Free Deadly Lovers (The Prussia Series) by Karisha Prescott

them.
     
    Though dark and hollow, bright red tissue remained clinging to the bone of his skull. My mouth fell open, in awe of the damage I had inflicted on my enemy that was also well deserved. I let my breath hit his cheek so that he knew that I was near him. I felt the frenzy of feeding dissipate off of him as I studied the curve of his lips while he failed to hold up the corners of his mouth into that psychotic smile that had adapted so readily to his face. He knew I was close. He knew it. I came within inches of his face. I wanted him to hear me. I didn’t want to have to yell.
     
    I whispered softly into the Duke’s ear, “I’m immortal, truly immortal. And I can’t be killed…ever,”
     
    I slowly pulled my face away from his, waiting for his reaction to my greatest secret, waiting for him to lunge for my throat or face. I anticipated, ready to move quickly away from him, but he didn’t move. All that moved were the corners of his mouth, still wide open. The corners turned upwards so high that it looked entirely painful, unnatural, and horrifying. What I had intended as a painful truth for the Duke became a memory that would be forever ingrained in my mind. He laughed, quietly, almost too quiet to hear.
     
    “Princess…” said the Duke, the hiss of his voice carrying the chill I had intended to give him but had apparently failed to deliver in my whisper, “Whether or not you can die is no matter. When Josephine gets her hands on you, you’ll wish you could,”
     
    And there it was. My greatest fear thrown into my face and I couldn’t deny or hide it. The Duke had plunged truth like a dagger into my chest and twisted it, ice cold and expertly delivered. I took a step back, stumbling more than stepping, and caught myself on the edge of the table as my thoughts went to Josephine. I didn’t wonder if Josephine would catch me. I knew she would catch me. My fear was when she caught me and how quickly I would sink into insanity from whatever terror she inflicted on me.
     
    “Still want a drink?” I spit the words at him in anger as my face twisted up in disgust with him.
     
    I shoved my wrist forward and gritted my teeth. The Duke didn’t bother to answer but clamped down, lips sealing around the wound on my wrist and reopening it with vicious determination as if he were starving.
     
    “No,” said Sebastian, “We might still get more information from him,”
     
    “No, then?” I asked, pushing the Dukes face away from my wrist with my other hand and watching the Duke blindly chomp at the air, following the scent of my blood.
     
    “Prussia, this is insane,” yelled Sebastian as I waved my wrist back and forth in front of the Duke, “and it’s sick. It’s just sick,” he shouted, putting his hands on his head and tugging at the soft tufts of hair that had become ruffled as his fingers pulled at the strands.
     
    “Don’t tease him?” I asked, still toying with the Duke.
     
    I put my wrist closer to the Duke and he bit so aggressively at the air that his mouth made a sharp snapping sound, loud enough for me to wonder if he had broken a tooth or two.
     
    “Just one more sip,” pleaded the Duke, his eyebrows relaxing and his mouth forming into a pitiful frown, “Please…”
     
    “Since you said please …” I said, smiling as I slowly stretched my hand out.
     
    The Duke crunched into my wrist so hard that I cried out from the pain, wondering if he had managed to break it. I felt the blood gush out of my wrist into his mouth like a flood.
     
    I watched closely, ignoring the pain, the twinges from his gnawing teeth and the sharpness every time he adjusted his bite to sink deeper, harder, into my wrist. I watched. I knew the Duke was an old vampire and I could tell that he had an appetite. But even an old vampire with an appetite had to become full sooner or later.
     
    Just moments after the Duke had snapped my wrist and unleashed a river of my blood into his mouth, guzzling for every