Bonus Chapter 36.1
Vasili
Uncertainty.
Now there’s a feeling I rarely tolerate.
In fact, the only reason I’m tolerating it now is because I fully intend this unpleasant sensation to be extremely short-lived.
I’ve just returned to Avalon—the Unseelie palace—after three days home at Icarus.
There, I was obliged to devote considerable effort to reassuring an agitated Ronin and a deeply concerned Lucius that we’re all still alive and kicking after Zara and her Unseelie tyrant broke the Avalon curse, while yours truly skewered mad Queen Maeve with my Fae-killing spear.
Now, darling, don’t worry. My little moment of regicidal violence hasn’t done my already sinister and psychotic reputation much damage.
To be honest, the entire incident was deeply satisfying.
Speaking of regicide…
I really haven’t liked the Unseelie King Zephyr, obviously , since he kidnapped my darling Zara. Having bullied out of Ronin the complete saga of his own failed boyhood romance with Zephyr, I care even less for that fucking Fae now.
To my dismay, Zara shows every indication of having flung herself recklessly in love with the wretched Fae. She’s beguiled by him. Bewitched by him. In a word, she’s…
Smitten.
Hence, my uncertainty.
In fact, Zara’s obsession with that green-haired tyrant is the whole reason for my latest diabolical scheme.
That’s why I’m stalking Maxim.
Assuming he agrees to my terms, tonight is about to become that dragon’s lucky night.
Silent as a falling feather, I alight on the balcony of the guest room Maxim has claimed. In the balmy night, a sickle moon floats over the sable sea. Moonlight spills through the open doors. Filmy curtains, billowing gently in the breeze, screen the room.
Those curtains hide my approach quite nicely.
I’ve already fixed my psychic barriers firmly in place. It’s crucial that Zara not sense (until I’ve made this devil’s bargain) the return of her horrible alpha.
Mind you, it’s not that I don’t trust the little darling.
I merely like to know what I’m flying into before I blow trumpets to announce my return.
Where’s the harm in that?
Now my stealth bears fruit, like the snake in the Garden of Eden. The curtain ripples around the husky moan of a deliciously aroused male.
My, my. What have we here?
If I’m being honest, I’ve been stalking Maxim Rasputin (when he isn’t stalking me) and fantasizing about fucking that dragon for quite some time. But that’s a level of obsession over the blond shifter, with his golden eyes and Black Sea suntan and complicated dragon dinky, that I’ll never confess.
Now that sexy growl of his gooses my vitals and shoots straight to my dick.
Of course, hearing a sound like that, I’m titillated.
Ronin’s still at Icarus, brooding and fretting over Zephyr. Max isn’t permitted to lay a finger on my Neo (no matter how much he’d clearly like to). And Zara makes the most delicious little sighs and gasps and cries when she’s sexed up—none of which I’m currently hearing.
Thus, that dragon must be pleasuring himself.
Clearly, he’s missing me.
In fact, I’ll bet he’s fantasizing about me right now while he jacks off in his solo bed. If I wait much longer, he’ll cry out and spill all over that taut dragon tummy.
Yummy.
I allow myself a pleasant little moment to preen, tidying my hair and my Academy uniform, both a bit windblown from my flight. Why look less than perfect when I reveal my irresistible presence to that masturbating dragon?
While I’m primping, I slip out of my combat boots for stealth. Then I confirm the packets of cherry-flavored sex lube I purloined from our stash at Icarus are safely tucked in my pocket.
Darling, what can I say?
I multitask.
“Kotyonok,” Max rumbles in a long sex-drenched moan. “You are becoming a very bold bookworm.”
Bookworm?
That single inflammatory word rivets my feet to the flagstones. In fact, my entire body goes rigid with shock.
“Sorry, Max.” Well, well. There’s another achingly familiar voice. “I think I’m starting another microheat?”
That apologetic voice, thick with arousal, is undoubtedly Neo.
My Neo.
Breaking his heat with another alpha.
And not just any alpha.
He’s breaking his heat with that fucking dragon.
Because of course Maxim Rasputin is more than the boy I’m flirting with. For years, he was my nemesis. Now, as the fully manifested dragon shifter who shares our queen’s bed—the only male in it who refuses to bend for me—Maxim is also my sexual rival.
Yes, he and I share Zara. And Ronin. The four of us tumbled into that delectably carnal arrangement by mutual consent.
But that dragon and I don’t share Neo.
Neo is mine .
That dragon’s cock is running rampant in my henhouse.
I’m electrified with a bolt of jealousy and rage.
“What. The actual. Fuck .” I whisper the words, because I can barely breathe.
Behind the curtain, Neo lets out a sexy whimper.
Somehow, I realize, I’m palming one of the wickedly sharp knives from the hidden cache of blades concealed on my person.
In my fury, I barely comprehend what I plan to do with that blade.
Well, plainly, I intend to use it.
Max’s leather-and-brimstone mating scent rolls through the open door, thick and potent in the night. The scent of a rival alpha—claiming my mate—triggers a hit of my own Mogadon pheromones. I flood the air with the sweet musk of my own aggression.
“Do not apologize, kotyonok ,” Max says in that velvety growl he only uses when he’s sexed up as fuck. “I enjoy when you are bold. And it is my privilege to be chosen to break your heat.”
That certainly tears it.
Literally.
Hissing with rage, I slice the filmy curtain of that dragon’s fuck palace in a single vicious strike that splits the fabric from ceiling to floor.
Then I fly through the tear like a wrathful Tinkerbell.
A heartbeat later, I’m hovering airborne six feet over the bed. I’m the Angel of Death, knife poised high in my lethal grip. My infuriated gaze zooms in on the mess of rumpled sheets.
Max sprawls shirtless and barefoot like a pasha, buttery blond hair scattered across the pillow, pants unzipped and barbed cock jutting, shamelessly exposed and erect.
With my bookworm’s innocent fist wrapped bravely around that dragon’s girth.
Neo Mercury, flushed and excited, likewise half-naked and looking very well-kissed, stops pumping Max’s dick. Neo shoots up to sit with a horrified gasp.
“Well, darlings,” I say coldly into the riveted silence, “I dare say an apology is in order. In fact, Rasputin, I do believe you owe me a full-fledged grovel.”
I extend my blade to point straight at that dragon’s naked throat and bare my teeth in a vicious grin. “I advise you to give that grovel your most inspired effort.”