Page 13 of Hot Vampire Next Door: Season Three

"On a journey of self-discovery."

I snort. "That sounds like bullshit."

He leans back against the booth, spreading his arm over the seat, his bicep straining against the sleeve of his shirt. "Remember the photo you saw in my bedroom? The self-portrait at the cliff? I mentioned it was taken in the fifties."

"Yes. I remember."

"That was taken in the Porcupine Mountains in Michigan. I had never been to Michigan before then. You can live hundreds of years and still not see every corner of the world." His attention darts to the door as a new customer enters, but seemingly satisfied that the man bears no threat, Bran looks back to me. "By the fifties, Duval House was well established in Midnight and I was growing bored with it all. My brother and I have always gotten along, but sometimes his need to control everything is insufferable."

A waitress comes over. She's dressed in a bubblegum pink uniform with a white apron tied around her waist. Her name tag says Gertrude, but I know her name is Judy.

"Evening, sugar," she says to me and then gives Bran a side-eyed look frothing with wariness. "It's been a while since I've seen you in here."

I've been coming here so long, Judy and Stanley are like my surrogate grandparents, always asking how I've been and what I'm up to. They sometimes feed me more than Kelly does.

"It's been a wild few weeks."

Judy looks at Bran again. "I'll bet."

Bran frowns at her, clearly unaccustomed to humans giving him shit. Especially little old ladies. I can't help but smile. "Can I have my usual?" I ask before Bran can get temperamental.

"Of course." Judy slips her pencil into her bun out of respect for Bran because of the whole stake-thing. "And you?"

"Coffee," he answers.

"Coming right up." She darts away, but not out of fear, out of efficiency. Judy may be in her seventies, but I think she could give me a challenge in a foot race. Bran watches her go.

"So... Damien wanted to control everything," I repeat. "What did you want?"

He sits forward and lowers his voice to a sinister octave. "I wanted to corrupt innocent virgins in the Porcupine Mountains."

"You're lying and deflecting."

He collapses back against the booth. "Yes. I am."

"Tell me."

He picks up the wrapped silverware, unfurls the napkin and takes the knife in hand. The metal glints beneath the fluorescent lighting. "My brother has always believed vampires are the superior race and he's always wanted to be in control. It suits him. He does it well. I won't deny that."

None of this surprises me, but it's still massively insulting to hear Damien thinks Kelly is inferior to him because she's mortal. Or is she an exception?

"The Montenaros," Bran goes on, "the House we were turned by, has always ruled by fear. And their belief was that strength lay in likeness. It's why, when we established Midnight, we segregated into houses." He sets the knife down but separates it from the fork and the fork from the spoon. "That's a Montenaro philosophy."

Judy comes over and I'm frustrated by the interruption. She sets down my glass of cola. Bran gets his black coffee, taking the mug in hand.

"Right back with your food, sugar," Judy says and leaves again.

I'm impatient to hear the rest of what Bran has to say. We've been so wrapped up in me and who I am and my Pledge that I haven't had the chance to peel back his layers.

Now that I am, I'm desperate for more, desperate to get to the center of him and see what lies there.

"What do you believe?" I ask.

Steam from the coffee rises between us.

"I think that there is strength in diversity." He turns the mug, focusing on the swirl of the dark liquid inside.

"Like a mixed house?"

---