Page 65 of House of Vampires and Flame

Just then, Prince Silas strolled out, darting a glance at the tiny rainbow swirling between my hands before focusing on the vampire captain.

Gunnar bowed slightly. “Your Highness, we—”

“Get the fuck out of my territory. Now!” Silas said coldly. “You’ll only get this one fucking warning.”

Gunnar’s face hardened, his hateful gaze that promised retaliation shifting to me, but he turned on his heels.

“Kiss, kiss,” I called.

I flung my rainbow at Gunnar’s face, faster than a flash, before he could dodge. The rainbow danced on his head, turning him bald instantly. His eyebrows were gone as well. Then the rainbow vanished.

The shifters couldn’t help but roar with laughter since Gunnar now looked ridiculous. He shot into the shadows, his team with him.

“Will you remember me fondly, Gunnar, pretty please?” I shouted after his figure faded into the night. He said I had no manners, so I showed him manners by saying please.

“No wonder the vampires hate you, Little Bob,” Dixie sighed.

“It’s more like a dark, twisted love.” I grinned. “There’s a thin line between love and hate. They just haven’t realized it yet.”

Prince Silas turned to look down at me with a frown. “Now that you’re in my house, you’ll be my new squire.”

What was this damn thing about having a squire? It was like every prince in this realm desired an honorable burial. But I could do it. I’d make sure to find Silas a good burial ground when he was slain.

“Get Little Bob settled, Dixie,” Silas ordered. “Keep him out of trouble.”

The prince turned to stroll back into the building, most likely returning to fucking.

“Are you hungry, Little Bob?” Dixie asked, and that sounded like music to my ears.

17

They gave me a small room near Dixie’s on the fourth floor, and I lay low as she ordered. As long as I hid in the House of Shifters, Louis and his goons wouldn’t risk starting a house war by coming in to drag me out. They wouldn’t be able to breach the shifters’ magical house either.

I’d have to wait for his wrath to subside. He couldn’t be angry forever, right? Negative emotions consumed energy and wouldn’t be good for his mental health.

But a small band of vindictive vampires still patrolled outside the shifter territory, waiting to pop me. Dixie had warned me a dozen times that if I ventured out, no one could guarantee my safety.

When I roamed within the confines of the building, many shifters openly stared at me wherever I went. It was rare that two princes from different houses fought over a servant boy. And the word spread that I entered the house without being initiated.

Addicted to my blood, Louis wanted me back. Silas kept me to annoy the vampire prince. It was more of a power play to him. The two houses had been at each other’s throats since the beginning. Only a century-old truce was holding them back from slaughtering each other again. The realm didn’t want another house war, so the council had decided whoever started a war would face war with all the other houses.

After holing up in the shifter house for four long days and listening to Dixie repeating the rules, the orders of the five houses in the realm, and the mating rituals of the Brides Selection into my overheated brain, I decided I was bored and done.

I especially didn’t give two shits about the mating, since I’d seen enough of Sy fucking. I would never mate; Sy might just eat whomever I mated with afterwards.

I’m not amused by your sick sense of humor, Sy bristled. When you find your true mate, he’ll be a mate to both of us! I’d never eat our true mate!

Like there’s some true mate for monsters like us, I snorted, yet my mind drifted to Killian for a long second. I could never have him, even if he wasn’t spoken for. And regardless of the heat in his storm-blue eyes, there was no fucking way he truly desired me.

And they said his fiancée was a great beauty, a powerful queen who aimed to be the High Queen of Mist of Cinder.

I was a fool to even waste time thinking of him. I shook off the image of how he smirked and winked at me and focused on what kept gnawing at me inside: what if more Shriekers had gotten into the realm?

~

I stood in the west corner of the pentagon courtyard before a lime-and-gold building. Elaborate spells crawled over every brick, glass, and stone of its seven floors like vines. Even the crimson dwarf burning bushes that fenced in the entirety of the House of Mages were warded.

All five houses in Mist of Cinder were paranoid, their security ass-tight, as if they were ready to go to war in a blink, even in this school. But then, it wasn’t exactly a normal school. The classes mostly taught offensive magic, combat, defense, and war strategies.

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