Page 38 of The Prince's Curse

She hadn’t been close at all. He’d had his chance to kill her when he pinned her to that wall, face pressed against dusty brick.

But he didn’t.

And that, not her impending death, not his sharp fangs and threats, had her almost hyperventilating. She slid down the side of the shower and onto the floor, covering her face as she heaved and fought to breathe.

The world was melting around her.

My little bunny.

Because something in her snapped when he said, “I know you, Brigitte Haas.” It was recognition, it was welcome, it was yes—and that made no sense in any version of her reality.

How did he know that name? She’d heard it in her dreams a dozen times, had stared down at him with that warmth in his eyes in her dreams. Was he planting things in her head? Was it some sick game?

“I loved you once,” he said, as if they’d met before. Surely he didn’t mean when she was just a baby, too tiny to even remember what her mother’s face looked like. Falling in love with an infant was bizarre even by evil vampire standards.

It was all some sick, twisted game. Because the alternative was too much. It could not be possible that Kova was right when he told her to run, that Tante Mina was hiding things, that her dreams were real.

And it could not be possible that her entire life was built on a foundation of brittle glass.

My little bunny.

She surged to her feet, nearly slipped in the shower, and rinsed the last clinging suds from her body. When she got out, she slowly examined herself in the mirror. A few bruises from tussling with Julian, with an ugly one across her back where she’d run into a counter. She’d had worse from sparring with Kova.

He really hadn’t been trying to hurt her, only to keep her from killing him.

Anxiety welled up in her chest as the world started to turn again, but she closed her eyes, gripped the counter, and breathed deep. He was the leader of a powerful vampire court with a similarly powerful witch serving him. Of course he was in her head. They’d already invaded her dreams. Who know what Shoshanna York—with that warm sweet-smelling magic, her memories reminded her—had planted in her head?

She wrapped herself in a towel and slowly combed out her long hair. Maybe Tante Mina was right all along. Scarlett wasn’t ready. The thought of her aunt reminded her of the phone, accusing with its little airplane icon.

Yesterday when Mina realized she was gone, she had texted and called her numerous times, asking where she was. At the time, Scarlett was still in Charlotte, trying to work up the nerve to go. And with a terrible realization that something had forever shifted, regardless of whether she believed Kova’s story, she Googled how can my phone be tracked.

Sitting there in the parking lot of a gas station, car fueled and ready to head south, she’d looked for tracking apps, and realized that she’d been sharing her location with her aunt and her apprentices for months. That made sense; if she got hurt hunting, they could find her.

And now, she didn’t want to be found. She followed the instructions on that handy website to turn off the location tracking, including the Find My Phone app that would let Tante Mina look up her account and find a “lost” device.

By now, Mina had to know that she was in Atlanta. Shea would have told her that much. The size of the city made it easy to hide. But she knew that Scarlett would be looking for Julian, and they had the advantage of knowing where Kova had gone to find Shoshanna York.

Scarlett paced in the hotel room, occasionally catching a glimpse of the red-haired stranger in the mirror. Who the hell was this woman who defied orders and went off mission?

“What the hell are you doing?” she muttered.It had taken no time at all for her to turn all that training around and scheme against her allies.

She had lived her entire life with her aunt. From the earliest memories, Armina had told her that she was a special girl, meant to do great things. And when she turned eighteen, she learned that one of those great things was to kill Julian Alcott, a leader among some of the worst vampires in the world.

So why did the evil king of the worst vampires in existence not kill her when he had a chance?

She flopped onto the bed and opened her laptop. Armina had resorted to emailing her when the texting didn’t work, it seemed. She had five new messages since yesterday, each pleading with her to come home. The last one was chilling.

Scarlett,

This is not a game. Julian Alcott will hurt you, and I cannot protect you from afar. You are not ready for this. You must trust me and come home.

Love,

Tante Mina

She hesitated, then slammed the computer shut. Her aunt had always taken care of her, given her everything she ever needed.

But there was Kova. Armina’s treatment was unusually cruel, given that he’d been their ally since Scarlett could remember.And stranger still, Kova had said that Shoshanna gave him hope things could be better.

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