Page 64 of Slaying the Shifter Prince
If only I could curse him all over again. If only I could point and unleash myself again. I’d only been eighteen; I didn’t have the imagination I had now.
Now I’d curse him much more thoroughly.
But I’d been innocent. I’d been in a hurry, hiding behind the troupe’s discarded packing crates. The best I’d been able to do was curse him to be unable to hide his monstrous truth.
And I could only curse a person once.
I’d screwed up my opportunity. Just like I’d screwed up my revenge.
He sat there, jaw slack, eyes unblinking.
“I saw you, Your Royal Fucking Highness, standing over her, ducking down to take a lock of hair like the sick bastard you are. That is why I came here. That is why I tried to kill you. That is why I hate you and I will not stop hating you until my last breath.” I rose on my knees and looked down at him. “I will find my iron dagger, and I will have my revenge or I will die trying.”
His chest rose and fell once, like he was waking up from death. “You were there.” Another breath, this one deeper. “That night.You were there.”
“Well done, idiot. I just told you that.” I sneered, the tight feeling welcome after his touch had made me so slack. “I saw you. Your tail. Your claws glinting in the streetlights. Your yellow eyes as you looked over your shoulder.”
Back then, he’d walked through his capital city with his claws and tail hidden and those slitted pupils shifted to appear normal. He’d just looked like any other fae. Acceptable for Luminis. Acceptable for the royal family.
But with his friends at that private performance, he’d relaxed and dropped the façade. He’d stood over my sister, obviously a shapechanger. I’d learned enough on our annual visits to Elfhame to understand they were considered little better than animals.
Having one in Dawn’s royal family was a shameful secret. A thing best kept hidden.
With my curse, I took that from him. I spilled the truth.
I curse you, prince of Elfhame, to never hide what you are.
Igot him exiled.
But it was not enough. Only death would be enough.
“I thought you saw me at first.” I shook my head, seeing that moment when he’d turned and the light had hit his face, glinting in his unmistakable yellow eyes. “You looked right at me in my hiding place. I swore you’d seen me. But then you ran.”
“You.” He sat up, eyes wide, pupils narrowing to paper-thin slits. “You.”
He burst from the headboard. I didn’t get the chance to move before his hand was around my throat and I was on my back.
“You’re the witch who cursed me,” he snarled as he crushed me into the bed. His claws pricked my flesh, so close to ripping out my jugular.
I smiled. He knew now, and it was beautiful.
Not only was he obsessed with the human who’d tried to kill him, but he was infatuated with the witch who’d cursed him. He’d tasted her blood, told her she was delicious. He’d cared for her when she’d been sick. He’d feared for her life. And he’d fucked her with his fingers, drinking up the sight of her pleasure.
“All this time,you were her.” His muscles heaved. His face shifted, nose getting wider and flatter. He grew over me, making the bed groan. “I swore I’d kill you.”
“Go on, then.” I hadn’t cut his throat, but his obsession was a close second place in my quest for vengeance. I could make do with that.
With a roar, he tore away from me.
The room shook with his bellows as he raged through it. Tables splintered. Stuffing flew through the air from the shredded settee. Vases and bowls shattered.
I barely sat up in time to see him bound onto the balcony and over the balustrade. His striped form disappeared into the night as feathers from torn-up cushions drifted around me.
Panting, I touched my throat. No blood. And I was alive.
Maybe the gods were real, because that was a fucking miracle.
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