Page 150 of The Prince's Curse

After packing their weapons into cases and loading them into cars, the team went their separate ways to eat, rest, and handle other affairs before their afternoon departure. If not for the blood bags and the umbrellas blocking out the sun, it would have been utterly indiscernible from a Shieldsmen mission.

Scarlett followed Julian back to his chambers and gasped in surprise when he pressed her to the wall and kissed her hungrily. “I wish I could make love to you one last time before I go,” he murmured.

She frowned at him, clasping his cheeks firmly as she pulled back from his searching kiss. “Don’t talk like that. We’re going to be fine.”

“You don’t believe that,” he said.

“I can try,” she huffed.“And if I can try, you better sure as hell try.”

His faint smile pushed against her grasp, forcing her to smile in response. Then he leaned in for another kiss. “I want you to know that no matter what happens, I love you. Always.”

“I love you,” she echoed. He pulled her close, arms twining aroundher as his lips sealed hers. As his tongue searched past her lips, teasing and probing, his hand slipped up. There was a sharp prick at her neck, and she recoiled.

Gripping his wrist firmly, she fought him to pull back, staring at the syringe in his hand. Liquid dripped from the needle. His eyes were wide. He looked like a little boy who’d been caught stealing candy, which might have been funny if it wasn’t such a fucking betrayal.

“What are you thinking?” she squawked.

With gritted teeth, he feinted and spun her around. She dodged his next swipe and dove across his bed to put space between them. Her heart pounded with fury as she stared him down.

“Scarlett,” he said in a warning tone. His pretty eyes had gone bright red, fangs descending over his lips. That sharp smell was in the air—an old vampire on the hunt.

“You want to drug me?” she said incredulously.

“I want you to live through this,” he said.

With a growl, she kicked at the bedframe and sent it sliding across the room, clipping him in the shins. His look of surprise was almost comical. As he stared down at his feet, she lunged onto the bed and snatched the syringe from him.

“Scarlett, don’t?—”

She snapped it in half and let it fall on the bed, then kicked him in the chest with a resounding crack. “You bastard!” she seethed. “That woman controlled my fate for nearly two centuries, and I can’t even have one day of making my own goddamned choices before you start making them for me?”

“That’s not what this is!” he bellowed.

“You lied to my face, let me prepare for a mission, all the while knowing what you planned. Poor, stupid little Scarlett,” she said in a mocking tone.

“I’m trying to save you!”

“You did!” she shouted back at him.

Air rushed past her, and she realized he had moved faster than she could see. Firm hands grabbed her shoulders and pinned her down. She shouted in anger as he straddled her hips and grabbed her wrists.

Desire roared to life in her, which only made her angrier. “Get off me!” she snapped.

He let out a growl that took some of the fight out of her. Angry as she was, he was still a four-hundred-year-old vampire, and he was still far stronger than her. “That spell being broken means that you can die now,” he growled.

“I’m not cursed anymore,” Scarlett said, wriggling against him.

“Which means that when you die, you die permanently,” Julian said. “You’re not coming back this time. And Armina knows that.”

She froze.

“If you walk in there with me, she will kill you just to spite me,” he said.

“Then you stay back, and I’ll go,” she spat. “She won’t kill me without you.”

He let out a barking laugh. “Are you insane? This is my court. This is my family. I will not sit back while she enthralls them to serve her.”

“And if she kills you, I’m just supposed to be happy living out my life alone?” she spluttered. Heat boiled under her skin, and she could barely contain her fury. “Why is it unacceptable for you to lose me, but perfectly fine for me to lose you?”

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