Page 194 of Collared by the Vampire Prince

I barely noticed how close to plummeting to death I’d come. All I saw was Kira lying twisted upon the narrow ledge, as helpless as she had been when I found her trapped in that hawthorn tree. Only this time, the fall beneath her was high enough to kill her.

I had been certain I was about to lose her. She has brought fear back to life inside my chest. I am not afraid of Kira, however dangerous she has proven herself to be. I am afraid that one day she will find another way to court death, and I will reach her a second too late.

Worse, I cannot stop remembering how she looked in the rain after I pulled her to safety. How she allowed me to touch her wings and inspect the damage. The warm membrane pressed against my palm as she trembled in my arms, too shaken to fight me.

For a short while, all her defiance had gone quiet. The memory has lodged beneath my ribs and made it impossible to think clearly ever since. All I wanted was to return to her room and tend her injuries myself.

“You won’t do anything careless, will you?” Arken had asked after I relayed the night’s events.

“Of course not,” I snapped. Even then, every part of me had been yearning to go back to her. I do not know what my heartsick mind imagined I would do once I reached her. Sit beside her bed? Replace bandages a healer was perfectly capable of changing? Wait until she woke merely to assure myself that she would?

Whatever it was, I stayed away.

My gaze returns to her empty place.

“By the way, how is Kira?” Victoria asks.

My attention snaps back to her. “What?”

“Kira.” She smiles lightly, although her eyes remain fixed upon my face. “Your pet wolf.”

“She is not my pet.”

“No,” Victoria says, and some of the tension leaves her expression. “Of course she isn’t.” She reaches between us and threads her fingers through mine.

I let her. Pulling away would answer a question she has not asked aloud. Her hand is small and delicate, the skin smooth against my palm. There are no calluses across her fingers or healing cuts upon her knuckles. Her nails are painted pink with tiny pale dots, and even without a wolf’s nose, I can smell the sharp chemicals in the lacquer.

Nothing about her hand resembles Kira’s.

“So you don’t know what she is doing tonight?” Victoria asks carefully.

I keep my voice flat. “No. Why would I?”

“No reason.” Her thumb strokes the side of my hand. “Only, I do hope she is all right.”

My gaze sharpens. “Why?”

Victoria glances at her friends before leaning closer, lowering her voice as though sharing harmless gossip. “A little bird told me Kira has found herself a pack.”

I stiffen within her hold. “Which pack?”

“The Poplarins.”

The name sinks in, the conversations around us disappear beneath the rush of blood in my ears as I realise what that means.

“How do you know?”

“She came to me.” Victoria’s fingers tighten around mine, her smile too bright and cheery. “She asked me to help. And of course, I did my best. You did say she was an administrative burden, so I thought you would appreciate them taking her off your hands…”

Her voice recedes beneath the pounding of my blood as I look once more at Kira’s empty place below. I am trying, trying to calm my mind.

The Poplarins are hardly the worst pack she could have chosen. They are powerful, disciplined and influential enough to provide the protection she needs. Their name alone will deter students from harming her.

But the pressure in my chest only tightens. “Where is she?” I interrupt whatever she has moved onto talking about.

Victoria gives a nervous laugh. “Nathaniel, sweetie, it’s fine. Besides, the initiation is probably over by now. Or perhaps they are still going. They have twelve alphas, you know—”

Yes. I fucking know. I wrench my hand from hers and rise so abruptly that my thigh strikes the underside of the table. The heavy wood shifts. Cutlery rattles, wine leaps inside several glasses and the conversations around us fall silent.