Page 4 of Midwinter Night's Prince

Aveka was wasting Seth's time ordering him to hunt Blair instead.

"Never mind the others, it's Blair I want." Aveka's nostrils flared. "She's evaded us for too long. Don't think I don't see what you're doing, either."

"Oh?" Seth didn't hide his amusement.

"You're stalling," she accused.

Seth wasn’t sure how he managed to prevent himself from rolling his eyes. He was with Aveka because her spell forced him to be, no other reason. He had to be minimally helpful in order to placate her, but what could possibly possess Aveka to think that he'd serve her the means to his actual enslavement on a silver platter?

"You've ordered me to find Blair and bring her back to you. I'm endeavoring to do so."

He wasn't.

Well, he had tolook, the spell ordered him to do no less. It didn't mean that he had to look in the right places.

"You need to try harder. Be faster about it. No more stalling. I command you!"

Seth tried not to laugh. It wasn't the first time she’d attempted to speed him along.Fasterandharderweresubjective notions, however, and as such, he could ignore them. He acted like a six-year-old told to put his shoes on before school. At his own leisure. "Fine. You might want to stop calling me back to Atlantis while I'm doing your bidding, then."

"You spent two weeks in New Zeeland, when there's no proof that she was ever there!" Aveka screeched.

"There's little proof Blair has been anywhere of late." Seth didn't conceal his admiration. He had to admit, he was impressed with his witch.She’d been craftier than expected.

He had naturally hoped that she was halfway competent when he'd charged her with guarding his soul, but she'd surprised him. He would have helped her along, erasing her trail, if he had to, but there had been no need. Blair had truly disappeared. He'd found footage of her entering various places—cafes, restaurants, hotels—and yet none of the employees remembered anyone fitting her description.

He'd known that there was more to her than met the eye from the moment she touched his mind in his sleep. The way she so thoroughly evaded attention confirmed it. And a good thing, too. Seth and the thugs dispatched along with him weren't the only ones Aveka had sent after her, and the others weren't attempting to mess up the job.

"Then why New Zealand?"

"I followed her trail." It was not quite a lie, though it wasn't the entire truth either.

If Aveka was too stupid to realize that carrying his soul made Blair a part of him, and that he could sense her, he wasn't about to enlighten her.

“To the wrong place!”

Seth fired up his phone, scrolling through his gallery until he found the right video: a recording of an airport camera, showing a clear close-up of Blair’s elfin face, moments before she lowered a hood and walked away.

Seth’s jaw tightened like it had every time he’d watched that video. A dozen times at least.

Blair didn’t look like herself. The flash of bright color at the tips of her hair had long faded. Her nails weren’t painted black or green, like they had been any time he’d seen her. She wasn’t wearing combat gear and heavy boots.

Blair looked ordinary. Useful, when she needed to blend in, but he disliked it all the same. She was meant to be a bright flame in this mundane world.

Seth turned the phone to face Aveka, who still lounged on top of the dark silk sheets.

The witch snatched the device up, her eyes bulging. “When was this taken?”

“Two days before I arrived. She might still have been in the country when you called me back.” She hadn’t been. “So, how about you get off my back, hm?”

And preferably off his cock, too.

3

STATUS QUO

The annoying thing with being human in a world filled with immortals was having to work harder than them. Particularly when said immortals were intent on murdering Blair.

She woke to nails on chalkboard—one of the few sounds guaranteed to instantly alert her. One of her traps had been set off by something, hopefully. If she wasn’t lucky, by someone.

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