Why were they arguing about this? They needed to leave Hoarfrost Hollow and search for the First.
A long moment passed, the air growing heavy, before Vivienne raised a brow. “We’ll see about that.”
Faster than Marius’s halfling eyes could track, she charged towards him. She slammed into him, the force of impact sending them both to the ground.
He tried to shove his bodyguard off, but before he could, her arm pressed across his jugular. Her black eyes shone in the moonlight as she constricted his airways, choking him.
He tried to roll away, but she straddled him, ripping his dagger from him and throwing it away. It clattered against a tomb.
Cursing, he slammed his arm against her back. “Let me go!”
A vicious snarl tore from his bodyguard’s chest.
Predatory.
Dark.
Dangerous.
One moment, she was choking him.
The next, her hips were pressed against him, and her fangs brushed his throat.
They both froze. Marius’s heart raced in his chest, his body screaming in warning that this might be his final moment on the planet.
“You’re dead, halfling,” his vampire bodyguard breathed against his neck, her razor-sharp fangs poised to rip out his throat. “One bite, that’s all it would take.”
We Can Still Turn Back
The prince smelled like maple and amber.
That was the first thought that flashed through Vivienne’s mind.
The second and more important one was that this entire situation was wholly inappropriate, and the thought doubly so because she was straddling said prince, and her fangs were pressed against his neck.
She hadn’t nicked him, but she could. The desire to bite down and taste his blood was growing stronger with every passing second.
For the longest moment, neither of them moved.
Vivienne had been in this position with hundreds of people before—mostly other soldiers during training, but a few others for much more pleasurable reasons—but none of them had ever made her feel like this.
Like this was right and good, and she could just lift her lips and move them to his mouth, or maybe taste his blood, and then?—
Wrong.
This was so, so wrong.
Gods have mercy on her.
Obviously, she’d failed to think this through. She’d just been trying to show the prince why his claim was cocky and stupid. How could he think he could go up against a vampire with a few daggers?
She’d disarmed him in seconds and pinned him on his back with barely a thought.
All she’d wanted to do was prove a point.
The prince had dragged her on this adventure, brought her to this creepy hollow that stank of death and old magic, and for some reason, he wanted to continue on this perilous journey.
But now…
