Page 36 of The Curse of Monsters

I gasped, my eyes snapping open as I stared at Prince Azaren.

“What about the bonds?” I asked him, questioning him out loud about what he’d said in my mind.

His green eyes were wide and round, and he stared at me like I’d grown a second head. “The information about how to break the curse is there,” he said like he had to focus to get his lips to move again.

“Are you all right, lovely?” Darian asked me with concern, but I ignored him.

“You felt something. When you were in my mind,” I said to Prince Azaren. “What did you find out about our bonds?”

Prince Azaren shook his head like he was still struggling to believe whatever he’d just discovered. “I–I can’t be certain.”

“What’s she talking about?” Locke asked, coming closer.

Prince Azaren fidgeted with his fingers. “I was wrong about your bonds.”

“What do you mean, you were wrong?” I asked him.

“You haven’t been cursed,” he said with a disbelieving shake of his head. “Well, you have, but it’s like the curse has been changed. It’s more like a blessing of some kind.”

“Yeah, right,” I said with a sarcastic smile. “You make it sound like it’s one of Goddess Falia’s miracles.”

“Not Falia,” Prince Azaren said softly, and his serious expression had the smile falling from my face. “Whether it’s a curse or some kind of blessing, all I can tell is that at its heart, the magic is about protection. I think these four have been bound to you to protect you, and the magic wasn’t placed over you with ill intent. If anything, I’d say it was made from…love.”

“So it wasn’t Warrick?” Locke murmured with confusion, and I remembered our theory that the bonds had come about because of Warrick’s experiments on me.

“The magic is ancient, so similar to the curses I’ve been studying but also completely different,” Prince Azaren commented.

I was busy contemplating what the prince had said when a ghostly, cloaked figure walked right through the wall like a wraith, emerging from the middle of the bookcase. Before I could cry out, the figure launched an ice dagger through the air, and I watched in shocked horror as the weapon speared into Prince Azaren’s back. He let out a pained noise as he blinked wide eyes at me and wobbled in the air before slumping onto my legs.

Locke went for the cloaked figure, but the assassin was gone, vanished back between the books before the vampire could reach him.

“Assassin!” Kade cried, his growl vibrating around the room as he shifted, and Asher and Darian were both crowding around me and Prince Azaren.

The weapon was buried deep in Prince Azaren’s back, but the ice blade was melting rapidly. The faster it melted, the more blood poured from the wound. “We need to get you to a healer,” I said to Prince Azaren, hoping he would tell me how I could help him. Where were those fussing fae when he needed them?

A gurgling noise came from Prince Azaren’s throat. “They can’t get Izla’s books.”

The books!We still hadn’t told him where the other books were. “You held up your end of the deal,” I told him frantically. “The other books you rescued from Katakin. They’re in the forest near where you created the portal. We only left them because we’d disturbed the toadstools and couldn’t carry them.”

His head bobbed, and I couldn’t be sure if he was nodding. “The king’s jewel,” he rasped, a trail of blood dribbling down his chin. “She can heal me.”

The ice spear had melted entirely now, and I pressed my hands to the wound, trying to stop the bleeding.

“Who’s the jewel? Where can we find her?” Darian asked him, but Prince Azaren didn’t respond, his head unmoving where it rested on my lap.

“He’s bleedin’ badly,” Asher said.

He bent to lift the prince off me, but the door burst open with a crash.

Three fae marched into the room, fully dressed in armor. “They’re monsters!” one of the fae shouted, but I was still staring at the prince in horror. Blue blood covered my fingers, and my hands shook violently.

There was a crack as Locke killed one of the fae and tossed their body to the floor, but then searing pain clamped around my neck as a ring of fire started squeezing off my air supply.

“Kneel!” a female fae commanded. Her long auburn braid reached her hips, and she stared at us with hatred as she kept her hands outstretched. “If you struggle, I’ll end you here and now.”

Kade growled like he was going to attack, but then the pain around my neck became so intense I let out a pained cry.

“Stop!” Asher shouted. “We’ll kneel!”