Page 94 of The Prince's Curse

Kova knelt in front of her, daring to meet her eyes. “Thank you for this. Even after everything. I was?—”

She surprised him with a finger on his lips. “Thank me after. And if you still want to grovel, Alistair has a curated list of my favorite local restaurants. I take apologies in the form of dessert,” she said with a faint smile. With that beautiful smile and the fiery attitude, he could see exactly why Alistair was so entranced by the witch.

“Consider it done,” he said, closing his eyes.

Shoshanna spoke in French, and even if he’d spoken the language, he’d never have understood her. Her voice was impossibly loud and resonant, layering over itself as if a thousand people joined in a chorus. His body jolted, and he could smell Armina, not just hear her, but smell that perfume and the decay-scent of her magic.

Stop her,that cold voice said. Do not let her hurt my work! A cold hand squeezed his throat, and he could have sworn he felt the sharp bite of one of her rings on his skin.

But as soon as he reached out to grab Shoshanna, a sharp pain split through his spine, and he went limp. His muscles simply wouldn’t respond. He couldn’t even twitch a finger.

His mind felt smaller now, as if he could only observe through a keyhole, and Armina’s voice was barely a whisper beneath Shoshanna’s sonorous chanting. When he tried to move, there was a man’s deep voice saying Steady. Don’t move.

The voices rose to a screaming crescendo. Pain enveloped him, and he felt as if he was falling into an inferno. In the flames, he saw Lucia; the way he’d held her hand and promised to never miss a dance with her, to always watch over her. He’d promised not to let her die, swore up and down that he would find the answer to whatever mysterious illness was plaguing her. He’d believed it to the end, when Dominic came running, frantic, to tell him that she was bedridden and struggling to breathe.

And then thosefinal awful moments, the last of her pale skin going hard and gray. His hands, bloody and broken from pounding at the ground, his skin seared by the sun. Her eyes, forever frozen in terror and accusation as she reached for him, her last words ringing forever in his mind:

Kova, are you there? It’s getting so dark.

There were the people he’d killed for Armina Voss: a young witch who stole from her eighty years ago, relatives and family members to fuel her spells, the vampires who’d tried to encroach on her territory.

His brothers didn’t know, but he’d jumped Julian and Paris both; Julian when he’d tracked down the witch, and Paris when he tried to kill Scarlett. He saw Julian lying in a heap in a dark alley and felt the blood on his hands, knowing he was about to suffer far worse.

There was poor Scarlett, who’d looked up to him like a big brother, and he’d told her lie after lie because the truth was trapped inside him. He’d watched her die multiple times, had brought her body back to Armina for her foul purposes, knowing it would happen all over again.

And just once, he’d tried to kill her while she slept, years before the curse was ready to take her again. A swift death at his hands was kinder than what Armina planned. But when he stood over her with that knife, the bindings had turned on him. He had lost a year to Armina’s punishment that time, starved and sealed away in that bloody basement.

And there was his Lucia again, holding his bloody hands. Her blue eyes found his, and she shook her head. Don’t touch me. Not with these.

Searing pain sliced through him, and he was dimly aware of firm hands on his arms and chest, holding him down as he struggled. Through the flames, through the accusations, Misha’s voice boomed in his head.

Steady. Be still.

There she was again, but instead of smiling so sweetly at him, Lucia shrieked at him. Monster. Murderer! You left me!

And when he tried to take her hand, his bloody hands left stains on her skin. Rot spread from the handprint, eating away her flesh until she turned to cold hard stone again.

She crumbled to dust, and then his sweet Lucia blew away in an icy wind that stank of death.

He screamed.

Someone whispered, “Hit him.”

Cold speared through him and cast him in darkness. Now there were only flashes, blurry images that confused him. Murky silhouettes bobbed out of a tumultuous sea of gray, barely discernible before disappearing once more.

Splintering pain.

Bright light.

Consuming flame.

And then, fireworks, from the tips of his fingers to the base of his spine to every inch of skin. The world crushed him into an impossibly tiny speck before letting him explode into awareness, too big and loud and bright and hot and cold all at once.

“Shh, bratishka,” a familiar voice said.

The world was a thousand molten hot needles, stabbing every inch of his skin, down his throat, inside his belly. Something crushed his ribs, and even the press of blood in his veins was agonizing.

Kova’s eyes snapped open, and he stared out at a gauzy canopy, then looked up to see Sasha holding him. The sensation was too much. The sheet against his skin, the air moving, the smells?—

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