Page 82 of The Prince's Curse

“Got it.” Kova groaned and sat up, peering over the seat. He smiled at Scarlett weakly, then peeked at Julian. “Is he going to be okay?”

Misha’s eyes glazed over, glinting with a silver sheen. His nose wrinkled as if he smelled something foul. “It looks bad. I really don’t know.”

“Fuck,” Paris swore. He gripped the wheel and cursed in French, smattered with English before he turned back and said, “Julian, you stubborn prick.”

“He got hurt because he came to get me,” she said quietly. She frowned and looked around at the rest of the vampires. They were all disheveled, sun-blistered skin marked with cuts and bruises. “All of you did. They grabbed me, and you all just picked up and came for me?”

“Yeah. That’s what family does,” Paris said.

Family.

In less than forty-eight hours, the messy cluster of vampires surrounding Julian Alcott had treated her better than the people she’d known all her life. Tante Mina had threatened her, let her lackeys hurt her; and Julian had come for her. Through the blistering sunlight and all his doubts. No hesitation.

Her throat tightened, and she didn’t dare to speak lest the emotions burst out of her like a flood. She was startled when Kova put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed gently. He spared her a smile, nodded, then folded his arms over the seat. “You know the witch will be furious.”

“I don’t give a good goddamn if she’s furious,” Paris said. He glanced at the clock. “We’re going to cut it close, but I’d rather we went home. Head to Infinity to meet us.”

“Not home,” Safira said with a lilt in her voice.

Paris glanced back at Scarlett. “Not with her.”

“I thought I was family,” she said mildly.

“It’s not you. I want to be sure Armina isn’t tracking you somehow,” he said. “And she already knows where Infinity is, given that she sent you and your other hunter friends to attack us there.”

Guilt pooled in her belly, but she nodded. “Fair enough.”

Chapter 19

MISHA

The decapitated vampire woman lay on a steel table in a storage shed, a hundred yards from the makeshift apartment that had become Misha’s humble home. A hundred yards from where he worked and slept and fucked Paris Rossignol until he fell apart. A hundred yards from the epicenter of the vibrant, rich life he was building here.

They had dealt with Carrigan Shea. He’d foolishly thought things would get easier after that, but he hadn’t counted on his newfound family being tangled up with one of the most notorious witches in the world, one who had gone so far in her meddling that even the Night Weavers had disowned her from their questionable ranks decades ago.

And yet, this ugly mystery felt like coming home. As much as he adored Paris and his family, the cozy evenings and slow pace they’d enjoyed for a scant few weeks was unfamiliar, like learning a new language. But a bloody vampire corpse, strange magic, and a search for answers?

This was entirely up Misha Volkov’s alley. After the vicious tussle in a parking garage that left him battered and bruised, they’d put Paige’s body on ice while they went on a rescue mission to recover Scarlett Ward. The mission had been a messy success, with several of the Nightwatch banged up after tussling with the black-eyed vampires in Armina Voss’s estate, as well as the aftereffects of her magic. Julian had taken the brunt of one of the witch’s protective spells, and was still sleeping off its effects.

But given that Misha had seen Paris nearly cut in half by Carrigan Shea, and poor Nikko with his pretty face smashed like a post-Halloween pumpkin, they’d come out much cleaner than he hoped from this particular misadventure.

And with Julian recuperating, Scarlett safely secreted away within the protections of Infinity, and Paris insisting that Misha had to rest, he had time.

Not to rest, naturally. He had time to ask questions. Namely, what the hell was going on with these vampires?

Scarlett had told him what she knew—which was relatively little. She’d been told they served Carrigan Shea, and that Armina Voss was trying to undo their vampire transformation. Even she didn’t entirely buy the story, and suggested that the witch and her apprentices were trying to break vampires to use them as convenient weapons.

Like pets.

As he’d promised Julian, Misha was working on tracking down Rhys Collins. He wasn’t sure it was possible, but he’d helped himself to a sample of Julian’s blood while he slept, then pored over Shoshanna’s journals to see how she’d built the Durendal Covenant. They’d had a stroke of luck and found a single vial of Rhys’s blood in a cooler, which he’d distilled and saved for healing. The bloodstones were still steeping, giving Misha time to investigate the vampire corpse.

His nose wrinkled as he carefully cut open the woman’s sweater, which was raggedly cut and stiff with dried blood. Using a damp towel, he gently cleaned her skin, then draped another towel over her bare chest. She’d tried to kill him, and was quite thoroughly dead, but there was no need to take her dignity.

The memory of her void-black eyes made him shudder, and for one awful moment, he imagined his Paris, sky-blue eyes gone oily dark. What was this witch truly capable of?

The door to the storage shed swung open, and then he heard a gasp of fright. “Jesus, Misha,” Shoshanna complained.

“You’ll have to be more specific,” he said without looking up. “Was that, Jesus, Misha it’s cold? Jesus, Misha that’s a lot of blood?—”

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