Page 67 of Collared by the Vampire Prince

No one stops me. And why would they? No wolf in her right mind would waltz around enemy territory carrying a pot of tea without permission.

I might have to add it to my escape plan.

The covered yard smells of sand, sweat, and old stone. It is cooler beneath the shady roof, all dark beams overhead and open air at the sides, the churned pit at the centre marked with the scuffed lines of many boots.

I do not step directly into the yard.

Instead, I follow a narrow stone walkway running along one side of it, half enclosed by the castle wall. Its outer side is broken by a row of arched openings, each filled with carved latticework that lets in air and fractured strips of light while keeping the passage mostly hidden from view.

Perfect.

I drift through it with the tea tray balanced in my hands, slowing to a stop as I reach the arched opening closest to the training pit and peer through the latticework.

Several pairs spar across the sand, blazers discarded, sleeves rolled to their forearms. A female professor in fighting leathers is occupied with one pair near the far wall, correcting the angle of a student’s wrist.

The others fight with that irritating vampire elegance—fast, pale, and showy, all sharp smiles and sharper remarks between strikes.

One feints left. The other laughs.

“Really, is that the best you can do?” one calls.

“Too obvious,” another remarks.

“I say, Marty, my grandmother hits harder than that. And she’s been on her deathbed for years.”

But when they fight…they are lethal. Their boots drag clean lines through the sand. Their hands blur. It is not the fastest strikes that seem to win—but often the sharpest tongues. Mind games.

I quickly deduce that the taunting is not decoration. It is part of the fight. I am still watching through the carved stone when a familiar voice cuts across the yard.

“Here I am. As summoned,” Nathaniel says dryly.

I flinch as if he is standing directly behind me. It’s stupid. His voice has come from the side, where he is crossing in from the school grounds, and he’s not even looking this way.

His coat billows around him despite the lack of wind. There is no obvious embroidery on his coat, no crown, no jewels, nothing that should make him look like a prince, but he does anyway. Tall, severe, and unmistakably used to being obeyed.

Every vampire in the yard notices him. Their sparring slows, heads turning as his hair gleams golden white in the sunlight before he steps into the shadow of the covered arcade.

Fear prickles through me, my fingers tightening around the stolen tray of tea. I don’t feel nearly as well concealed as I felt a few seconds ago.

The fighting resumes.

Nathaniel approaches Victoria, who stands at the edge of the training pit with her friends arranged around her like an audience. A few young women straighten when they see him. One whispers something behind her hand. Another bites back a laugh before Victoria flicks her a pleased little glance, as though their attention is exactly what she wanted. Felix waits a few feet away, rolling his wide shoulders like he is warming up for something he has already decided he will enjoy.

“You took your time,” Victoria says.

“I was very busy trying to think of somewhere else I’d rather be,” Nathaniel replies. “Anywhere at all. Yet here I am.”

“I do believe that was a compliment,” Victoria declares.

He inclines his head. “Well. I do try.”

Her friends titter obligingly, as if he’s paid her the highest compliment. Perhaps he has.

None of this makes any fucking sense.

Victoria smiles as if she has won something. “Well. It’s about time you challenged Felix. He has been rather forward with me, you know. Between the sheets. I thought you might want to say something about it.”

“Do I want to say something about your sheets?” Nathaniel repeats, sounding as though he is trying to summon the will to care.