Page 36 of Hot Vampire Next Door: Season Four

He says nothing.

“So are you? An enemy or ally?” I ask.

“Once upon a time, you were an enemy,” he answers. “Now, it’s up for debate.”

It doesn’t escape me that he’s chosen his words carefully. Unlike me, the fae lord can’t lie.

“So tell me what you want.”

“I want to go home,” he admits, with little to no emotion on his face.

“And you think I can help you with that?”

“You were quite possibly the last fae to come through the gate before it was sealed. So yes, I do think you can.”

“And if I say no?”

The first hint of emotion filters into his eyes, making them glint. But I can’t tell what it means.

He takes a step closer and I take a step back, bumping into Sam. She still has her supernatural Swiss Army Knife open, the iron pointed at Arion. But he ignores it.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “Did I ask for permission?”

My stomach knots. “Are you insinuating you’d force me to help you?”

“I’m insinuating that I can take your blood with very little effort.”

Is that what will unlock the gate? Arion doesn’t seem like an idiot. If he thinks I’m the answer, he probably won’t give up so easily in testing out the theory.

“Have you forgotten I can literally use my voice to make you do whatever I want?” I counter.

His nostrils flare. His hands are still clasped behind his back, but his body has taken on a new level of alertness, as if he could snap my neck in the next second before I even notice he’s moved.

“Try it,” he challenges.

I snort and then open my mouth to say, “Bark like a dog,” except the second I take a breath to utter the words, a gale force wind shoots into the room. My eyes burn from the shift in pressure and several papers pull free of a bulletin board and fly around the room. I throw my arm up to shield my eyes.

Arion is standing in the center of the whirlwind, his hair lightly fluttering in the breeze. He’s watching me blankly, a little bored.

I try again to reach for my voice and give a command, but the wind kicks up, stealing all the oxygen from my lungs.

I turn around and Sam and I huddle together, shielding our eyes, trying to catch our breath.

When the wind dies down, paper flutters to the floor.

Arion hasn’t moved, but his point has been made.

My family might once have been considered an all-powerful enemy of the other fae courts, but I barely know anything at all about being powerful. He’s probably had several hundred years’ jump on me.

“Cooperate or don’t,” he says. “I don’t really care. If you accept our invitation for tonight, I’ll assume you chose our side and in that case, we’ll celebrate. If you don’t show up…” He tilts his head again and a lock of his dark hair falls over his forehead as he narrows his eyes at me. “Well, I know where to find you, now don’t I?”

And then he turns around and leaves.

I can’t go back to Duval House. Not yet. Bran probably isn’t up, but by the time he’s had his first drop of coffee later today, he’ll know what happened at the courthouse.

And because sometimes avoiding confrontation is better than, well, confronting, I decide to go back to my house.

Sam insists on coming with me.

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