Page 44 of Princess Broken

Blade turns away from the entrance, frowning. “I wasn’t.”

Pure bullshit. Two years Blade’s junior, I know my brother like I know myself. He was listening in.

“Who’s going Above to take out Mariano?” I ask, hoping to change the subject. “I’d love to direct a flamethrower at that asshole, or watch him flambé under the sun.” Or maybe use my flamethrower to assist the sunlight as it fries his ass. The desire for revenge burns hard inside me. He wronged her.

“I negotiated the contract,” Crusher says, his brow furrowing as he thinks. “I need to go. But it’s not a one man job.”

“I’ll go,” Phil says quickly.

Crusher and Phil were both at the Institute before me or Blade, already past puberty when we came, and they love to toss around that older brother mantle, even after two hundred years.

“One of us should stay back,” Blade says, trying to seem disinterested in who’s chosen. “It’ll only take one of us to keep her safe.”

“Keep her safe from your dick?” Phil laughs.

Frowning, Blade turns toward him. “Fucking her goes against the code.”

“Does your dick know that?” Phil keeps laughing.

Blade flicks his wrist, and the handle of one of his longest blades snaps into his palm.

Still laughing, Phil points at the knife. “Blade, little buddy. Your anger is just proving my point.”

With the flick of his wrist, Blade hurls the knife toward Phil’s head, but the bigger man ducks to the side, and the blade clatters onto the stone floor a hundred yards down the hub. Several heads turn in response, and Idris steps out from behind a stone formation, fury shooting out of his eyes.

But he stops short when he sees who threw the knife. Turning, the lanky vampire stomps off, clearly pissed. We’re not in charge down here—not officially—yet no one dares cross us.

“Stop fucking around,” Crusher says to Blade. “We all know the code. Right?” Crusher glares at Blade, then turns to me, the same stern look in his eyes.

“You think I don’t know my duty?” Feeling called out, I frown. “You don’t need to fucking remind me of the code.”

But confusion flickers inside me, and I’m annoyed that Crusher saw my conflict. Something is sparking deep inside me, an urge to protect the princess that goes way beyond my sense of obligation. There’s no doubt I’d kill anyone who even hinted they might hurt this woman.

And Mariano already has.

“I’ll go with you,” I tell Crusher. Mariano not only threatened Ana, he killed someone she loved. I can’t wait to see him go up in flames.

“No. You stay.” Crusher steps up beside me and drops one of his powerful hands on my shoulder. Nodding, he gives me a look. His gaze flicks toward Blade and then back to me.

Crusher doesn’t trust Blade alone with the princess. Shit. It’s been a long time since Crusher’s doubted one of us. This princess has been in our midst just a few days and she’s already creating chaos.

“We’re just investigating on this trip Above.” Crusher squeezes my shoulder and then steps away. “Before we retaliate, we need to know exactly what went down and why.”

Rubbing red stubble that will soon turn into a beard, Phil steps toward us. “I get the beef between Mariano and DEFTA, but there’s got to be more. That shit was extreme.”

“Someone was making a statement,” I say. “Going after vampires with machine guns and bullets?” I shake my head. “It doesn’t make sense.”

“The goal was chaos,” Phil says. “Distraction. The princess was the target. Maybe even for that stake.”

Crusher frowns. “We don’t know that. Shit. We don’t even know for sure that Mariano ordered the ambush. If he did, why not warn us? Maybe he was the target.” Crusher shakes his head. “And why did he ask us to grab her right before the meeting? Maybe Mariano’s dead and we failed in our duty to protect him.”

“What?” I can’t believe my ears, and anger threatens to burn me up from inside.

Blade steps forward, another knife in his hand. “Our duty to Mariano ended the instant he went after the unarmed princess.”

Crusher nods. “I agree. Mariano breached our contract. I’m just saying that we don’t even know whether the man survived.”

My chance to watch the hideous vampire burn is slipping away. I’ll be heartbroken if the asshole’s already dead. “Did anyone see him die?”

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