Page 127 of The Prince's Curse

The witch gasped and threw her hands up. Moving lightning fast, Scarlett caught the flying tea, which splashed over her arm in a pungent burst. “What is it?” Scarlett asked.

Shoshanna’s eyes went brilliant white. “Someone’s here. I can’t—” She gasped and shuddered violently. “Misha. Get Misha.”

“Are you?—”

A low, terrible noise rumbled in Shoshanna’s chest. The lights flickered, and Scarlett bolted out of the room. As she bounded down the hall, Misha was already on his way up, clearing the entire flight of stairs in a single leap. His eyes were brilliant red, and he nodded to Scarlett without speaking.

Downstairs, Kova was darting across the living room with a gun in one scarred hand. “You stay back,” he said, sidling up to the front door.

Resisting the urge to shout at him, Scarlett crept behind the wall of the kitchen, which still gave her a line of sight to the door. After all they were doing for her, she owed it to them to not throw herself into pointless danger now.

His head tilted, and she followed his cue to listen. There was a pounding heartbeat on the other side of the door. But instead of someone kicking the door in or throwing an explosive through the front glass window, there was a piercing scream cut short by a ragged, wet gasp.

“What the—” Scarlett muttered, creeping out instinctively.

“Back!” Kova roared.He flung the door open, then stopped short, his red eyes downcast.

With the moonlight at her back, Stella Flynn waited on the front porch. But mere seconds after the door opened, she was no longer standing. Instead, she crumpled as lashing tendrils of blinding magic erupted from the walls, from the ground, even from thin air and wrapped around her. The pleasant vanilla smell of Shoshanna’s magic permeated the air, but it tangled with another smell that Scarlett didn’t recognize. It wasn’t Night Weaver magic, even though Stella’s hands were frantically moving, as if she was trying to cast her way out.

“Help,” Stella said, blood pouring over her lips. Mottled reddish tendrils emerged from her hands, but as soon as they materialized, they lashed back on her, slithering around her body like an anaconda and squeezing her tight.

Bones cracked, and Stella let out a squeaking sound as her face contorted with agony.

“What’s happening?” Kova murmured. “What are you?—”

“Help…you,” Stella choked out. Her legs buckled beneath her, and she convulsed as blood poured from her mouth, bloomed through her ripped jeans, soaked into her shoes. The young woman collapsed on her back, writhing as the ropy tendrils squeezed and twisted around her.

“Stop it!” Scarlett blurted.

“I haven’t touched her!” Kova protested. He shook his head. “Shoshanna, stop the spell!”

Voices argued upstairs, and then a deafening, high-pitched sound filled the air. The house shook on its foundation, and the lights flickered violently before coming back on. The silence was deafening, reminding Scarlett of when she’d flown in a plane but couldn’t get her ears to adjust.

Steps thundered over the floor as Misha charged outside. “What is— Who is this?”

“Stella, one of Armina’s apprentices,” Kova said.

“What the hell did you do?”

“I didn’t touch her!” Kova protested.

“He didn’t,” Scarlett said. She stepped out of the kitchen, but both of the vampires whirled, pointed, and said in unison, “Stay back!”

Even from her hidden position, she could see the blood pooling around the young witch. Her pulse was erratic, and the smell in the air was foul. Not magic; but mundane death, the scent of internal organs crushed and leaking poison. Had she come to kill Scarlett? Had Shoshanna’s magic protected her that violently?

“Give her your blood,” Misha said. “I want to know what she knows.”

“Are you insane?” Kova protested. “If I give her enough to keep her alive, she’s going to turn.”

“What about that was unclear?” Misha growled.

“You do it,” Kova said.

Misha let out a sharp laugh, then grabbed Kova’s wrist and sliced his hand open with a blindingly fast motion. When Kova tried to pull away, Misha twisted his arm, threw him to the ground, then pressed his hand to the witch’s face. While his blood poured messily over her lips, the blood witch scowled at Kova. “It has to be you. I’m not taking the risk of creating an unstable Night Weaver with blood magic.”

Kova let out a blistering diatribe in Russian, but Misha held him with an iron grip to the back of his neck. “This is fucked up,” Kova snarled at him, twisting in vain against the other man’s grasp.

“What about this situation is not fucked up?” Misha asked. He narrowed his eyes. “Consider it part of your penance, Dmitri.”

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