Page 2 of Hot Vampire Next Door: Season Three

She says nothing, adds a second egg.

“Kels, did he?”

“I slept alone. As it should be.”

“But—”

“There is no Damien and I,” she says.

“Yes, there clearly is.”

She sighs and brings her hand to her forehead, presses at the center as if massaging out an ache. “It’s complicated.”

“Well, I’m not going anywhere.”

She flips the eggs with a spatula. “He’s mad at me. Damien isn’t as easy to please as your vampire.”

I snort. “Easy to please? Bran is like one of those novelty puzzles. You know the ones you impulse buy at gift shops and don’t actually have solutions?”

“Yes, they do. And if that’s your comparison, then Damien is the creator of the puzzle.”

I lift my brows. “Oh? Okay. Well. I’m sorry?”

I recall overhearing a conversation my sister had on the phone with one of her coworkers. Damien had come into the City Clerk Office for what I assumed was business. She told her coworker that Damien was an iceberg. I thought she meant because he was cold. But now I wonder if she meant that with him, you only see what’s above the surface, that the real danger lingers beneath in the dark.

“There was a time when I thought Damien sent Bran to live next door,” Kelly admits.

“Really?”

She presses the button on the toaster, sinking the bread to the bottom. “I thought he wanted to keep an eye on me, but now—” She looks over at me. “Clearly it was only you.”

I frown at her. “Kels. That’s not…I mean…I think Damien does care about you. If that’s what you want? Is it what you want?”

“I don’t know what I want,” she admits.

The kitchen fills with the smell of toasting bread and fried eggs. She reaches around me for two plates she set aside. Using a towel for the pan handle, she lifts it and slides the eggs onto the plates.

“Want to have breakfast in the belvedere?” she asks me.

I smile over at her. “Nothing would make me happier.”

With plates and coffee cups in hand, we go to the dining room surrounded on all sides by windows. I was right in my assumption last night—we’re surrounded mostly by greenery but have a clear view on the one side of the courtyard and Duval House. The main house is mostly dark and sleepy right now, considering most who live there are vampires.

“So what do you think happens next?” I push the tines of the fork into the egg yolk and the liquid spills out. I quickly soak it up with the toast.

“I honestly don’t know. What happened last night at court won’t go unanswered and—” She pulls to a stop.

“What?”

“Tomorrow is your birthday.” Her eyes are wide.

“Yes. And?”

“Tomorrow is your birthday! And your Pledge and the party!”

“We’ve covered this, Kels. Don’t you remember? We don’t have to do a party.”

“But it’s your birthday.”