Page 3 of Hot Vampire Next Door: Season Five

He pulls back. “Excuse me?”

“Tell me how to earn your secrets.”

I may not have known Arion long, and he may have betrayed me in order to get this gate opened, but I feel like we can come to trust one another.

He is my blood, after all.

I just hope it’s not my mind playing tricks on me, my intuition clouded by the desire to know my fae sibling.

But I have to hold on to something, even if it’s the scant hope that he and I could be on the same side.

“You earn my secrets by earning my trust,” he answers. There is no hint of gruffness to his voice. No abrasiveness in his answer.

“Where do I start?”

He turns to me, arms clasped behind his back. “Just like that?”

“Yes, just like that.”

His frown deepens. “Fine. Walk through that doorway and go to the queen and help me fix this mess that our mother began.”

Schooling my features, I try really fucking hard to hide the fact that he’s just given me his first secret. I thought he just wanted to use me to open the gate to go home, but now I realize it’s much more than that.

He was betrayed by our mother. Or at least that’s what he believes. And he wants to make amends for what she did.

I can see the guilt in the fine lines around his eyes, the shame buried in the sharp, rigid way he carries himself.

He does not want her legacy and now he wants me to help prove it.

By using me to open the gate, he’s taken the first step in his own redemption tour.

“Okay,” I tell him. “Let’s go see this Queen of the Summer Court.” I follow the overgrown path to the open doorway. “Is there anything else I should know?”

Just as I’m about to step through to the light, Arion adds, “Yes. If the same woman is still sitting on the Summer Throne, it’s probably best you should know…”

I glance at him over my shoulder, ready to walk through.

“…she was our mother’s greatest rival. And it was she who commanded my hand in killing our mother.”

Episode Seventy-Two

DO NOT COME UNDONE

BRAN

Everything aches. Every joint and bone and muscle.

That’s my first clue that something is profoundly wrong.

The second is that it feels like my skin is melting from my bones.

Opening my eyes, I’m greeted by the blazing light of the sun. There is no time to comprehend why. There is only time to act.

I’m beneath the dark canopy of a mature hardwood tree in no time at all.

The burning subsides and my skin regenerates. As the smoke clears, I take in my surroundings.

I’m still in Bramwell Park, but the fairy grotto is gone and so is Mouse.