Page 70 of Collared by the Vampire Prince

Suddenly, I am miles away, in the mountain woods, running through the trees in my true form, four paws pounding earth.

Run. I would just run and not stop. Not until I had shed the fear. Not until this collar was gone. Not until I was myself again, all memory of this place and its wretched prince forgotten.

“You could at least stop making me look unwanted,” Victoria says at last. Her words come out small and pitiful, the smooth polish gone. For the first time, she sounds vulnerable. “Please. It would be so much easier.”

“I’m not sure I would describe following your method—or logic—as easy.”

“Please,” she repeats.

Nathaniel exhales, and some of the frost leaves him. “I will sit beside you at breakfast.”

“And dinner.”

“Do not get ambitious.”

“Nathaniel.” It is half exasperation, half pleading.

“Breakfast,” he concedes. “And one dance at the next ball, if my father insists on another public display at court.”

“That is the bare minimum.”

“And yet I am already exhausted.”

“We will finish this later.” There is nothing amorous in her words, yet she suddenly smiles and seizes him by the arms, drawing him beneath an archway in full view of the training yard.

Then she kisses him.

Nathaniel goes very still.

Something inside me goes still, too, and the seconds tick by slowly as her lips move against his, one foot lifting daintily as slender arms stretch high in an attempt to drape around his neck.

Two vampires. Eww.

And yet despite my turning stomach, I cannot look away, noting how his mouth barely moves, his fingers curling around her sides, formal and careful.

The kiss does not turn passionate, yet from a distance, I’m sure it must seem so with how they’re dragging it out.

What the hell am I doing watching them?

I turn my face away and press my back to the broken statue, waiting for it to be over.

At last, Victoria’s footsteps move away, and I release a silent breath. Finally. Now I just need to wait for him to leave too.

He does not.

A heartbeat passes.

Then another.

“Enjoying your tea?” he asks, his voice far too loud and close.

Every thought in my head goes still. Slowly, I tip my head back and look up.

Nathaniel is leaning over the broken neck of the statue, his elbows resting on the stone where the wolf’s head should be. A loose lock of blond hair has fallen across his brow, and his blue eyes are fixed on me with a sardonic amusement that makes me want to throw the tea in his face.

I gape at him for several useless seconds before the only words in my head tumble out.

“You’re engaged?”