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I heaved up my knee and rammed it into his nuts while my body still hummed with arousal from Sy.

The vampire prince yelped, not expecting his meal to break his spell, let alone fight back fiercely. It must be a first for him that he failed to immobilize his prey. In fact, he was so surprised that his fangs retracted from my neck. But I knew he wasn’t just going to let me go. The deranged hunger in his eyes told me that he’d descend upon me again, and soon. My blood was too delicious for him to pass on.

“You dare?” he snarled. “Do you know who I am, boy?”

His fangs that had blazed white before he’d sunk them into my neck and broken my skin were now tainted red with my blood. I wanted to punish him and drag him down, but there was no time. I needed to get away from him right now.

“I don’t know who the fuck you are, bloodsucker, and I couldn’t care less,” I said.

I blasted out my last reserve of magic taken from the land earlier at the vampire.

A gust of wind tossed him away from me, my hair whipping around my face. In the meanwhile, the double doors flew open, dish after dish sailing toward the vampire. Shouts rose from inside the kitchen as a fire broke out, shelves fell with utensils and jars of ingredients tumbling to the floor, and pans and plates darted through the door to attack my opponent.

“What the fuck?” the vampire prince cried out angrily.

He avoided most of the onslaught with his super reflexes and lunged at me. I dropped lower and dove through the doors, letting him grab empty air while flying plates and spoons zoomed over my head toward him.

The vampire cursed.

A clamor broke out in the kitchen as the chef and his team tried to locate the source of the chaos while endeavoring to catch flying pans and plates. They scowled at me when they saw me, then lifted their scowls and replaced them with looks of reverence as they spotted who was chasing me.

“Incoming!” I yelled my warning as I zipped through the space to avoid crashing into anyone. “Out of the way!”

I had to jump onto a long table to avoid colliding with a group of service people in uniform.

“Out of the fucking way!” the vampire prince bellowed at the kitchen staff, closing in on me.

As I ran across the table, I caught sight of freshly baked rolls in a large basket. I scooped up two of them and sailed through the open front door while commanding the last of the wind to slam the door in the vampire’s face.

I was out of the kitchen, a roll in each hand. Blood still dripped from the tiny puncture wounds on my neck. My arms swung hard, my legs pumping as fast as I could manage. I wound up in the dining hall.

It wasn’t dinner time yet. Still, a few teenage girls and boys in their school uniforms lingered. Their heads snapped toward me as I sprang toward the arched entrance. Before I charged out, I heard the girls volunteering the information eagerly.

“Prince Louis,” a girl asked, “are you looking for the servant boy?”

“Prince Louis,” another girl called. “He went for the main entrance. There he is!”

“Do you require assistance, Your Highness?” several chimed in.

I pulled strength from Sy. It was a trick between us; it would last only for a few seconds, but those seconds had saved my ass a handful of times.

Out of Jubilee Haven, I zoomed toward its back and ran past a building shaped like a squatting duck before I halted at the north side of a courtyard. In its center, five towering sculptures that represented different superior supernaturals guarded an ancient tree that bore white and blue blossoms.

A blue-haired girl, close to my age, sat on a bench not far from one of the sculptures that held a magic wand in his hand. She raised her gaze from a hardcover book and smiled at me. Then, closing the book on her lap, she pointed her wand toward an orange dome behind her.

“Go there,” the witch said.

The shimmering letters “Pathfinder” swirled on the façade of the dome.

“Why did you help me?” I asked in suspicion, but I didn’t wait for an answer, as I heard the quiet and swift footfalls of the vampire prince.

I shot into the dome and prayed it wasn’t a tomb.

4

“What’s the first rule of Mist of Cinder?” The mature and sultry voice of an older female from one of the rooms floated to the hallway where I stood.

The building of Pathfinder turned out to be a maze of classrooms. I’d made a few turns and come to this section. Classrooms lined the corridor on both sides. Obviously, classes were in session, as most of the rooms were occupied.