Page 7 of Midwinter Night's Prince

Unfortunately, the asshole had a point.

With one last look behind her shoulder, she called to her power to grant her some preternatural speed for a moment.

She ran, the gold-stained dagger clasped in her fist like a lifeline.

Finally.Finally.She had a weapon against the predator hunting her.

A weapon said predator had given to her.

4

THE CALL

Velvet nestled against her chest, Blair tossed and turned on her uncomfortable seat. At the risk of seeming outrageously bourgeois, she'd never had to fly commercial before this year. As a kid, when she’d travelled with her mother on official business, they’d used the clan’s private jet. Though their relationship was testy at best, Terra White had insisted on sending the jet on the occasions Blair had returned home. They were few and far between, and growing rarer. Blair used to endeavor to focus on her studies, and seldom travelled anywhere at all.

Before Seth, in any case.

She was stuck between a gross guy who’d glanced down her T-shirt and checked out the flight attendants’ backsides and a teen girl listening to music with her headphones set far too loud. The middle-aged man was asleep now, but his snoring, deep enough to rival the thunder of a locomotive, certainly wasn't helping. Nor was the hardness of the dagger digging against her hip, but she wasn't about to let her weapon out of her sight. Not for one moment.

Getting it on the plane hadn't been easy—a temporary concealment charm might have been a piece of cake for the likes of her friend Greer Vespian, but Blair's transfiguration skills left a lot to be desired. She managed to make it look like a dildo, though it retained the cold shine of a metal. She used a similar charm to make Velvet appear like a plushie, because there was no way she’d make him travel in the hold. She didn’t doubt there would be gossips about the girl traveling with a stuff cat and a dildo, later. Blair didn’t bother to wipe the memory of airport staff; they met enough people every day for her to blend into the crowd.

The attendant checking her things barely batted an eyelash. Who knew, maybe kitty stuffed toys and iron sex toys were a thing now.

Though Blair wasn't quite convinced the blade was made of iron. The metal didn’t feel familiar to her. It was too light, and not cold enough to the touch. Sometimes it seemed to shine in the dark, and in the light, could appear quite dull. She'd trained with a fair number of blades back at Oldcrest, and this dagger didn’t feel like any of them.

She would have loved to study it in a lab, unravel each spell, understand what made it different. Itwasdifferent, of that she was certain.

She'd seen Seth in battle in two instances. Both times, he'd taken pains to remain hidden from any of Aveka's supporters, save for those he'd intended to dispose of, but he hadn't concealed himself from her. Arrows had pierced his skin, blades had slashed him, and he'd laughed it off as the wound closed within the blink of an eye. An impossible rate, even for a vampire.

He wasmore.

How much more, she couldn’t say. Blair knew Seth was the son of an Enlightened—a god—but that didn’t explain why he felt so inhuman, so above mortals and immortals alike.

Jack Hunter was a demi-god. Blair may not have been close to him, but she’d seen him around for years. They'd only started to frequent the same circle recently. He could come off as cold, perhaps calculating at first, but once she got used to his ways, she grew comfortable with him. Jackwashuman, at least in some part. Seth? Not so much. He felt…too big for this world. Like an entity locked in a prison of flesh.

He felt like a monster.

What kind of a monster depended on who spawned him, of course. Jack's dad was a minor deity. Who was Seth's?

Blair had forbidden herself from indulging in her curiosity about the head of the Stormhales back in Oldcrest. Seth was dangerous. She lived surrounded by werewolves and vampires, and they were puppies compared to him different. Like a sup gone rogue, he didn't live by any rules. She'd wanted to stay far, far away from him, out of self-preservation.

Now, she didn't have much of a choice. He was going to continue hunting her as long as Aveka controlled him.

It was time to get to knowthe man who'd become both her ally and enemy, and the dagger against her flank was her only clue. Part of her itched to pull it out and inspect it. She was fairly certain the spell had disappeared by now. Though if they were paying attention to her, the passengers seated in the aisle and window might be just as freaked by her pulling out a knife as a dildo. She left it alone, conscious of its weight at every moment.

The flight to Toronto was scheduled to take half a day, and she’d spent the first few hours of it thinking about her knife, but she could hardly afford to waste the opportunity. She was safe here—if her pursuers had caught up with her, they would already have dragged her down to Atlantis—and she should take the opportunity to catch some uninterrupted sleep.

Yet the thought of wasting precious hours on rest when she had mysteries to unravel instead was entirely unappealing.

Unless…

Her very idea seemed ludicrous—and needlessly dangerous. But Blair wasn’t one to sit idly when she could act.

Blair winced as she attempted to relax. The headboard hit at an odd angle. With a sigh, she closed her eyes, calling to her magic.

Join me in sleep.

The clear and simple silent order rang in her head, in a voice that didn’t quite belong to her. It was softer, lower, like a caress.

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