Page 68 of The Prince's Curse

The smell of the old vampire was terrifying, making her instinctively recoil. As he bore her to the ground, she smacked her head against the carpeted floor. It was enough to send stars shooting across her vision, but she tried to scramble out from under him.

One thick leg filled her vision, his knee pressed to her throat. She slapped at him, then reached for her pocket. She slapped at his side with her left hand to distract him, then stabbed the needle into his thigh. He roared with pain, eyes flaring bright as he reached down to throttle her. Then he swore, hands trembling an inch from her throat. “You little bitch,” he hissed.

She kicked him as hard as she could, throwing him off. It was only the advantage of daylight that let her overpower him, but she would take whatever she could get. As she ran for the door, thin black tendrils burst from the frame and tangled around her. They broke away as quickly as they formed, like Armina’s magic was fighting them off, but she still couldn’t get through.

Lux stepped into the doorway and said, “Sorry, sweetheart. Your aunt really wants you back.” Shadow pooled around her dancing fingers, and the tendrils of magic tightened around Scarlett.

A fist slammed into her gut, and she looked down to see a needle in Lux’s hand. Cold spread from the piercing wound, and the world went black.

Chapter 15

He should have known that nothing would be so easy with Armina Voss involved. He and Paris had just entered through the side doors of the hotel and watched two familiar figures rounding a walkway on an upper floor. Her red hair was easy to follow until it disappeared along a hallway.

Seconds later, two figures dressed in dark blue uniforms rounded the same corner. Julian narrowed his eyes and said, “Go upstairs. Something isn’t right.”

Paris nodded, taking out his phone to alert Jonas as he went. But it was already too late.

They hadn’t made it halfway across the lobby when Jonas Wynn came hurtling over the railing from fifteen floors up. Julian bolted toward him, bracing himself for the impact. Daylight slowed his reflexes, but he managed to get just under Jonas and break his fall.

Unfortunately, Julian broke the dhampir hunter’s fall with his back, and they both crumpled to the ground in a messy heap. Dhampir blood splattered his face, and he looked up through his pulsing vision to see Paris scaling the atrium like a cat up a tree.

Jonas tried to sit up, but he let out a pitiful moan and went flat. “Sorry,” he bit out. “Got jumped.”

People were coming to stare, while one of the security guards dropped to the ground by Jonas. “Yeah, we’re at the Hilton downtown, and we need an ambulance. Hey man, can you hear me?”

“Yeah,” Jonas wheezed.

A woman in a hotel uniform scurried toward him, springy curls bouncing as she approached. Powerful perfume overwhelmed his senses as she knelt and said, “Sir, let me help you up. We need to make way for the EMTs.”

“I’m—”

Cold radiated from Julian’s neck as she stabbed a syringe into him. The burning bite of wood poison prickled through his veins, and he stared at her incredulously as she backed away. Her eyes cut to the elevator bank, and he realized too late that she was one of the hunters.

His vision blurred, and when he turned back, the woman was gone. A feminine voice said, They’re coming up, get moving, and he struggled to get to his feet. Shit. He should have brought the whole damned court here.

Julian bolted for the stairs. The wood poison turned his muscles to concrete, but thanks to Misha Volkov’s bag of tricks, he wasn’t going down that easy. He had nearly reached the door when Paris shouted over the railing. “They’re coming down the elevator,” he shouted.

A buzzing alarm sounded, and he ran for the elevator instead. He gaped at the destruction; the metal doors were blown outward, and that scent of his Scarlett was stronger than ever. Following her trail, he bolted through the sprawling lobby and down the stairs to a lower level, into the conference center.

People shouted as he ran past, and he prayed that they weren’t whipping out phones to watch the bloody blur of a man bolting past them. Humans in business suits, lanyards hanging around their necks, were backed against the wall, eyes wide with fear.

A white sign pointing toward the lunch buffet lay askew on the blood-splattered carpet of the hallway.The smell of old vampires—of Carrigan Shea—stank like carrion.

“Where did they go?” he roared.

A woman pointed, hand shaking. Julian sprinted through the labyrinth of halls. He took a turn and burst into a huge ballroom. The speaker froze as hundreds of heads turned his way.

Cursing loudly, he ran the other way and caught the scent again. Then he saw the signs directing him to the parking garage, and he picked up speed.

I’m coming, he thought, desperately pushing himself through the painful ache of daylight. Double glass doors lay ahead, and he could see the concrete expanse of a parking garage. When he burst through, he had a split second to register the lanky blonde woman moving her hands rapidly through the air.Past them, he saw Scarlett dangling over a brawny man’s shoulder, her hair hanging loose in a spill of fiery red.

That’s my girl, he thought, rage turning his vision red.

The curly-haired woman in the uniform was with them, and she whipped her head around. “Stubborn, huh?” she marveled. “Lux!”

The blonde woman threw both hands out, releasing a spear of coalesced shadow. He dove into a roll to avoid it, but it followed and broke against his chest like a thousand, ice-cold snakes slithering over his skin. Tangling and biting, the tendrils of magic wrapped around him like a net. He roared in fury and tried to break through it, but it only tightened with his struggles, the wiry strands slicing into him and drawing blood.

“Paige, Adrian, deal with whoever comes,” the blonde woman said, snapping her fingers. Cold air whipped around him, and he saw the blur of a silhouette bursting from a car, followed by a second. The smell of vampires thickened, and he braced himself for the attack as a slim, raven-haired woman approached. But she ran past him as if he was no more than a bit of road trash. The second vampire, a male with faded tattoos on his arms, followed close behind.

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