

He has pointed incisors like Zephyr and all the Dark Fae, pointed ears peeking through that wet spill of midnight blue hair dripping seawater halfway down his back. Those ear tips are erogenous zones for a Fae—

But I don’t know why I’m thinking about erogenous zones at this exact moment.

No, really. I don’t.

“Told you last night in Avalon.” The demon’s muscled shoulders flex in an easy shrug. “I want in. Wanna hop on board the harem train and ride, baby, ride.”

Neo sucks in a shocked gasp, loud in the startled silence.

“Aw, crap,” Ash mutters.

“Bloomin’ hell.” Ronin chuffs out a mean chuckle that makes me suddenly recall he used to be one of my bullies. “Keep dreaming, mate.”

But Vasili—who’s by far the most territorial alpha in this room (because Max is thankfully not present) and who should therefore be losing his everloving shit—only smirks.

What the fuck?

For a fraction of a second, V’s icy blue stare connects with Mordred’s. Something sneaky passes between those two that rouses all my suspicions to tingling alert.

That’s when my gaze lands on the delicate twin punctures where Mordred’s neck meets his shoulder.

We don’t have vampires in the witching world (I mean, that I know about. Until this week, I didn’t know demons were a thing either.)

But I do know that’s a fresh mating bite.

And it’s a bite I fucking recognize.

In complete outrage, my glare crackles across the salon, past the grinning demon, to electrocute Vasili. I mean, metaphorically speaking. Believe me, if I could hurl bolts of lightning with my eyes, that snake would be a smoking crater in Neo’s dad’s carpet right now.

“Wait a sec. You fucking bit him?”

That outraged question is mine, it literally flew out of my mouth on its own the second I got a look at that demon’s neck.

“Well, darling, I needed to communicate with him over a distance somehow , didn’t I?

” Vasili waves a slender hand, glittering with chunky punk-rock rings, in casual dismissal of my mounting fury.

“Besides, it’s hardly a mating bite. It’s a disciplinary bite, simply to reinforce my authority over the creature.

The exchange was entirely non-sexual, believe me. ”

“Speak for yourself, babydoll.” The demon pivots to address him, every heavy shift of that potent male body screaming sex. “I’m an incubus, true? When you’re me, everything’s sexual. Including discipline, in case you’re curious.”

Vasili surveys his posturing with the look of supercilious disdain my entire harem has dubbed the Romanov eyebrow.

“You have cisgender hetero male written all over every inch of your ridiculous half-naked body,” Vasili says loftily. “I certainly assumed you’re straight.”

“I’m pan. And you’re drippy, for real. It all works for me.

Works for me fiiiine.” Mordred lifts the Horn of Ceres to his mouth to cover his grin and eyes V over the gleaming crescent like he’s the fucking Cheshire Cat.

“If you didn’t wanna get me off, guess you shoulda asked before you summoned me and then bit me. ”

Vasili eyes him coldly over his cocktail. That snake looks like he already regrets whatever fuckery he secretly got up to with Mordred.

But not as much as he’s gonna regret it by the time I’m finished.

“You summoned him?” I plant my hands on my hips and scowl at V. “So that’s how he got over here from Avalon to this side of the portal? Jesus. How do you even know how to summon demons?”

Because I’m pretty sure they don’t teach that shit at the Icarus Academy. Not even in Senior Seminar, which V just finished.

I mean, Neo’s already devoured that whole textbook (even though he’s only a junior) and he’s not summoning demons.

“That pointy-eared Unseelie tyrant you’re currently fucking possesses an adequate library of arcane texts in Avalon.

I merely… borrowed one.” Vasili takes a delicate nibble of his cocktail olive.

His cruel mouth curls in a secretive smirk.

“Oh, darling, don’t look so worried. I intend to return it… and the demon. Eventually.”

Ronin mutters a foul curse under his breath. Neo snuggles up against Ronin for comfort and looks dubious.

Mordred just chuckles under his breath like he’s an imp instead of an incubus.

I glare straight at my dominant alpha. “Cheese on toast, Goblin King. Like we don’t have enough problems around here with this contest and Cleo and your dad and my superheat?

Now we got this piece of work—” I gesture toward the demon “—who wants to overthrow Zephyr and steal his throne right out from under him? How could you possibly bite him… any kind of bite, even if it wasn’t supposed to be sexual…

without telling us? What the fuck were you think—? ”

“Now that’s where you’re wrong, baby queen.

” Casually, like he’s lobbing a sandwich wrapper in the trash, Mordred dumps the priceless artifact he’s holding back into his sealskin pouch.

“My brother Lothian—you know, the guy whose head got lopped off? He wanted the Dark Fae throne, for real. Kinda fixation for that cat.”

Involuntarily my mind’s eye zooms in on the severed Fae head Zephyr left in my bedroom at the domus . He called it a bridal gift… then seemed genuinely perplexed when I wasn’t delighted.

The last I knew, he buried that head in our domus garden. To fertilize Dez’s roses.

I mighta mentioned that Dark Fae King I just mated is kinda feral?

“If memory serves,” Lucius says mildly, cupping his chin and surveying the demon with interest, “the late Lothian was a bit more than your brother. He was your twin, wasn’t he?”