Page 49 of Hot Vampire Next Door: Season Three

Damien frowns at me as he takes the slip of paper and unfurls it. He starts reading.

“I love you so much, baby. I’ve just been so overwhelmed at work,” Mike says. “I’ve been trying to distract myself. I don’t love her. You’re the only woman I’ve ever loved.”

His wife is sobbing on the other end of the phone. I can hear a baby crying in the background.

“Go get the baby,” Mike says. “We can talk about all of this when I get home. If you’ll let me come back.”

There’s a long pause on the other end. The wife sniffs and says, “Yes. Please come home.”

The wind shifts and the animal in the field catches my scent. It’s gone in a flash.

“Why didn’t you tell me about this sooner?” Damien says behind me.

“Because I wasn’t sure how you’d react.”

Mike says his goodbyes in a long, drawn-out pathetic mewl.

“I wish I could say she’s just a changeling,” Damien says.

I turn to him. He’s leaning against my car, his legs crossed at the ankle, the left side of him bright against the glare of the headlights. The letter is hanging from his hand.

“But changelings don’t have terrifying abilities,” I say.

“Precisely.” He thinks for a second. “There are only a few brownies in Midnight. We could track them all down, see what they know.”

“Worth a shot.”

He folds the letter back up and returns it to me. “If she’s more powerful than you or me—”

“Don’t.”

“What?”

“Don’t go there.”

“Bran—”

“If she’s more powerful than you or me, then we’ll be glad she’s on our side.”

He narrows his eyes.

“We’re having Rita undo the binding,” I tell him. “And you’ll not stop us.”

He watches me with that cool indifference. I know my brother unsettles most people, but I will always know him as the brother who held our little sister in his arms, sobbing over her dead body.

Death reveals who we really are, deep down, and my brother has always been the type who loves harder than anyone. And I know he loves me.

We are all we have left of our blood. He’ll do what I ask.

“The fae gate closed right around her arrival,” he points out.

“I know.”

“There are very few reasons someone would close a fae gate.”

“I know that too.”

“And if the gate were to be opened again, and we find out she’s—