Page 178 of Starborn Husbands

“Gemini belongs to me,” he says.

He does fucking not. Most of my brothers share. My parents have an open relationship. I can’t do that shit. Gem is mine and no one else’s.

“You’re a dead man.” I crouch and punch up, landing my fist square into his nuts. I capitalize on the surprise, sliding myself up and against his chest. Wood digs into my throat. I turn my head to keep the body of the ax off my windpipe.Crack!My head lands square against his nose. Blood sprays. I slip down and grab his ax, slipping back under to face him.

“If you ever,” I smash the shaft of the ax in his face, “think about touching Gem again,” another smash, “I’ll burn your kingdom to the ground.”

The wooden handle cracks against his forehead, and he shakes his head, blinking his eyes.

“Now would be a good time, Gem.”

“I’m fucking working on it, Atlanta.”

My head snaps to him instead of where it should be, my large opponent with the ax. He’s never yelled at me like that, well, outside of sex.

Whap!A hard-knuckled fist collides with my jaw with the impact of a meteor. Red carpet over stone meets my face. Fuck, is he wearing a ring? Hot blood floods from what must be a decent-sized gash on my jaw. There’s a whoosh of air above me, and I roll on instinct. His ax buries itself into the stone ground beside me.

My world is upright again as I lumber to a wobbly stand, but there’s fucking two of him now. Dammit, he can give a beat down.

“Stand down, Orion. I don’t want to kill you, but I will,” he says in the silky voice of a pampered prince. So not Gemini’s type.

Wiping the back of my arm across my face, I spit out blood and teeth. I’m gonna need a lightseer for those, but I’m keeping the jaw scar that’ll inevitably develop.

“I do wanna kill you, douchebag. It would be my utmost fucking pleasure.” Can I take many more hits like that one? No. I have to make sure he can’t hit me. “Gem … not to bother you?—”

“Then don’t bother me.”

What happened to him? Is he mad at me?

Don’t have time to figure that out. I jump, missing the blade of douchebag’s ax by a hair, and catapult up and over his shoulder, swinging around to hook my arms around his neck. Even his neck’s too thick to snap, and I end up hanging off the back of him, my feet dangling inches from the ground.

Still dizzy from that punch, the room swims. I sway with his movements, closing my eyes just to get a grip. I wildly fling my leg up and over his shoulder and then the other, squeezing with every ounce of my strength.

The muted clang of his ax landing on the carpeted stone vibrates underfoot. His hands claw at my legs. The stone wall meets my back and a sharpoofleaves my throat, but I don’t let go.

His knees buckle and we go over together, slapping hard against the floor. A loudcrackandpopcome from my damn arm.

“Motherfucker.” Hissing, I hold my broken arm, panting as I catch my breath, watching for signs of him coming back to life. Pretty sure my hip’s gonna be bruised to shit. Between prison and this, I must look like hell. That why Gem’s pissed at me?

I want to finish this asshole off, but there’s just his massive ax that I’m not swinging with one arm. It’s so mangled, I’m not doing much of anything with this arm.

“Shoulda broke your pretty neck.”

I scrabble my way across the floor to Gem. He’s on the bed, cross-legged, elbows resting on his knees, middle fingers pressed against the pads of his thumbs, eyes closed.

“Gem,” I whisper so he doesn’t get pissy with me.

“Got it,” he says.

The swirling white oval opens in midair, and he holds out a hand.

His is clean, manicured, and perfect. Mine’s caked with prison filth, cockroach guts, and blood. I shouldn’t touch Gem at all with these hands, but these hands represent life with me. These hands will never be clean, but they’ll fight to the death for him. They’ll hold him when he needs something solid, and cover him in reverence when I need to tell him I love him without words. And you’d better fucking believe, they’ll violate him in the unholiest of ways, making him mewl like the needy bitch he is for me.

“You sure I’m what you want, Gem? He’s real pretty.” I smirk, lifting my chin toward the blue pile of prince I knocked out.

“I’m sure that if you don’t take my Godsdamn hand, you’re going to lose a few more teeth.” Gem’s voice is measured and dangerous.

Yeah, knew that sparkly blue bastard wasn’t Gem’s type.