Page 74 of Hot Vampire Next Door: Season Three

“Your mother did make this promise, and she was under no compulsion. She knew what was good for you and Bran Duval was not on that list.”

Bran stands up to flank me. “You don’t get to decide that, Julian. She’s not going to be yours.”

Julian sighs. It’s not a sigh of defeat, but of exasperation. As if we’re petulant children he now has to correct.

Still in his seat, Damien’s cell phone buzzes in his pocket. He pulls it out and lights up the screen and I can’t help but be distracted by it, by him. Because watching him digest the message is like watching someone learn they’ve just been diagnosed with a fatal disease.

His shoulders level out, his eyes widening, nostrils flaring.

He looks up at his brother and Bran looks down at him.

“Jimmy just woke up,” he mouths.

It doesn’t take me long to parse out the meaning of that.

Jimmy just woke up…meaning she was either knocked out or had her neck snapped.

If Jimmy just woke up, then Kelly—

One of the doors in the far back pulls open and a Renshaw witch steps through.

And held in her grip is none other than my sister.

We knew this was coming and yet now that it’s happening, I think we’re all a little shocked by it.

What was it Cal warned us about?

“Kelly will be on the north end of the Pledge Hall when she’s struck down.”

And where is Kelly now?

On the fucking north end.

I can barely hear the whispering of the room over the rapid thudding of my heart.

Damien is on his feet in a second. “Julian,” he says, his voice rumbling with warning. “I don’t think you fully understand what it is you’re doing.”

“On the contrary.” Julian steps into the aisle. “You think I would, what, just let you take something that was owed to me? Something powerful beyond comprehension?”

“I’m not something,” I say. “I’m a fucking human being.”

He screws up his mouth. “Don’t play dumb, Jessie. We all know you’re far from human.”

The whispers pick up in the room.

“Wait,” Carl says. “Jessie isn’t human?”

Julian’s face falls as he realizes his grave error.

“If she isn’t human,” Carl starts.

Julian gestures to one of the Locke House vampires and he darts over to the director, compelling him to forget this minor detail—if I’m not human then I can’t Pledge.

“This is a stupid plan,” Damien yells. “You have two hundred witnesses in here. You can’t compel them all.”

“I won’t need to.”

The Renshaw witch drags my sister further into the room and down two steps. Kelly fights against the woman, but judging by my sister’s lack of progress, I’d say the witch is using some kind of magic to keep her under control.