Page 59 of Hot Vampire Next Door: Season Four

You get too close, the door may crack open and a monster may come through.

I came to the fairy glen with Sam when we were twelve years old. Like most kids, we were equal parts terrified and curious about it. There were no photographs of it, no paintings or sketches. It was as if Midnight Harbor wanted to forget it existed, like a skeleton tucked behind shoe boxes in the far corner of a closet. The fae were stuck in Midnight Harbor as reluctant refugees, and there was nothing any of us could do about it, so there was no sense talking about it either.

When Sam and I snuck into the glen, it was late and the moon was new and it was so terrifying, we barely lasted a full minute before we ran back down the dirt path.

Still, I’d remember this glen. It’s not just the circular meadow or the blooming flowers that somehow seem more vibrant than anywhere else. It’s the energy too. Like the pulsing, electric feel of a storm just minutes before it lands.

It’s an energy that whispers down your spine.

I feel that energy now.

I look over my shoulder at the gate and am not surprised to see Arion there, draped over a large boulder at the foot of the archway. His back is leaning against the gate’s thick wall, one knee up. His eyes are closed, head lolled back, basking in the sunlight.

“Why are we here?” I ask him.

Is this a dream?

The light is hazy and golden enough to almost be fake. I fell asleep practically naked and now I’m wearing a thin, gauzy tunic with golden embroidery along the sleeves and hem.

It does not escape me that the color of the material is the same shade of thick ice in the middle of winter.

Without opening his eyes, Arion says, “It was a mistake, wearing that dress.”

I climb to my feet. A singing robin flutters past and lands in a nearby tree.

The gate is a freestanding stone feature with an archway made of thin, rectangular stones, and the base of thick boulders. There’s a door embedded in the archway, the rivets, straps, and handles made of bronze that’s long since turned green from weather and age.

Moss and vines climb up the archway with bright yellow and pink flowers blooming between the crevices.

I lean against one of the boulders on the opposite side of the gate, facing Arion.

I’m not sure if I’m in danger yet, but there’s now full sun in the sky, which means no vampire is going to swoop in and save me.

I have to solve this one on my own.

It’s not time to panic yet.

“You know the story of the dress?” I ask, even though I think that’s been made clear.

He opens one eye and glances over at me. “I was there when it happened.”

“It” being the violent stabbing of my relative.

“Tell me.”

“I was the one with the blade.”

With both of his eyes open now, I’m rendered still by the intensity in his gaze.

Is this some kind of revenge? I threw his past in his face and now he’s kidnapped me from a fairy orgy?

I guess it could be worse.

I adjust on the boulder, positioning myself better so that I can run if I need to. “Who wore the dress?”

He stands and goes to a thick raspberry bush growing just down the wall of the gate. He plucks a ripe berry from the stem and pops it in his mouth. “Your mother.”

I take a deep breath.

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