Page 30 of House of Vampires and Flame

I widened my eyes incredulously. “But I need to shit, man!”

Repulsion rippled across his strong vampire face. “Who say things so crudely like that?! You’re a disgusting chihuahua!”

“Fuck it,” I said huskily and aggressively. “You don’t want me to stink up this upscale room where the princes dine, do you?”

He snarled at me, his face turning purple. I turned on my heels, and he lunged at me. This time, I’d expected his moves and ducked swiftly, letting him seize a handful of empty air. I shot toward the stairs and scrambled down.

As I looked over my shoulder, Gunnar had an ugly snarl on his lips that might park there permanently if he wasn’t careful. He couldn’t risk chasing me without drawing his fickle boss’s attention. He’d be punished more than me if he disturbed the princes’ heated debate now.

I reached the foot of the stairs in no time, scanning the hall in front of me. Dozens of chicks still paraded back and forth on the floor, showing their cleavage and swaying their hips to offer the princes the best views.

Good. I silently urged them to keep the princes horny. I recognized America among them, the front runner fae chick who had tossed fireballs at me to impress Louis.

I bet if those chicks weren’t required to wear their school uniforms—shirts with pretty skirts and stockings—they wouldn’t mind being naked to lure the princes.

I moved along the far end of the hall, the only blind spot from where the princes sat, heading toward a buffet table. Then luck struck again as I spotted a student with a baseball cap on his head. I snuck up on him while he focused on digging into a pile of hash browns on his plate. I snatched his cap at lightning speed, hiding it under my armpit, and zoomed away.

I heard him cry from a dozen tables behind me, “Where’s my hat? Anyone see my hat?”

At a safe distance, I watched him give up looking and go back to his meal, brooding. I put the cap on, picked up a large tray, and piled plates of food onto it. The more, the merrier.

A few students scowled at me, knowing I wasn’t one of them from my gear. But I dressed well as a squire, so no one came to challenge me. It wasn’t a good idea to offend a squire and thus risk offending his prince.

Fake it to make it.

So, I moved like I was swinging my cock and found a corner table, enjoying my breakfast. After the scare from the princes’ talk upstairs, I urgently needed some comfort food to calm my nerves, so I could think up some backup plans.

Halfway through the meal, I had narrowed it down to three plans.

Plan A: run. But where could I run? And I was so tired of running.

Plan B: go out to hunt the Shriekers. But they’d be waiting for me. I couldn’t fight an army while my true power was still locked. Ruin had bespelled me to make sure that I’d never fight back or be capable of anything other than being a magic eater and his vessel. No other spells could work on me, but he was a god.

I needed to find a way to purge his hex on me. With me growing stronger every day in Mist of Cinder, in time, I might just make it happen.

So, I had to stick to Plan C. Hide and lie low while forging a path to free my true power. While I lurked here, I’d find any opportunity to hang out on this side of the Veil. If any Shriekers came through, I’d pick them off one by one like a vigilante.

I was a boy now. Even if Ruin’s agent infiltrated this realm, they’d be looking for a girl. There were many other perks to being a boy. If I did some ruthless, dumb things, I’d mostly get some smacks to the back of my head from someone’s knuckles. They wouldn’t whip me since I was Prince Louis’s squire.

Act like a boy!

At the thought, I filled my mouth with half of my omelet, ready to chew it loudly, before I spat it out into an empty bowl. I didn’t like onion, as it had been my main dish when I was my father’s captive. Why did the cook put onions in it?

“Hey, it’s you!” A polite voice greeted me.

I raised my head and narrowed my eyes on a blue-haired girl, the witch who had pointed me in the direction of the classrooms when Louis was in hot pursuit of me.

I didn’t return her smile.

“So, you’re with the House of Vamps now,” she said.

I scowled at her. “Yeah, thanks for leading the vamp prince to me.”

Louis had dragged me to stand in front of the entire class by my ear to humiliate me, and those little shits had tossed their elemental magic at me to kiss his ass.

“He’d marked your scent already,” she said. “It was inevitable, but it’s only a phase. I saw it in the tealeaf reading the day before I met you.”

“You’re a psychic now?” I snorted, yet my pulse spiked.

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