Page 132 of Hateful Prince
No the fuck she doesn’t, asshole.
“Don’t stop. You’re nearly there,” the woman whispered in my ear, spurring me on.
“Rise.”
As one, skeletal hands shot through the graves circling Sam’s altar. The hands were followed by heads and shoulders as mostly rotted corpses clawed their way out of their final resting places. Ten reanimated bodies stood waiting for my orders. The psycho holding me captive didn’t notice a thing. Yet.
“Stop him.”
The sound of snapping bones filled the air as my zombies turned their attention to my would-be murderer.
It didn’t take long for him to see we had company. His eyes widened, and as the nearest zombie reached for him, Sam screamed and narrowly escaped the snapping jaws.
“What is this? Leave me. I command you. I am Death’s consort!” But they didn’t. Instead the small horde shambled toward him, one zombie’s teeth finding purchase on his neck, tearing flesh and making him scream.
He ran into the night, leaving me still bound, but alive.
Chapter
Forty
KAI
The Belladonna witch moved through her ritual with practiced ease, selecting items from her altar and lifting them for the goddess’s blessing while murmuring the incantation softly beneath her breath. There was a grace to it akin to a ballet dancer’s a pas seul. Most everyone around me watched her with rapt attention, but I couldn’t. Even knowing she was personally sealing our fate and perpetuating our captivity, my focus was elsewhere.
Dahlia should be back by now.
“Where are you, gem?” I muttered, stalking through the crowd as my gaze raked the faces in search of her.
She’d told me she wanted to chat to Sunday, presumably to discuss the finer points of wrangling a group of dominant males just like hers, but I couldn’t find her in the room, and that bothered me.
“Find her.”
My dragon’s order was sent with unrestrained annoyance. He couldn’t understand that I was respecting Dahlia’s space. She’d made it clear that she didn’t love having the four of us breathing down her neck every second of the day. I strongly doubted she’d react favorably to me barging in on her girl talk.
Gaze sweeping over the crowd once more, I stopped when I came upon Sunday standing near a cocktail table surrounded by Caleb, Noah, and Kingston. My heart lurched when I didn’t find Dahlia amongst them. Something wasn’t right. My dragon agreed, his anxiety spiking and sending the magical ink that decorated my body slithering around until his eyes peeked out over the collar of my shirt.
“Now look what ye did.”
Relax. The rest of her men are near. I’m sure she’s fine.
But I wasn’t. Sure, that is. Too many terrible things had happened of late, and anxiety was a bitter pool in my gut.
I hadn’t taken more than two steps toward Sunday and her group before the room went black, all the lights cutting in unison. Fuck. It reminded me of the last time we were all gathered in the rec room, when Dahlia’s ghost had attacked.
A few cries of shock filled the air, followed by a wave of hushed murmurs. In a matter of seconds, witches and mages were sending balls of witch light and fire into the air to re-illuminate the space.
“That wasn’t part of the ritual, was it?” a bookish witch whose name I couldn’t remember asked, holding up a wand with a ball of light on the end. Despite her youthful appearance, I recalled that she’d been sent to Blackwood for stealing an elixir that gave her eternal youth. When she’d gotten caught, she drank it and was sent here to live out the rest of her immortal days.
“I don’t think so,” I said, snagging her wand and striding through the crowd with my newly acquired torch.
“Hey! That’s mine, Kai!”
“You’ll live.”
As soon as I reached Sunday, all three of her men put themselves in front of her, clearly sensing my agitation.
“Where is she?” I snarled.