Page 80 of Kiss of a Hellish Prince

I started rifling through the papers on her desk again even though I already knew there was nothing useful there. I needed to keep my hands busy.

“I don’t know why she still has these, but they couldn’t have been important if she left them here. All the photos and jewelry and gifts I gave her, forgotten.”

“The box was locked and under the bathroom sink,” I said, expecting him to know what that meant.

“See, they were forgotten about in the bathroom. Definitely not important.”

Human or demon, all men are oblivious when it comes to women.

“No.” I sat down in the chair and looked at Rune, meeting his eyes so I could talk to him like a child. “Those things are important to her. If they weren’t, she would have tossed them, or at the very least not kept them safe in a locked box. They were hidden away, not forgotten. She hid them because looking at them was a constant reminder of what she lost. What she blames me for taking.”

I turned back to the papers on the desk, knowing Rune would need a few seconds to process that information and whatever feelings it gave him. I couldn’t bear to see any of those feelings flash across his face. If I saw tenderness or longing for the woman who kidnapped my baby sister, I didn’t know what I’d do. The fire in my chest burned hotter, rising to the back of my throat and my cheeks.

“Where are we on finding them?” I asked, unable to stand the silence anymore. I moved to the bookshelf and started looking through the few books that remained on the shelf.

“We are waiting for Sif to make her move. The ball is in her court.”

“Excuse me?” He did not just say we were waiting for her.

“Sif is a highly trained operative. She has been in the field her whole life. She is trained in hostage negotiations, and she is the best strategist we have. Right now, she is holding Vivi somewhere remote, where no one will find her, and she is giving us time to panic and turn against each other. When she is satisfied that we are probably at each other’s throats, she will contact one of us with her demands.”

“Her demands? What are those going to entail? My head on a silver platter?”

“She would never hurt anyone. Not unless she had to. She isn’t a bad person.”

I couldn’t hear him defend that bitch again. Icouldn’t.

I threw the heavy, leather-bound book in my hands at Rune’s head.

He barely got out of the way in time. “What the fuck?”

“Not a bad person. The psycho bitch kidnapped my litter sister! But she isn’t a bad person? Good people don’t kidnap children!” I reached behind me and grabbed the first thing I could off the shelf. It was a large snow globe. I lobbed it at Rune.

That one he saw coming. He snatched it out of the air instead of letting it hit the wall behind him, shattering into a million glittering wet shards.

“Stop throwing shit at me!” Rune yelled.

“Stop defending your psycho ex!” I yelled back, throwing another book.

Rune grabbed both of my hands and held them to the small of my back, restraining me. I tried wiggling out of his grasp, but his hands tightened, holding me to him.

“Tori, calm down!” he barked at me.

Fuck that.

I sank my teeth into his chest. I meant to only startle him enough that I could get free, but the coppery taste of his blood filled my mouth.

“What the fuck!” Rune jumped back, letting me go.

Two red dots bloomed on his shirt, growing bigger. I ran into the bathroom and washed my mouth out with water from the sink. Looking in the mirror, I saw my eye teeth had lengthened into two small fangs. Not massive, intimidating ones like Rune had. These were small but sharp.

What the actual fuck?

As I reached up to touch them, I saw my nails were not the same either. They were long, slender stiletto nails that went from a deep red at the nail beds to black tips.

What the fuck was happening to me?

“Are you okay?” Rune asked from the doorway. He grabbed a hand towel and pressed it to the small wounds on his chest to stop the bleeding.

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