Page 124 of The Prince's Curse

That sound filled him with fury. He snarled and twisted against the magical bindings. One of the cold tendrils snapped, and he clawed his way forward. Something heavy landed on his back. He was trying to throw off the heavy body when something sharp pierced the back of his neck. Deafening noise roared in his ears, and the world became nothing but white static.

Something is very wrong.

Something snapped against the back of his neck, and the world spun around him. Then he was free of that awful magic, and a cool hand cupped his chin, forcing him to look up. He stared into deep, dark eyes.

“Get up,” the blonde-haired witch said.He had seen her before, in this very building.

He frowned, or tried to, but his body was already obeying, legs unsteady beneath him. It was a strange feeling, as if he was merely a passenger in his own body. While he wanted to tear out the witch’s throat, his body was moving on its own. His hands hung limp at his sides, his gun clattering to the ground.

Something tugged at his chest, and he looked to see Kristina fighting in vain to keep another vampire from driving a dark metal stake through her throat.

“No,” he murmured, his voice barely a whisper.His fingers drifted up to his neck and found an ice-cold stake there. As soon as he touched it, his hand went numb and fell at his side.

“Go help them,” the witch said.

His legs twitched. But as he watched Kristina struggling with a red-haired female vampire, heat pulsed through his chest. Prickling sensation surged through his arms, and he managed to say, “No. Stop this.” The witch’s command, go help them, echoed endlessly in his mind, but he didn’t move.

Her head cocked quizzically. “No?”

Then she shrugged and swept her hand down toward the ground like she was scooping up water. Dark tendrils surged through the air and around Kristina, bringing her down quickly.

“No!” Sasha said, louder this time. He took a shaky step toward his mate, then another. The heat in his chest was painful, tugging him toward her.

Why was he so damned slow? He reached for the stake again, but his hands went numb when he tried to touch it. A calm voice in his head said, No. Leave it.

“Stop,” the witch said. “Stand right there.”

Kristina let out a banshee wail as one of the vampires yanked back her sleek blonde braid and drove the weapon into her Covenant mark. Light erupted from the mark, and she convulsed violently before going terribly still. Her voice rumbled in her chest, but it was garbled and wordless, as if she was fighting to make sense of what had happened.

His instincts screamed at him to go to her, but he was rooted to the ground, the woman’s command echoing in his head.

Stand right there.

“Kristina, love, get up,” the witch said.

Lux. That was her name.She had been here with Shea.

Slowly, Kristina got to her feet. Her eyes were darker now, like dried blood instead of bright ruby. Rivulets of red trickled from the stake, glowing beneath the engraved runes.She shuddered, one hand twitching toward her waist.

“None of that, dear,” Lux said. She glanced back at Sasha. “Go and kill your boyfriend.”

Kristina’s eyes went wide, and she took a tentative step toward him. Then she closed her eyes, and with both hands, reached for the stake. Hope soared through him as she ripped at it, even with her flesh smoking. “No,” she shouted clearly.

As her voice rang out, the witch’s commands in his mind obey obey listen faded, and he heard his Kristina in his head instead.You love me, her sweet voice said.

“Jordan,” Lux said. In a blur, the lean dhampir man lunged at Kristina, slammed a fist into her back, and she sank to the floor. The witch bent over and cupped Kristina’s cheeks, staring into her eyes. “You obey me now. You don’t have to hurt him.” Then she cocked her head. “Instead, why don’t you go and kill the woman who staked you? Wouldn’t that be fun?”

Kristina’s head snapped around, and as she stalked toward the red-haired woman, Lux snapped her fingers. “You may not leave, Andrea,” she said.

The dark-eyed woman cocked her head, and tension gripped her. There were several easy exits to escape Kristina, but the woman stood rooted to the ground. Her eyes widened, and her lips parted for a split second as if she was trying to protest. Whatever survival instinct she had was not enough to overpower Lux’s compulsion, and that was terrifying to behold.

And he watched her, his goddess of the hunt, pounce on the other vampire, wrestle her to the ground, and snap her neck with such ease that he could have kissed her at any other time. Instead, he was horrorstruck.

Fucking move, Morozov, he told himself.

Shoshanna was always talking about the power of their bonds. It was how she’d freed Lucia, how she broke him and Kristina out of their curse.

He was no witch, but he knew what it felt like when he held Kristina, when he stared into her brilliant eyes as he made love to her, what it was to watch her hunt and turn back to smile at him, as if to say did you see that?

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