Page 78 of Hot Vampire Next Door: Season Three

I turn on Julian. His eyes narrow.

“Jessie,” he says.

My heart thuds in my ears.

“You know what I can do,” I say. He doesn’t deny it. I think he’s known since Sasha bit me and I think he must have somehow forced my mother into admitting it. “You knew and you kept it from me and everyone else because you wanted to use me for your own gains.

“That’s not what it was—”

“You’ve been conniving and controlling and manipulative from the beginning because you knew that if you possessed a power that no one else did, you would be the most powerful person in the room. You would strip Bran and Damien of that title and you would take over Midnight to be the king of a castle he stole.”

“Jessie—”

The heat builds in my chest. The blood pounds through my veins. And that dark thing, that dark feeling I had after Bran and Damien decimated the vampire court swims much closer to the surface.

I can feel it yawning inside of me, no longer tethered.

And the thirst for vengeance takes root.

I want him to die.

I want Julian to burst into ash beneath my hands.

“Jessie,” Bran says again.

I go behind him and take the stake from the Locke vampire. The bigger man grunts and groans, but there’s nothing he can do to stop me.

“Help me get out of this and I will take care of this for us,” Bran says. “Let me have blood on my hands.”

I stop in front of Julian, the stake held firmly in my grip.

“Mouse.”

“You deserve to suffer for what you did to my sister,” I tell Julian. “But I’m too impatient.”

“Don’t do this,” Julian begs.

“Fuck you.”

“Mouse!”

I drive the stake right through Julian Locke’s heart.

There is a moment between Julian’s life and death where he just blinks at me and then down at the stake protruding from his chest.

His lips move, as if he means to protest.

But before any words can come out, he bursts into ash.

A gasp wends through the room and the last of Julian Locke paints the air in swirls of dust.

“Mouse,” Bran says again. “Unfreeze me.”

I stagger back.

“Mouse, please.”

I bump into him, swallowing hard.