Page 21 of Hot Vampire Next Door: Season Five

I want to go home and see her.

I need to get us through whatever song and dance the fae would like us to perform so we can return home and reconvene and come up with a plan.

Maven’s proposal caught me off guard, but honestly it’s the best possible outcome of all this. They aren’t killing me—yet. Instead, they’re trying to marry me off, and every single history book knows that an arranged marriage always has a benefit, some kind of leverage.

The queen points her nose at Bran and says, “Who is this?”

“He’s a vampire,” Arion answers. “From Midnight.”

“Kill him,” the queen says easily, no different than if she’d asked someone to smush a fly.

Two soldiers surge forward but I throw myself in front of Bran, arms spread wide like a shield.

“Little mouse,” his voice rumbles in a whisper behind me. “You’re playing a very dangerous game.”

I ignore him and say, “The vampire is mine. There is no marriage without him.”

I’ll probably get a swatting for that later, and you know what? I’ll enjoy it. In this new level of our relationship, Bran might have to stand down in public, and I might have to stand up, but in the bedroom…I will gladly submit to him.

“This vampire,” the queen says and looks at us from the deep, dark pools of her dark amethyst eyes, “just tried to murder a crowned prince of the Summer Court. That’s grounds for immediate beheading.”

“He was just trying to protect me,” I argue.

“Why?” The queen furrows her brow. “Who is he to you?”

I take quick stock of who in this room knows who Bran is—Arion and Damien. Maybe the blond fae? Those are small numbers. Great odds.

“He’s my bodyguard,” I answer.

Bran snorts.

The queen turns her gaze to Arion. “Is this true?”

Oh shit. He can’t lie to her! He’s going to tell her?—

“Bran Duval is of no concern of mine,” Arion answers. “But I can assure you, Your Majesty, that he has guarded Jessie with his body.”

Oh thank god.

That was clever and honestly, a little unexpected. Tears nearly burn in my eyes at his sudden show of loyalty.

“I can award you an entire army of guards,” the queen tells me, folding her hands in front of her. “I have many accomplished and skilled fae. Vampires cannot be trusted. They lust for our blood. They are too animalistic in nature to control their urges.”

Bran bristles beside me. I put myself between him and the queen. “He would never hurt me. And he’s nonnegotiable.”

I can practically feel his bright golden gaze on me now, the sinking of his dark brow. Is he annoyed I have to protect him? Is he shocked I am? I’m desperate to know what he’s thinking. I want to prove myself. I want him to be proud of me. I want him to have confidence in me.

I want him to know that here, in my land, I can handle myself.

Maybe.

Probably.

The queen takes several more calculated steps, the long train of her dress twisting behind her making her servants scurry forward to straighten it.

She stops just a few feet from us.

This is the woman who demanded my brother kill my mother.