Page 33 of Collared by the Vampire Prince

“You didn’t know her at all?”

I remain caught in her gaze, barely breathing. Such intimate questions for her to be asking now, with the Academy looming.

Still, better she asks now. Once we pass through those gates, I will not be so accommodating. Perhaps it sets a bad precedent, yet I find myself speaking, my voice a murmur. “I do have a memory of her…”

Sunlight. The creak of a swing. A windy day, but a happy one. My mother’s gentle laughter. Her hand in mine.

I cannot share any of that. It is ridiculous enough that we are discussing my mother at all. I am not entirely certain how the conversation found its way here, nor why I have allowed it to continue.

The guards wait patiently at the gate. I wonder how long they will remain open. Indefinitely, I suppose, for the prince. With the school asleep, there is no hurry.

I draw myself up, reaching for the colder distance that ought to exist between us, but the sympathy in her features catches me off guard. She leans closer, and beneath the lingering traces of smoke, blossoms and jasmine, I catch something warmer. More domestic. I couldn’t begin to catalogue it the way a wolf might. Even so, I find myself thinking of the pine forests we left, and soft fur.

Her eyes blink slowly, long dark lashes descending over amber. She is so close now that I notice things I had missed before: the faint dusting of freckles across her olive skin, the soft curve of her cheeks, the delicate bow of her upper lip and the plumper curve of the lower one.

My gaze lingers, my heart giving one heavy beat.

“Is it true that your father killed her?” she whispers.

The question seizes me like poison. Just like that, the past intrudes, stained and fractured into blood-red shards. Long nights staring into darkness. Rumours spoken by courtiers in lowered voices. Half-remembered inconsistencies. Theories I have assembled and dismantled a thousand times over about how my mother died. Questions that have haunted my dreams and greeted me upon waking.

I do not know the answer. That is the agony of it. And some part of me has always feared that I do. The past keeps bubbling up, hot and volatile.

I force the feelings down, hoping my face betrays nothing.

“A dangerous question,” I say, putting steel into my voice. I am appalled by how far I have allowed this conversation to wander. “In the future, pet, I would advise you to—”

I see it too late. The slight shift of her shoulder. The flash of glass in her hand.

The wine bottle cracks against my face.

Pain blooms—sharp and blinding as I topple over in my seat, my vision bursting into white as I hit the floor.

By the time I clamber upright, she is already gone, the carriage door swinging loosely on its hinges.

“Stop her!” someone shouts.

It is the guard I spoke to earlier—he has sent the made vampire after her.

“No,” I gasp.

I lunge out after her, my skull throbbing so much the world spins violently, and I clutch at the carriage door frame.

“Sir, are you alright?” the remaining guard asks in alarm.

I ignore him, looking instead for the made vampire—and catch sight of it as it disappears down the end of the street in a streak of black and red cloth.

“Stay here,” I snap at the guard.

Fighting my rising surge of nausea, I throw myself after them.

Chapter 6

Kira

My legs pound against the stone, stiff from sitting too long—but I run anyway, tearing across the pavement as fast as I can.

It’s foolish to leap out right in front of the Academy. Foolish and reckless. Which is exactly why I chose that moment.