Page 70 of The Prince's Curse

“We’ll come back. Come on.”

Minutes later, they dashed out of the parking garage and into the blinding light of the sun. A familiar black SUV was parked crookedly across the entrance as a waiting valet shouted through the windshield of a blue electric car humming its quiet song.

Julian shot the man a glare and bellowed, “Wait.”

Whether it was the pair of bloody men glaring at him or Julian’s exposed fangs, the valet saw something that made him shrink back and throw up his hands in self-defense.

Julian yanked the door open and hurled Misha in before climbing into the front seat.

“What the—” Paris blurted.

Julian cut him off. “They got her in a blue SUV, South Carolina plates?—”

“Misha, what happened?” Paris said, his voice taking on a sharp edge.

“I made a friend,” Misha said, dabbing gingerly at his split lip.

“Paris—”

The Frenchman fixed a murderous look on him. “I heard you. And we were never going to be able to follow them through goddamn downtown Atlanta in broad daylight.” He slammed his phone onto the center console. “I’m tracking her. Misha?—”

“I’m fine,” Misha said sharply. Paris fixed Julian with another hard stare, as if he’d been the one to pummel the other vampire to a pulp.

Paris handed Julian a lavender duffel bag. “Jonas was carrying that. I managed to grab it before the paramedics got to him. One of his hunters was there. Pretty sure she tried to kill him.”

“Curly-haired woman?”

Paris nodded. “When she saw me, she backed off, and I lost her in the crowd. I told the paramedics to take him to St. Anthony’s. I had to wait until they loaded him in the ambulance. Couldn’t leave him defenseless.”

“Is he okay?” Misha asked.

“He’s alive,” Paris said. “Stubborn prick won’t go down that easy.”

Julian nearly broke the zipper in his rush to open Scarlett’s bag, finding clothes that smelled of her, a few toiletries, several weapon cases that were empty. There was a laptop and a phone charger, and a set of car keys. Tucked into a side pocket was a slender silver bracelet with a little key charm hanging from it. He handed the bracelet to Misha. “Is this magical?”

Misha took it between his fingers, then shuddered. “Absolutely.”

Julian held up the keys. “These must go to Kova’s car. If it’s got GPS, I guarantee it has Armina’s address in it to get him home,” he said. “We need to go.”

“Look, they’ve got several minutes on us, and we know where they’re going. They probably won’t stop, so unless you want to run them off the road and have a battle royale in the midday sun, we’d be better to regroup for a few hours and then storm the house like we planned,” Paris said.

Julian started to protest, then let out a grunt of irritation. He raked his hands through his hair, then startled when a warm touch fell on his shoulder.

Looking up, he found Paris staring back at him. On his face was not anger or judgment, but a soft look of concern. “I’m with you, all right? But let’s be smart and not get ourselves killed, okay?”

He swallowed his terror and nodded. “Okay. We also need to pick up a corpse.”

“What?” Paris spat. “You know what, I’m not even going to ask. Show me to it. I can’t wait to pick up a corpse. Best day ever.”

He hit the gas, whipping around the block and into the parking garage. At Misha’s suggestion, they rolled the windows down and used the remote on the car keys to activate the security system. Finally, there was a rhythmic, shrieking alarm from down the aisle. Lights flashed on a nondescript black car, and the remote unlocked it.

Opening the door unleashed another wave of her scent, mingled with the older scent of Kova. Julian started the car and fiddled with the onboard GPS. There were half a dozen addresses recently used in Charlotte, and when he hit the Home button, it brought up another address.

“I think I’ve got it here,” he said eagerly.

His brow furrowed as he looked at Misha, who was still sitting in the passenger seat of the SUV with his bruised eyes closed. “Be honest with me. Are you going to be okay by sunset?”

“Okay for magic or okay for bareknuckle brawling?” Misha asked without opening his eyes.

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