Page 41 of Sold to the Dark Vampire Prince

They were interrupted by a swirl of smoke that caused all the candles in the room to flicker and nearly go out.

Ava screamed. Scrambling away from the materializing vampire, she threw her quilt at it in the shadowy room.

Dani lurched to her feet, reaching for the only weapon available, the saucepan she’d just placed in the drying rack. She aimed for the man’s head, but he was too tall, and she managed only to thwack him soundly on the shoulder, practically breaking her wrist in the process.

“No, wait!” came a muffled male voice from beneath the blanket. A very familiar male voice.

Oh no.

The swirl of smoke dissipated, whispering across the room to scuttle beneath the closet door.

Dani lowered the frying pan. She and Ava exchanged a horrified look.

“Zander?” she asked timidly.

She tried to tell herself it was ridiculous to halfheartedly hope it really was random vampire looters just so she could save herself the embarrassment of having to explain to the crown prince why she’d tried to brain him with a saucepan.

“I take it Serafina and Evan aren’t back yet?” Alex said dryly from behind the closet door. “If I’d thought you weren’t aware I was coming, I would have knocked.”

Crossing the room, Dani yanked open the closet door. Alexander looked every bit as ill as he had during the press briefing. Faint bruises shadowed his eyes. His complexion was so pale, so wan and faintly feverish, that she couldn’t help but lift a hand to touch his forehead.

Ava helpfully scurried over to relieve her of the saucepan.

Surprisingly, he let her touch him. As her fingers made contact, she felt the familiar post-feeding ache sharpen in her chest, her heartbeat quickening. At Alex’s ragged intake of breath, she knew he felt it, too, that connection that had tethered them ever since the moment she’d given him her blood.

Alexander held her gaze, hazel eyes unreadable.

“Your Highness certainly knows how to make an entrance.”

His mouth quirked at this. Wincing, he rubbed his shoulder. “I’m rather surprised that the ladies of house Girard aren’t more enamored with hockey. I haven’t been brutally body checked like that since the last time I played with my brother.”

Ava giggled.

Dani shot him an exasperated look. “Come over here and I’ll get you some snow to put on it before you get a bruise.”

“You just don’t want to have to explain to everyone about your lethal frying pan arm.”

Ava, who up until this point had been watching the exchange with hopeful eyes, grabbed a clean towel and ran over to the window. “I’ll get it. Dani, you should sit. You almost fainted.”

Alex’s eyes shot to hers. “You, too?”

She’d just finished filling him in on her headaches and the mob on the road, neatly leaving out the part about her aberrant magic, when Sera and Evan arrived home.

“I’m glad you made it home safely,” Alex said quietly, so low only she could hear. “I was thinking of you all day. I was worried.”

Their eyes met and held. I was thinking of you all day. Her heartbeat quickened. She looked away, knowing he could hear, would realize the effect his words were having on her.

“You’re okay.” Ava flung herself at Evan. She giggled. “Dani hit Prince Alexander with a saucepan.”

“Did she now?” Evan nodded approvingly. “Well, I’m sure he deserved it.”

Alex smiled good-naturedly. “Finished burning down the city?”

“Not by half. But I can take a break for a few hours.” She went to the kitchen and began inspecting the contents of the pantry.

Sera cleared her throat. “Is there somewhere private we can talk?”

Dani led her and Alex into the bedroom she shared with Evan, wishing there wasn’t a basket of laundry in the corner waiting to be put away (with her underwear on top, of course.) Shoving it in the closet, she wrapped her chunky purple cardigan tighter around her shoulders.