“Will you finally tell me where we’re going?” She leaned forward, making eye contact with the prince. “I can’t protect you if I don’t have all the details.”
At this point, she was already an accomplice to whatever he was planning. Over the course of the day, she’d determined that the only possible way to avoid the king’s wrath was to return the prince in one piece.
He inhaled deeply before speaking the four words that confirmed Vivienne was experiencing the worst twenty-four hours of her entire life.
“A First has escaped.”
For an extended moment, it seemed like the entire world stopped. A ringing filled Vivienne’s ears, drowning out the wheels rolling down the dirt road, the horses’ steady breaths outside, and even the hammering of the prince’s heart in his chest.
She opened and closed her mouth several times, trying to form words. They were escaping her.
Did he mean…
He couldn’t. Right?
No one could truly be this stupid.
She would’ve assumed this was some kind of sick joke, except the prince wasn’t laughing. His brown eyes, the color of chocolate, were solemn as they stared at her. Almost as if….
She scrubbed a hand over her face.
Worse.
It seemed inconceivable, considering the events that had already occurred, but things were worsening.
No matter how Vivienne looked at this, she came to the same stomach-dropping conclusion: this was an Isvana-damned death sentence.
The carriage walls felt like they were closing in on her, and her heart sped up. The prince’s stare was unwavering, and she realized he was telling the truth.
A First has escaped.
Oh, gods.
She was going to be sick.
How dare he rope her into this? How dare he not give the royals this message directly?
She released the sword, her fingernails digging into thetender flesh of her palms, as she stared at the prince. She should have yelled at him—the gods only knew how much she wanted to do that—but what would be the point? The sun was still up, and she was trapped in this ridiculously tight enclosed space with the prince until it set.
Instead of giving in to the anger deep inside her, Vivienne closed her eyes and forced herself to breathe. In and out, again and again, until she was calm enough that the desire to rip out the prince’s throat for dragging her into this was manageable.
Not gone—she suspected it would never disappear—but she didn’t want to murder him at this very moment.
Progress.
Only then did she open her eyes, meeting his gaze once again.
Marius shifted in his seat, and happiness sparked in her stomach.
Good.
Heshouldbe uncomfortable. That was the least he deserved for dragging her into this awful situation.
“Let me see if I’m understanding this correctly, Prince.” Her voice was low. Controlled. “One of the feral vampires who was entombed thousands of years ago after nearly killing the entire population of the Northern Kingdom has escaped, and rather than informing the two most powerful vampires in the land of this development, you decided to tackle this situation yourself?”
A long, uncomfortable moment passed before the prince dropped his gaze and swallowed. As if he was only now realizing how incredibly moronic this entire situation was. As if he thought this wasn’t a death sentence.
“Ah… yes.”
