Page 67 of The Prince's Curse

Her spine tensed, pulling her body rigid. Shadows swam in her vision. “It doesn’t taste right.”

“It’s the witch’s magic,” Misha said. His eyes were furious red, and he gave her a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think it would be a problem.”

Her throat felt constricted, but the panic was fading. “I guess she’s very protective,” she said weakly. Julian’s eyes met hers, full of concern. “I’m fine. Jonas will keep you posted.”

His lips parted like he was going to say something else, but she closed the car door. The SUV pulled away and disappeared around the corner.

Taking a deep breath to ground herself, she jogged up the stairs and into the air-conditioned mini-mall. Frying food from half a dozen restaurants filled the air with a mélange of scents, but her stomach was still uneasy after the failed attempt at masking her scent. It unsettled her to think of the magic reacting so violently, absorbing and reflecting back anything that threatened her.

Now that she was out of his sight, out of his influence, her mind was racing. Was she really going to do this? There was still time to toss the tracker, call Tante Mina, and go home.

But could she do it? The seeds of doubt were weeds, well on their way to being full-grown trees bearing forbidden fruit. Even if she went back to Charlotte, she could never truly go back home. The familiarity of her strange little family, the warmth of the house, the certainty about all that she knew…it was all gone.

With her heart thrumming, she checked over her shoulder and hurried through the sparse lunch crowd. She closed her eyes and descended the long, dizzying escalator that led down into the MARTA station. She breathed deep, finding the familiar scent of another dhampir, this one male.

At the bottom of the escalator, she found a middle-aged, but rather fit man near the kiosk to buy train tickets. A faint smile curved his lips as he looked her over. “Scarlett,” he said evenly.

“Jonas,” she greeted.

“I see that you’ve changed teams, too,” he said.

“No one said that,” she said. His amber eyes flinched, but he shrugged. “Can I trust them?”

“Can you trust anyone?” he asked. “You decide. But I know that if Armina Voss is working with Carrigan Shea, she’s the last ally I want.”

“He turned Kristina,” she said, her voice lilting.

His jaw ticked, and he nodded. “I fell for his bullshit, and he hurt my daughter. And it wasn’t Armina Voss or the Shieldsmen or even me that saved her. It was Sasha, despite what I did to him. And those vampires took her in without question.” Even with the distant noise of an industrial air conditioner, she heard the pounding of his heart.

It was odd to see the hidden emotion there; when she’d met the two of them, he held his daughter at a distance. Kristina was a capable hunter who’d done a ton of work behind the scenes, and it was a blow to the hunters when she was turned. No one had realized how much grunt work she was doing until she was gone.

“Jack sent Marlee and Jordan to help,” she said.

Jonas just nodded. “I’m not surprised.”

“Are you ready?” she asked.

He nodded. “I’ll have your back.” He held up his phone. “I’m sharing my location with Paris and Olivia Pierce. I’ll update them that we’re on the move, and again when we leave. We’ve got a walkie-talkie app, but we don’t use it unless it’s an emergency. Vampires will hear everything.”

She was going to need a new phone if she wanted to keep Armina and her apprentices off her back. Together, she and Jonas went back up the towering escalator, and she tried not to think of stepping over a threshold, leaping off a cliff and taking a step she couldn’t come back from.

Rising up onto street level, they walked side by side, both surveying their surroundings constantly. Now she was fixed on the mission; her target was waiting. In, out, get to safety, she reminded herself.

They hurried across the street, rounding the drive to the front doors of the hotel. A young man in a crisp blue uniform nodded to them and said, “Welcome back.”

The smell of Lux and Shea still lingered in the lobby, setting her nerves on edge. There were people eating at the bar, a few lingering at the checkout desk, but no sign of one monstrous vampire or his witch puppetmaster.

“Let’s move,” she said to Jonas.

They hurried to the elevator, which made her nervous. Being enclosed in a glass box was less than ideal, and she shifted back and forth on the balls of her feet as they rose. Fiddling with the key card in her pocket, she burst from the elevator as it dinged to a stop on her floor. The smell of cleaning products was overwhelming, almost nauseating. It smelled like someone had dumped an entire bottle of bleach on the carpet.

She swiped her key against the door and ducked inside, urging Jonas to follow. He closed the door, folding his arms over his chest as she hurried inside to gather her things. Quickly, she stuffed her belongings into her bag, rifling through them until she found the small bracelet that allowed her to cross onto the property without triggering Armina’s protective spells. She tucked it into the inner pocket of her bag, then withdrew an injector of wood poison.

Better safe than sorry.

Jonas grabbed the bag from her and said, “Let’s move. We’ll take the stairs down just in case.” She nodded, and followed as he turned to walk out the door.

Everything happened too fast. The door opened. Jonas Wynn disappeared with a shout cut short by a meaty impact. As she ran for the door, there was a blur, then a large vampire tackling her into the room.

---