Page 52 of Hot Vampire Next Door: Season Five

Arion’s back goes rigid as Mouse’s voice takes over like she is the puppeteer, and Arion her man on strings.

The fae lord grits his teeth, his arms locked at his sides. “Clever,” he says. “But you’ll never get me past my guards.”

“Let us worry about that,” I tell him. “Witch?”

She goes over to the fae lord, her gaze downcast as if she’s afraid to meet his eyes. “Bianca, isn’t it?” Arion says. “I remember you working for me a few years ago. This isn’t like you.”

She licks her lips. “I’ve made my loyalties and I am a woman of her word.”

“Hurry, witch,” I tell her.

Cal trots up beside her and Bianca buries her hand in his thick ruff. She whispers several foreign words and magic glitters in the air.

“You’ll pay for this,” Arion says right before he turns into a wolf, an exact copy of Cal.

The Alpha shifts back to his human form and gives his shoulders a roll.

Bianca’s face turns bright red at the sight of the fully nude Alpha. She turns away, a hand over her mouth.

Baspin points at the door Arion entered from. “Through there,” he tells the Alpha, “then the second door on the left. Follow the hall all the way down. Take another left. That’s where the hall will turn into a tunnel. There will be other fae coming and going. Make sure you use your nose to avoid them. If you need concealment, you’ll find lots of alcoves dark enough for you in your wolf form to hide. Keep going straight and you’ll eventually come to a door. That’ll get you out the other side of Bramwell Park.”

“Be careful,” I tell the Alpha.

“I’m more careful than you,” he counters.

“I’m just saying, I would hate for you to get your dick cut off in a faerie grotto on my account.”

He laughs. “I’m glad you care, Duval. I’ll meet you at Jessie’s house in thirty minutes.”

“Make it twenty,” I tell him, and he grumbles before shifting back into his wolf and slipping through the door.

“Here we go,” I tell the rest of them and snap my fingers at the newly transformed fae lord. “Come, doggie.”

He growls, but come he does.

Episode Eighty-Nine

SHATTERED

I pace the front room of my house, hands balled into fists.

Every now and then, frost spiderwebs across the living room windows and I have to stop and take in several deep breaths so the power doesn’t get away from me.

“It’s going to be all right, Jessie,” Jimmy says, but I know she can’t know that and she’s just trying to keep me from turning the house into an igloo.

“Arion is powerful,” I say and swivel back around once I’ve reached the dining table. “And he’s not on my side.”

“Yet,” she reminds me. She’s leaning against the casing on the front window, arms crossed casually over her chest. She’s wearing a black t-shirt and black leggings that, on anyone else, would look like a yoga outfit. But I know better—those are the clothes of a warrior ready for battle.

“What if he turns on Bran before Bianca can work her magic? Or worse, what if the summer queen ambushes him and?—”

Jimmy’s line of sight pivots to the street.

My heart hammers in my ears as I skirt around the couch and join her side.

Bran is standing in the front yard with the Alpha, Keiko, Bianca, and Baspin. And on Bran’s left is a large wolf with watching eyes.

“I smell blood,” Jimmy says and hurries to the front door.