Page 77 of The Witch in the Dead of Night

Fury welled up inside me like a storm rolling in over blue skies. Marching in the direction of the lake, I choked back angry tears, curling my fingers into fists with the effort.

Damn him, I thought violently. Damn her. Damn them both to the depths of the underworld.

Rage crawled its way up my throat. Unable to hold it in for fear it might consume me, I doubled over at the waist and loosed a feral scream. Before me, the water churned wildly, forming a massive wave. It spilled across the surface of the lake until making landfall on the opposite bank with an earsplitting crash that echoed through the valley. Across the water, a flock of wild geese took flight, shrieking in panic. Anger drained out of me as I watched them, tension unfurling from my body like a cloud of smoke. I sighed, running my fingers through my hair.

“So melodramatic,” came a voice from behind me. “You know if you channel just an ounce of that rage into our sessions, you might be able to keep me from knocking you on your ass every evening.”

“Fucking vampires,” I mumbled under my breath.

“I’m hoping that this incident with fucking vampires taught you something, at the very least.”

I turned on my heel to find the prince leaning casually against a gnarled willow tree, a bemused expression on his face. “It taught me that you’re an asshole,” I snapped.

“You already thought that.”

“You’re really going to pretend like that was a lesson?”

“It was. For all of us.”

“And what exactly was I supposed to learn?”

“Something I had only ever read about,” he explained. “That witch’s blood is irresistible to vampires.”

My lip curled. “Shouldn’t you have been able to smell that or something?”

He cocked his head. “Without getting into the gruesome details, you smell nice, but only incrementally better than a normal human.”

My eyebrows shot up. “You think I smell nice? You’ve never paid me a compliment before.”

“Not true, and I’m making an objective observation.”

“Would you have been able to control yourself?” I pressed. “If you had been the one to bite me?”

A muscle twitched in his jaw. “I don’t see why that’s relevant.”

I shook my head, recognizing the lie on his tongue. “Yes, you do.”

A beat passed between us. “My brother isn’t perfect. None of us are.”

“I know that.”

“But you haven’t accepted it.”

I remained silent, the waters of the lake slowly lapping at my boots.

“Am I correct in assuming you saw into Genevieve’s memories on the night of Iltsar?” he asked.

I sucked in a breath. “Why would you think that?”

“Because of what you said to me back there.”

I kicked at a rock, saying nothing.

“You still haven’t been able to break down my wards,” he continued, “and Genevieve isn’t exactly practiced in psychal magic, so it must have been her.”

My jaw snapped shut. It would be too humiliating to admit that one overheard conversation had driven me to do something so stupid, even if it were true.

“I never meant to offend you,” he said.