Page 88 of Collared by the Vampire Prince

What is he doing?

Is he joking?

After everything that happened last night?

After threatening to…to…

“I need to get back to class,” I say abruptly.

“Of course.”

But he does not move.

Neither do I.

The awkwardness stretches until my attention snags past his shoulder, down the corridor.

I swear I saw movement. I advance slowly, angling until I see more of the hallway outside. Several messenger boys stand there, each holding an enormous bouquet of red roses.

They look bored, eager to set down their products and go.

I look back at Nathaniel.

He is still watching me, but now, a faint pink tinge has appeared across his cheekbones.

“We are doing some decorating,” he says.

I stare at him.

The Vampire Prince.

The terrifying, cold-blooded monster who threatened me last night with things I still cannot bear to think about, is now blushing in Victoria’s doorway because he has been caught with an army of roses.

It would almost be funny, if I didn’t know the cold calculation behind the gesture. He doesn’t love her. And for a split second, I almost, almost feel sorry for Victoria.

“I think she’s going to need a much larger bin,” I grit out. And then I march past him, not caring that my shoulder clips his arm. I do not look back. Not at him. Not at the flowers. Not at the messenger boys, though one of them makes a strangled noise that might have been a cough.

I storm down the corridor, fuming.

He won’t follow. I’m nothing to him. Nothing to anyone. And that’s fine. Just fine. It’s how I prefer it.

So why am I so angry?

None of it makes sense. And maybe that’s the problem. He was so cold last night and almost normal today. Why is that? How can he threaten me one moment and speak about roses the next?

He sounded like the prince leaning on the wolf statue—never mind the symbolism of that—stealing lemon cake and criticising my tea as though the worst thing between us was a badly strained cup.

It is not until the bell rings for lunch, as I stand in the middle of a crowded corridor still wearing that stupid apron and bonnet, that I realise something useful.

I am no longer numb or petrified. It wasn’t just my imagination—he was normal in that room. Just a person, caught out buying too many flowers for a woman.

Still a prince. Still deadly. But an enemy with flaws.

An enemy who blushes.

Some of the fear he put in me last night has thawed, and with it, my focus slides back into place.

He is not invulnerable.