Page 146 of The Good Vampire’s Guide to Blood & Boyfriends

“Wait here,” Brennan said.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

Cole frowned but nodded. Brennan pressed a light kiss to his crinkled brow and smoothed it over.

“You’ve got this,” Cole said. “I’m right here if you need me.”

And Mari and Tony were outside the doors. And if all went to plan, Dom, Nellie, Sunny, and a few Facebook vampires would soon be on their way. Brennan wasn’t alone. He knew that.

He crossed the ballroom and stopped in front of Travis, the fountain between them. For a second, they took each other in, and Brennan thought distantly of those old Westerns, a tumbleweed behind them, an ominous whistle.

“Oh, Brennan.” Travis sighed. “I’ll give you this: you’re the most entertainment I’ve had in decades.”

Brennan seethed. “Is this a game to you?”

“No matter how this goes, Brennan, know I’m getting exactly what I wanted.”

“And what’s that?”

Travis grinned, and Brennan’s stomach dropped.

“A swan song.”

Brennan’s blood chilled in his veins.

“The vampire blood is a neat gimmick, I’ll admit, but it’s not a deal-breaker. If I have to do everything myself, then I’ll do everything myself.”

Travis straightened the sleeves of his jacket, tightened the bolo tie at his neck, and raised his hands. An older woman froze in her tracks mid-twirl on the dance floor, putting her hands to her temples and shaking her head vigorously. A man with thick black eyeliner stopped reaching for a bat-shaped truffle and started looking around frantically like a dog watching a fly. A girl about Brennan’s age turned and sprintedout of the room, nearly knocking over someone wearing an impressive amount of body glitter.

At the same time, the burning itch of thirst grew in Brennan’s throat.

All around him the vampires of the roomglitched,confused and panicked.

Brennan felt ice creep up his body. How had he thought it would be as simple as stopping Travis from spiking the punch? Of course Travis could do whatever he wanted. Dom had warned him—he was scarily powerful, and Brennan had gravely miscalculated.

Which meant the next best plan was to keep shit from going south as long as he could, to distract Travis long enough for Dom to bring Sunny and Nellie.

Across the room, Cole frantically texted their chat with updates. Brennan’s phonepinged. He ignored it. The humans at the ball eyed the odd behaviors with judgment, not realizing what was happening.

Except for one girl, the one from freaking Reddit, Micah, who took it in with wide eyes and shaking hands.

“I knew it,” she breathed.

The eyelinered vampire guy stumbled toward her, twitching, fangs bared. But she stood frozen, speaking like prayer.

“I knew it was real, I knew it—”

The guy reared back, poised to strike. But before he could lunge, Tony skidded to a stop in front of the girl, wielding an oversized water gun, which he pumped menacingly a few times before unleashing a stream of what Brennan knew to be the most pungent batch of garlic sauce Tony could muster.

The vampire hissed and stumbled back, gagging and retching. Brennan winced. It wasn’t harmful, but it stung a little and smelled atrocious enough to stave off even the deepest of thirsts. At least for a moment.

“That’s right,” Tony jeered. “Anyone makes a move, you get a mouthful of Grandma Esposito’s finest scampi.Extra garlic.” He pumped the water gun to punctuate the threat.

Behind Tony, Micah fumbled for her phone and started recording, her phone pointed at the twitching vampire guy, then flickering toward Travis and Brennan.

Shit. Goddammit.