Page 101 of Hot Vampire Next Door: Season Five

But I can’t help myself.

“Oh. My. God Sam! You’re bonded to the Midnight Alpha! Holy shit!” I hug her again, squeezing her tight, and she lets out a huff of air.

“Stop it. I don’t want Cal thinking this is a thing.”

“It IS a thing,” he says from afar.

“Whatever.” Sam lowers her voice. “It’s not.”

“It is,” he says again.

“Stop listening in on my conversations!” she shouts back at him.

Bran laughs. I try to hide my grin.

“You both are adorable,” I tell Sam.

“Oh shut up,” she says and then hooks her arm around my shoulders. “So did you defeat that bitch of a queen?”

I lick my lips and look out over the garden where the Summer Court is slowly trickling back toward the palace.

“Yes,” I answer.

Sam holds up her hand, waiting.

We high-five and then laugh.

“Good job.”

I snort. “I just helped take out a fae queen and you act like I got an A on an essay.”

Sam shrugs. “I mean, pretty much the same thing right?”

I look over at my best friend, alive and breathing, and I hang my head back and laugh.

Episode One Hundred Eight

WINTER PALACE

Arion demands a fae funeral fit for the former queen. The fae don’t like to prolong these things, I learn, and by the following night, we’re in an opulent gathering room where the queen is laid out on a stone altar, candles lit all around her, lanterns glittering above us. There are flowers everywhere.

Arion stands behind the altar, a new crown sitting atop his head.

He looks every bit a king in a fresh outfit of emerald green and gold.

“We say our final farewell to our former queen of the Summer Court. May she rest in eternal peace,” he says, his voice booming around the room.

One by one, the fae approach the altar and leave a rose on the queen’s body. Because I don’t think it’s right that I take part, I stay in the back with Bran beside me.

“He’ll make a good king,” Bran says.

I watch Arion as he nods to each and every member of the Summer Court who leave a rose behind.

“I think so too.”

Bran takes my hand in his, his cold fingers threading with mine. “And you will make a great queen.”

I snort. “Well that remains to be seen, doesn’t it?”