Page 42 of The Prince's Curse

Scarlett reached out lightning quick to grab it and said, “Please don’t call anyone,” as if she hadn’t just removed the option. She powered the phone off, then set it down in front of her. Her fingers drummed across the stone counter for a few moments before she drew a deep breath. “What did you tell Kova? He was supposed to kill you and he didn’t.He couldn’t get the words out, but he said you gave him hope things could be better. What did he mean?”

Shoshanna glanced at Alistair. He shook his head slightly.

“I gave him hope that I could break Armina’s hold on him,” Shoshanna finally said.

“So he can kill people again?”

“No. So he can be free,” Shoshanna said. “He’s not a killer.”

“Well…” Alistair muttered.

Scarlett swallowed hard, then leaped back as the tea kettle began to whistle.

“Can I make a cup of tea without startling you?” Shoshanna asked. The other woman nodded, watching her warily as she took down two cups and prepared them. When she put the paper bags into the cups, Alistair’s nose wrinkled. Under less tense circumstances she might have teased him about judging her given that he hadn’t drunk tea, properly made or otherwise, in two hundred years.

She placed both cups on the island along with the sugar and milk, then sat back to let Scarlett choose. The young woman took one of the cups and curled her hands around it without drinking it. Heart pounding, Shoshanna prepared her own, then sat down again to watch her.

“You came to me in a dream. I didn’t see you, but Armina said you had attacked me,” Scarlett finally said. “But your magic feels different than hers.”

“I didn’t attack you. I was trying to reach out to you and get you to come here,” Shoshanna said. “How did you see me?”

Her cheeks flushed as she looked up. “I didn’t actually see you. I dreamed about Julian. We…we danced.”

Having spoken at length to her soulmate and his brothers about how they’d first felt the pull of the soulmate bond, she knew that the dream was probably a great deal more vivid than dancing, but she let the woman keep her secrets. “And it was a good dream? Did it feel safe?”

“I don’t want you inside my head,” Scarlett spat.

“Okay. I’m not inside your head,” Shoshanna said. “Don’t you think if I could mind-control you, I’d have stopped you from kicking my door down? I’m still cleaning up the mess Kova made.”

The dhampir woman sipped her tea, regarded Shoshanna suspiciously, then set it down. “Did you make me see him that way so I wouldn’t want to kill him?”

“I didn’t make you see anything. All I did was reach out to you. Your mind filled in the rest,” she said. When was it time to spring the truth on her?

“He killed my parents. There’s no way I could see him like that without trickery,” Scarlett said vehemently.

Alistair shook his head. “He didn’t. Armina Voss has been lying to you for your whole life.”

Shoshanna expected the other woman to scoff and argue, but Scarlett held Alistair’s gaze and said, “You’re not the first person to suggest that.”

“What does that tell you?” Shoshanna said mildly.

Scarlett stared down at the teacup as she continued. “Kova is one of my only friends. He’s been kind to me, and she hurt him when he came back from here. I want you to break her spell on him so he can tell me the truth.”

“Oh,” Shoshanna said. “You trust him that much?”

“I don’t know if I can trust him without her magic, but I need to know what she’s keeping him from saying,” Scarlett said. She let out a nervous laugh. “I feel like everyone around me is in on a secret.”

Well, at least she was smart.

Alistair leaned across the counter. “What has she told you about Julian?”

At that, Scarlett’s hands tightened around the cup. “That he killed my family.”

“Is that all?” he asked.

“My mother was a veravin, and she trusted the Auberon vampires until they killed my dad,” she said, unfolding a tale of woe. As she spoke, Shoshanna took advantage of her distraction to peer through her arcane sight.

Cold blistered across her skin, down her throat, into her belly as if she’d plunged into glacial water and inhaled. The foul stench of it made her shudder internally. Scarlett’s form was bound in dark threads, as if a spider had sealed her into a cocoon of pure darkness. Tendrils danced away from her, pushing out like coronas from a black sun.

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