Copper Snare_A Vampire Girl Novella by Karpov Kinrade & Sarah Fine

Author:Karpov Kinrade & Sarah Fine [Kinrade, Karpov & Fine, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-07-22T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 4

The Snare and the Snag

I suppose it’s easy to demonize your enemy, especially when he is, in fact, a demon.

—Ace Vane

Malin sat in the corner of the stone chamber, staring at the dying embers in the fireplace. She tried not to look at Ace, who for the last hour or so had been sprawled, heedless and slumbering, on the bed just a few yards away. She tried not to listen to his breathing, deep and sure, hitching occasionally as if he’d been surprised by something in his dreams. She tried not to imagine those dreams, probably fantastical and frenzied, colorful and whimsical and ticking, whirring, buzzing, clanking, on and on in an empire of sound and brilliance. She tried not to smile when she thought of his face and how it had lit up when she’d critiqued his design. He hadn’t been irritated or hurt when she’d found an error. He hadn’t dismissed her simply because she had no teaching in the ways of numbers. No—he’d seemed ecstatic. Hopeful.

Endearing.

Adorable, even.

Ugh. This was sentiment she could not afford.

The shackles chafed her wrists; he’d put them back on her after her declaration that she’d rather die than help him kill her people. He’d seemed reluctant, almost sad, but he’d done it anyway. He’d chained her to a metal ring embedded in the stone wall, and he’d left her for hours to ponder all the ways she had failed while he went off to sup with his brothers and father and all the nobles who’d bought her people like cattle today.

She was supposed to be bought by Fenris Vane. She was supposed to be at work already, completing her mission with Saana and Zoran, who had both been purchased by Fenris. Instead, she’d messed up again and again. First by freeing Foria and failing to return to her cage before she was discovered—that was what had made Malin interesting to Prince Ace, and that was what had landed her here instead of with the others. Then she’d messed up again, by starting to like the man, by sliding so easily into his realm of chaotic genius simply because it felt like she’d belonged there right by his side. For a few moments, she hadn’t even realized she had stepped into a trap. She’d fallen in love with those drawings, which had carried their own kind of magic, which had shown her things she hadn’t ever imagined but that somehow felt familiar and possible and perfect. Inexplicably, she’d started to fall in love with the vampire who had envisioned them. Now she was caught in the snare, trying to find a way to wriggle free.

Her people had a word for this feeling of connection, one so rare that Malin had never come close to experiencing it thus far in her very long life. Karasi. But no way could this vampire prince be the one, the spirit of her very heart. This was a flaw in her, an illusion brought on by the fear and the stress.

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