Page 10 of Hot Vampire Next Door: Season Five

The back driver’s side door opens and I climb inside, tarp and all.

Once the door is shut behind me, the cooler darkness of the tinted windows allows me to breathe more easily.

I fight with the tarp, shoving it into the back with a loud, angry rustling.

“Bran.”

I glance over to find my brother in the opposite seat.

It really is him. He’s really alive and awake and speaking.

“You’re okay,” I say, even though he already assured me he was.

“Yes,” he answers. “Well…okay enough.”

I settle into the seat as the driver takes off. I know it’s King behind the wheel without checking. Beyond working in the house, he also maintains mine and Damien’s car collection, and King always smells like oranges, like the gritty hand soap made for mechanics to scrub the grease from their hands.

He says nothing as he tears through the grass of the park and gets us back on the road.

That’s my favorite thing about King—he knows when to keep his fucking mouth shut.

“How did this happen?” Damien asks and I have to be mindful not to wince. My brother’s tone is not accusatory, but I’ve known him long enough to know he will judge me for my errors. And why not? I got cocky. Reckless. And while I’m grateful to have my brother back, it was not something I wanted at the expense of Jessie.

“We were tricked,” I tell him instead, because it’s the truth. “I think they drugged the wine.”

“You drank fairy wine?”

Now he sounds like the judgey older brother I know.

“Don’t start.” I rest my head against the back of the seat. “Let me return Jessie to Duval House and then you can give me a lecture.”

He laughs through his nose. “Fair enough. I will spare you for now.”

I roll my head along the back of the seat so I can face him. It’s dark back here, but it takes nothing for my vampire eyes to examine him.

There are still dark circles beneath his eyes, but I would expect nothing less after lying unconscious from a witch’s spell. He’s as pale as ever, his eyes a little duller and bloodshot.

I’m reminded again of seeing him lying on his death bed all those years ago, and the hopelessness, the fear, and the desperation I felt.

Sometimes I forget that we are not entirely invincible. That there are still things to lose that would break me.

“I’m glad you’re awake,” I tell him.

“I am too.”

King turns through one of the main intersections in Midnight, taking us home. I don’t want to go home, but I have no choice.

“You have a plan?” Damien asks me. “To rescue your little mouse?”

I sigh and rub at my burning eyes with thumb and forefinger. I can barely think straight through the exhaustion and the hangover and the fury. The sunlight is my greatest weakness and there is literally no way to fight it. Not only will it burn me alive, but the light saps all of the energy from my bones. My arms are leaden. My head is foggy.

And yet time is ticking by in my head, reminding me that every second Mouse is in the fae realm, she is more and more at risk.

What did Baspin mean when he said they’d demand her obedience?

If any one of those fae touches my mouse, I will rip their ribs out of their chest cavity, one by fucking one, and pick my teeth with them.

“I can hear your anger,” Damien says.