Page 44 of The Prince's Curse

“What’s going on?” he asked. “Is it Kova?”

Shoshanna shook her head rapidly, and then he smelled her.

Brigitte.

Her scent was faint, as if she’d passed through the room before vanishing into thin air, but she was there.

“Where is she?” he blurted.

Shoshanna put up her hands. The quick motion sent another cascade of that scent through the air, nearly overwhelming him. “I don’t know right now. Scarlett came to our house and?—”

“Are you all right?” Julian said. Then he shook himself. “I’m sorry. Please tell me. I won’t interrupt.”

The human witch spared him a soft smile. “It’s okay. I think reaching out to her got in her head, and then when you two met…it’s like something is shaking loose in her mind.”

Quickly, she told him how Scarlett had come to the house and demanded answers about Armina and Kova. Smelling his mate on the air threatened to distract him, but he forced himself to focus on Shoshanna’s face.

“I think she knows that something is wrong with Armina, but it’s too much for her to think about. She obviously cares about Kova, and she wants to know why he can’t tell her the truth,” Alistair said.

Heat boiled in Julian’s chest, but he held his tongue. If Kova had been there to protect her, then of course she cared about him. But did she love him?

And did it matter, as long as Julian could save her this time? Petty as it was, he hated the idea of Kova touching her, of her loving him while she hated Julian.She was his even if she didn’t know it.

“I tried to tell her we should talk to you, and she panicked,” Alistair said, casting a glance at Shoshanna. “We don’t have any way to contact her.”

“The tracker,” he said. “Do we have any movement?”

He ran into his office, grabbed his laptop, and returned to set it up on Olivia’s desk. The human woman sidled closer to peer at the screen. It was still pinging at the Marriott Marquis downtown. However, Jonas Wynn had investigated and found no sign of her. And as much as he wanted to, they couldn’t break into every damned room in the hotel to find her.Jonas had been trying to track her scent, but a fire had broken out in one of the hotel restaurants, setting off the alarms and forcing everyone to evacuate. By the time he got back inside, the smoke had overwhelmed the lingering scent.

“I have an idea,” Shoshanna said. “I couldn’t get a good look at the magic surrounding her. It’s incredibly powerful, but it’s almost like…it’s like a repellent. It pushes my magic back. She was able to walk right across my protective spells without being entangled. I felt her triggering them, but they didn’t even slow her down. And when I tried to grab her at the house, the magic snapped back at me.”

“I’m not a magic guy, Shoshanna. Help me out,” he said.

“Misha said that when he tried to use his power on her, it snapped back on him so hard he nearly blacked out. But it wasn’t her doing anything; it just happened,” Shoshanna said. “I think that Armina’s curse is actually protecting her right now. Until she decides it’s time to…” Her brown eyes creased. “To kill her.”

“How does that help us?”

“Well, I felt her from far away,” Shoshanna said. “I don’t exactly have radar where I can just see magic, but I’m wondering if Misha could use one of his tricks to find her like he found Lilah Whitlock and Carrigan Shea.”

He nodded. “I’ll ask him to look into it. Are you two staying here for now?”

Alistair said, “Yes,” just as Shoshanna huffed and shook her head.

“I am so damn tired of getting chased out of my own house,” Shoshanna complained.“Mags is going to need kitty therapy. I’m billing you guys.”

Julian chuckled. “I know, and I’m sorry. All right, I’ll see what I can figure out. Go get some rest, Alistair.”

They rose, gave him a little bow that made him uneasy, and left. He started to follow them out of the office, but Olivia cleared her throat and said, “Wait.”

If Paris Rossignol had been his sword arm for the last few months, then Olivia Pierce had been his quartermaster and treasurer and advisor, doing more than he could have possibly asked for her to manage this place. She slid past him and closed the door, then settled back into her chair across from him.

“What are we going to do?” she asked.

“We?” he mused.

“Yes, we,” she said. “I know you’re incredibly proud and stoic, but this is different. What can I do to help? If I need to get on the phone and strongarm the staff at the hotel, I will. Or put her face on the news, or?—”

He held up a hand to stop her. “I appreciate it very much. Right now, I don’t think there’s anything you can do. And I don’t want to frighten her any more than she already is.”

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