Page 65 of Sold to the Dark Vampire Prince

Conversation around them abruptly ceased as people turned to stare. He’d not only failed to address the prince by his title, Dani noted, but his tone wasn’t exactly winning any points either.

Not that she was an expert on royal protocol.

“Is there something urgent you needed?” Alex didn’t bother to hide the note of irritation in his voice. “We’re dealing with a bit of an emergency at the moment.”

“Yes, actually. Your—”

Lord Cavalieri’s face reddened, and Dani realized his close slip-up, that he’d nearly called Lara Alex’s fiancée, or perhaps his mate, neither titles that Alex himself had bestowed.

He pursed his lips. “My daughter needs you. She’s doing very poorly.”

Face carefully composed, Alexander crossed the room. Serafina rose from where she and the two medics had been working over the king’s assistant, expressions grave.

“Alex,” Lara said in a small, whiny voice that even Ava, at ten, knew was extremely tedious. “I need you.”

She clawed for him as soon as he came within arm’s reach, grasping at the lapels of his jacket.

“You seem okay.” Alex took a quick step back, refusing to come any closer. “Take some deep breaths and try to calm down.”

Lara’s voice grew even more pitiful. “But I need to feed.”

Alex started to shake his head. “I don’t think that’s such a good—”

Before he could finish, Lara was launching herself from the chair, arms outstretched, head angling towards his throat. He caught her by the shoulders, stiffly holding her at arm’s length. Dani had the distinct impression of a particularly mean snapping turtle she’d witnessed a work crew dredging from the river the previous summer and almost felt sorry for Lara in that moment.

Almost.

“I think you should sit back down,” he said loudly, as if speaking to someone who’d had far too much to drink. “You’re clearly not yourself right now.”

Her face reddened.

“If you’re having a panic attack, feeding isn’t the best idea anyway.” Sera came over and reached for Lara’s wrist. “It will only increase your heartrate. I would suggest you stay seated and take calming breaths.”

Just then, Dante reformed in a swirl of smoke. He collapsed to his knees in the center of the room. His coat was torn and one of his eyes was starting to swell shut. There were gasps as people clustered closer to see.

“What happened?” Judas asked sharply. “Where is the assassin?”

“Father, please.” Serafina hurried over and checked her brother’s pulse. “Give him a moment.”

Lara, clearly frustrated the attention had turned away from her, crossed her arms and assumed a sulky expression.

“I didn’t have a chance to reform when she reached for my throat,” Dante said hoarsely.

“There’s bruising, but no permanent damage,” Sera said. “Your eye looks worse.”

“She could interact with you in the space between jumps?” Alex knelt beside his brother. “How is that possible? She looked to be human.”

“It’s not unheard of for a rebel fighter with advanced training,” Judas said. “They use the vampires they’ve turned to train their insurgents, according to our reports. Go on. What happened then?”

“I was scared she was going to poison me.” Dante accepted the bottle of water Dani handed him. “So I took her as high above the mountains as I could and dropped her from the sky.”

“It would have been better if you’d allowed the guards to detain her. Now there’s no way to interrogate her.”

“Respectfully, Your Majesty, I must disagree.” Alex shook his head. “We all saw what that aberrant was about to do. She poisoned Garrett. Had Dante not acted quickly, she could have released an aerosol toxin that might have killed everyone in the room.”

Hushed murmurs broke out. The tension in the room was so thick that Dani flinched at the sound of her phone vibrating in her clutch. Pulling it out, she read the text from Evan.

Evan: I need you to come home.