Page 91 of The Prince's Curse

Shoshanna cleared her throat. “I don’t mean to make it weird, but are we going to keep yelling at each other about our feelings that certainly can’t be resolved in one evening, or can we do something productive?”

Paris let out a nervous laugh. “Let us table the issue of that witch. If you’re ready to break Kova’s spell, then move ahead with it.”

Thirty minutes later, she was staring out the window as Julian drove them down the busy interstate, headed for the beautiful home in Midnight Springs. Her heart thrummed as she tried to come up with words. Finally, she cleared her throat. “I’m sorry about earlier.”

“Don’t be,” he said. “All of this is…it’s so messy. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve wondered if things would be different if we’d just killed Tobias outright. If we’d let him go to warn his superiors. If we’d just given up our home in Switzerland and run away. Maybe it would all be different.”

“And the Shieldsmen could have done the same,” she mused. “Let you have the city.”

“But they believed what they did was right, as did we. We truly wanted to be left in peace, but I understand why they couldn’t accept that,” he said. “I am not a fool.”

She sighed. “I wish I could talk to her and make her see reason. But she’s still so angry about it. I think…” She fiddled with her nails. “I think it’s one thing to be a decent person in pain. Even a decent person who does something terrible to prevent something worse. But…I don’t think that’s who she is. Maybe she used to be a good person, but she hurt Kova because it amused her. And if she wanted to punish you, killing Brigitte was enough. The balance was struck then.”

He nodded without speaking.

Tears pricked her eyes. “I have to tell you something. I wanted to wait, but it’s been eating me alive,” she said.

A warm hand slid over her arm and took her hand. She glanced over to see him flash her a faint smile before fixing his gaze on the road again. “You can tell me anything.”

“When we attacked Infinity, I…I killed two people. I didn’t come inside because Mina wanted me to be the sniper, although now that I think about it, I wonder if she didn’t want me to run into any of you,” she rambled. “And I thought I was doing the right thing and?—”

She sucked in a deep breath, remembering how he’d spoken so clearly, unwavering as he admitted to what he’d done to Tobias.

“I believed that they were the enemy. And I killed them. At the time, I thought the Auberon were bad, and therefore anyone protecting them was equally bad. Now I can’t help thinking that they were people, too. I took them from their families, and?—”

A sob ripped out of her, and before she realized it, she was weeping. Julian cursed, and she was vaguely aware as he pulled off the interstate and zipped into a gas station, its harsh lights glowing through the windows. Strong arms folded around her, pulling her in tight.

He didn’t speak or try to talk away her pain. Words crawled out of her, as if they’d been secretly conspiring for the moment she let the dam break. “I’m so fucking stupid. I thought I was doing the right thing, and she told me how good I was, how much I was making a difference. And I didn’t ask questions, just did whatever I was told and I enjoyed it,” she wept. “I liked hunting vampires. And when I watched those two drop, I didn’t feel bad about it. I didn’t enjoy it, but I thought it was a good shot and a job well done, and?—”

“Scarlett,” he murmured, stroking her long hair. “Do you want me to be honest with you or say sweet things to make you feel better?”

She sniffled. “Both?”

He held her tight for a while longer, the silence hanging thick around them. “Did you believe deep down that the Auberon were evil? That we were hurting innocent humans for our entertainment?”

“Yes,” she murmured.

“Then I can’t fault you for what you did. If you believed that taking us down was the way to stop evil from spreading, then you did the right thing, at least under your current code,” he said.

“But they were people,” she said.

“Yes, they were. They were alive and now they’re not. They were buried and mourned, and the people who cared about them will miss them forever,” he said. “And I’m not saying this to make you feel better just because I love you, but I truly believe Armina holds the blame for their deaths. You were the instrument, and she used you because you were the right tool for the job. She honed you into exactly what she wanted.”

She let out another noisy cry against his shoulder, and he held her tight. She’d barely ever questioned her life until this damned vampire showed up, and now her doubts were ripping her apart, laying her heart open to be shredded by the world.

“I am not proud of what I did to her husband, but I would do it again. I believed that I did what was necessary to stop further bloodshed. Life is complicated, Scarlett. Sometimes there is no right or wrong, only differing shades of difficult,” he said.

“So you don’t feel bad about it?” she asked, pulling away to look up at him through her teary eyes.

He let out a bitter laugh, though his expression was somber. “God, of course I do. Most of the vampire hunters we fought back then were… They were religious zealots. Some of them were sadists and used the ‘good of humanity’ reasoning to justify bloody killings. Not just vampires, but people they thought were helping us. And Dominic wasn’t exaggerating about breeding dhampir, either,” he said, shaking his head. “We’re not sure, but we think Jonas Wynn was born around that time. He doesn’t talk about it, but he says he didn’t know his family. There’s a good chance he was born to some poor village girl whose family gave her up for a sack of coin and a turned head.”

“That’s horrible,” Scarlett said.

“It is. But some of them were true believers. If someone thought that we were sacrificing innocent virgins and draining babies on a nightly basis, I’d wonder more at their morality if they didn’t hunt us down,” he said. “I listen to my conscience, and sometimes, it will be unhappy no matter what I do. When I held Tobias Pfahler’s life in my hands, I knew that there was no good answer. And I wasn’t entirely noble, either. I cared about people, but I cared about my own survival and I cared about my family. I chose them over him. You chose to protect humans at the expense of our security guards. I can’t fault you for it.”

He glanced over at her, his eyes glistening. “I wish I could fix it.”

She shook her head. “I appreciate the honesty. I just never had a doubt that what I was doing was right. Now I don’t trust myself at all,” she said.

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