Page 66 of Collared by the Vampire Prince

I’ll need to find a way into that office. And I’ll need to find a way to shift.

Which means…the collar has to come off.

Chapter 12

Kira

How is this day not freaking over yet?

Our final subject takes us around the side of the castle to a covered training yard: a long, open-sided court with a roof of dark beams overhead and a circular pit of churned sand at its centre.

Combat/Etiquette, as it appears on my timetable with that neat little slash between the words, turns out to be a cruel joke.

It is not one class.

It is two.

The vampires remain in the training yard for Combat.

The wolves are herded into the classroom next door for Etiquette.

Which is how I find myself in some perverted finishing-school classroom painted pink and smothered in lace, the air so heavy with perfume I swear I can feel concentrated rose oil leaking from my pores, and to top it all off, wearing a frilled white apron and being taught how to serve high tea.

Madame Perfinette is the first professor who seems personally offended by my late start to the semester. She is horrified by my inability to curtsy and instructs me to “learn swiftly” without bothering to demonstrate how.

The whole affair is somehow more degrading than fetching golf balls, and I quickly decide this is the worst class.

I claim a place near the corner window while I brew a pot of tea, because from here I can see into the covered yard. Not well, but enough to make out the vampires moving through the shade, blazers discarded, sleeves rolled, their bodies sharp and quick as they circle one another.

I stir sugar into my tea distractedly, trying to catch glimpses through the painted panes, where frosted ribbons of glass distort the courtyard beyond. I have very little experience fighting vampires. Barely any, really. I wonder if they all fight like the prince did—fast, precise, controlled.

Or whether some of them fight dirty, the way Resistance wolves do when survival matters more than style.

Something sharp strikes the back of my hand.

“Ow.” I jerk back, nearly upsetting the sugar bowl.

Madame Perfinette lowers her folded fan, her powdered brows lifting. “Miss Marsh. Sugar is not added to the pot. This is a formal tea service, not some country kitchen. Tip it out and start again.”

“Yes, madame.”

“And do not dawdle. Vampires do not appreciate being kept waiting. A properly trained wolf should anticipate thirst before she is asked to relieve it.”

With that, she moves away to correct another girl’s grip on the milk jug.

I look down at the tea, then towards the yard.

Anticipate thirst.

Well, if she insists.

I empty the ruined pot, toss in some tea leaves, dump fresh water over them and set the lid in place. Then I arrange the teapot on a tray with a few floral cups and toss a few lemon cakes on before murmuring to Becky, “I’m taking these to the headmaster.”

“Does Madame Perfinette know you’re doing that?” Becky asks instantly, sounding wounded that she wasn’t asked to perform the honour herself.

It is an effort not to roll my eyes. “Yes. She does.”

I slip out of the classroom before Madame Perfinette is any the wiser, taking the corridor back outside and rounding the corner towards the training yard with the tea balanced carefully in my hands. I walk with purpose, chin lifted, expression blank.