Page 158 of Collared by the Vampire Prince

An arm shoots from the darkness and catches me around the waist.

I suck in a breath to scream, but a large hand clamps over my mouth and drags me backwards beneath a stone archway. I thrash once before a familiar scent hits me.

Wolf.

Chelsea appears directly in front of me, one finger pressed urgently to her lips. Shadowy stars flicker around her.

Shh.

Mark’s chest is solid against my back, his hand covering my mouth. I stop struggling, and he removes his hand. My heart pounds painfully against my ribs. Then the made vampire darts past the archway, its gruesome grey face turned towards the lawn.

Chelsea and I release a breath in unison once its footsteps have faded, and Mark chuckles behind me. The sound seems too loud in the silence, rumbling through me.

Chelsea rounds on him. “Shh! He’ll hear you.”

“I can handle him.” His teeth flash in a lopsided grin. “Kira. Fancy seeing you out here.”

“You were hiding from him,” I say, dispensing with a greeting.

“We were,” Mark concedes. “That doesn’t mean I can’t handle him.”

Chelsea rolls her eyes.

I resist doing the same as I pull away from Mark. “That’s not what I meant. I wanted to ask…how?”

Only wisps of that strange, star-flecked curtain remain now, the spell almost transparent from within. Presumably it is still hiding us, even if I can barely see it anymore.

“What is this?” I ask.

“What? This?” Mark gives an airy sweep of his hand through the fading shimmer, as though displaying some effortless parlour trick.

I lift a brow.

His grin deepens. He reaches inside his blazer and produces a crooked piece of dark wood, gnarled along the handle before tapering to a fine point. Near the tip, a tiny dark-red gemstone is held against the wood by delicate metal claws, like a jewel set into a ring.

“Magic wand,” he says, his deep voice taking on a mysterious quality. “Concealment. Makes you difficult to see unless someone knows exactly where to look.”

So…invisible, then.

Mark gives the wand an elaborate flourish, smoky stars trailing in its wake. The sight of such an enormous male wielding the slender artefact should look absurd.

Yet I cannot look away. It’s impressive to see a working magical artefact in a wolf’s hand. I itch to tear off my collar and examine it properly, to see what my senses make of it.

“Where did you get that?” I ask.

His eyebrows lift. “We Poplarins have our connections.”

“Mark,” Chelsea warns.

He glances at her. “What?”

“Don’t tell her.”

“Relax. I’m not telling her anything.”

I look between them. “Tell me what?”

Mark slips the wand back inside his blazer. “Pack secrets. All I’ll say is—”