Page 23 of Collared by the Vampire Prince

Kira

Time blurs.

It can’t have been more than fifteen minutes since the carriage set off, perhaps twenty, but dread stretches every second out. The gag is already making my jaw ache, and Nathaniel’s silent, unblinking attention makes the carriage feel smaller with every turn of the wheels.

I look away, out into the trees.

A familiar shape slides past the window.

I jerk upright.

A fallen log. Split and rotting, thin green branches growing straight up from it like saplings.

No.

It’s the same fucking log we passed earlier at the start of our journey. Which means…he’s been taking us in bloody circles.

I spin back to Nathaniel, anger surging. His face is still, but there is triumph in his eyes. “Déjà vu?”

Instinct kicks in, and I try to shift into wolf form again—but it’s like reaching for something that isn’t there. The collar bites, suppressing the surge before it can grow. The loss hits me, leaving me hollow and breathless.

Livid, I seize the wine bottle and leap to my feet, swinging it hard across at his head.

He seizes my wrist, unnervingly fast, his grip like iron, the bottle stopping mere inches from his face.

I strike at him with my other hand, but he catches that too. He remains sitting, both my wrists trapped in his hold. My sleeve has ridden up, leaving my forearm exposed as the tilted bottle glug-glug-glugs, wine spilling over our skin in dark rivulets.

His gaze follows the stream.

Before I can make sense of the look in his eyes, he leans forward. His tongue traces a slow path along my forearm, tasting the spilled wine.

I stop breathing. The bottle slips from my fingers, landing with a dull clunk on the carriage floor.

“A fine vintage,” he says quietly. There’s no humour in his voice.

I blink at him. I don’t know what to do. Even if I could speak, I wouldn’t know what to say. He unsettles me completely. Not just what he is, but how calm he is.

My gaze flicks to the carriage door—the only exit.

I try to twist free, but he’s too strong.

Without warning, he tugs me closer by my wrists, pulling me into his lap. He releases my hands only to grip my hips, and I gasp through the gag as I’m dragged forward, forced to straddle him, my chest pressed against his.

“If kneeling is so difficult,” he says softly into my ear as I sit frozen, “then rest assured, I can be accommodating. There are other ways to show your submission. And they need not be unpleasant.”

I struggle, pushing at his chest—but his fingers pinch the soft flesh of my hips through my clothes.

I’m preparing to strike again when he shifts his position slightly.

And then I feel it beneath me.

He is hard, the thick prominence through his trousers pressed against my thigh.

Horror seeps through me as he holds me against him, making me feel him.

Not this. Not now. Not him.

“The Academy will teach you all the ways to please your Master,” he murmurs. “But I could offer you another lesson now…?”