Page 54 of The Prince's Curse

His heart clenched tight. “Of course.”

It was the tiniest thing, but he savored that sincerity on her face.

Scarlett tilted her head toward the sheath on the counter. “I have a magic blade, too,” she said. “Just in case that’s messing with you.”

Misha raised an eyebrow. “Can I?” She nodded, and he picked it up. “Nothing magical about this.”

She gaped at him. “But she…” Her shoulders slumped, and she shook her head. “Figures.”

Paris settled into the seat across from her. “All right. You’re fed, and we’re safe. What the hell is Carrigan Shea doing back in Atlanta? I killed him. To be precise, I broke his Covenant, poisoned him, and watched a building drop on top of him.”

She shook her head. “It didn’t take off his head, I guess. Lux dragged the pieces out of the building. It took Armina and both her apprentices two days to put him back together and bind him with their magic,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “I don’t like him.”

“That makes all of us,” Paris said. “What does she want with him?”

“An attack dog. I told her I didn’t trust him, but she ignored me. He’s barely under her control. He almost…” Scarlett closed her eyes, absently rubbing at her throat. “Her spells are supposed to keep him under control, but I think it slips.”

“So why is he here?” Julian asked.

“Hunting me down, I guess,” she said. “He isn’t supposed to hurt me, but that doesn’t mean he won’t.”

“Fuck,” Paris muttered. “Do we still have any of our special sauce just for him?”

“Not much,” Misha said. “And without blood from him or one of his followers, I can’t make more.”

“I’d be more than happy to kill him,” Scarlett said. “If her control holds, then he’d be at a disadvantage. He’s still just a vampire. He wouldn’t be the first one I killed.”

Tense silence filled the room, and she slowly looked around. Her chest lifted as she took a deep breath.

“It’s okay,” Julian said. “We’re all adults here. We know what we are.”

It was strange to hear her talk so frankly about killing Carrigan Shea. The last time fate had brought them crashing together, she fancied herself a vampire hunter, newly minted with a gun she barely knew how to use. But this time, Armina had trained her from the day she was old enough to walk, it seemed.

She was harder than she’d been before, sharpened into a weapon. Even though he glimpsed who she had always been—good-natured, with a wry wit and a taste for adventure—it saddened him to think of Armina tearing away her softness, leaving jagged edges.

Even her face was harder; she was leaner than the first time they’d been together, when she had full cheeks and rounded hips that fit quite nicely into his hands. Her face was slimmer, giving a sharpness to her cheekbones and her jaw. She was still as beautiful as ever, but this was the difference between a beautifully crafted sword and a bouquet of wildflowers.

And if he was honest, he might have the same name, but he was no longer the same man who’d kissed Brigitte Haas under the moonlight. The years had carved the hope and optimism out of him. He had done hard things, bloody and terrible things, to protect his court. Could Scarlett love the man he was now?

“We’ll keep it in mind,” Paris said. “I’d rather like to help and be the man who killed him twice.”

“Should have killed him the first time,” she said mildly.

“I was working on it when his little witch sidekick blew up the building around me,” Paris replied. “Physics and gravity disagreed with my plans.”

She drew a deep breath. “So what exactly are we doing here? Julian told me his version of the story. And let’s say I believe you, and that my aunt intends to kill me sometime next week. What do we do?”

“Your aunt?” Misha asked.

She flinched. “My mother and father died when I was just a baby. They were…” She glanced at Julian, frowned, then shrugged. “I’m not sure I know the truth anymore. But Armina raised me and told me that she’d been close to my mother. I know she’s not related by blood, but she was the closest to family that I had.”

“Psycho bitch…” Paris muttered. He looked to Julian, as if to say you handle this.

“I’m sorry that you didn’t have them,” he said, his voice sounding hollow. “I don’t know much about magic, but there is a curse on you, and Shoshanna says it is more powerful than anything she’s ever seen.”

Though she remained stoic, Scarlett’s eyes widened. Her fingers curled tight around her napkin, betraying a hint of turmoil. “And can she break it?”

“Yes,” Misha said. Julian glared at him, but the blood witch ignored him. “She’s incredibly clever.”

---