Page 32 of Hot Vampire Next Door: Season Five

“I’m so glad you’re awake,” I say, my voice wavering as the tears spill over.

“We came straight here,” she tells me and pulls back, smoothing over my hair. “I’ve tried to get caught up—it sounds like you’ve had a wild ride while I’ve been…” She pauses and frowns. “Asleep.”

Asleep?! She was in a coma! But I don’t want to cause her more stress, so I take a deep breath and nod and say, “There’s time to catch up. But yeah, it’s been a lot. I’m just so happy to see you.”

There are dark shadows beneath her eyes and she looks paler than normal, even in the darkness of a new moon night. But at least she’s awake.

“You didn’t have to come see me,” I tell her. “You should rest.”

“That’s what I told her,” Damien says, sounding disgruntled that he wasn’t obeyed.

Kelly rolls her eyes at him. At least they’re right back where they started. “I can rest when my little sister is safe.” She squeezes my hand. “What’s first?” She glances at Rita who now stands just behind me with a large canvas bag looped over her shoulder. “It’s nice to see you, Rita.”

“Nice to see you too, sweetie. I heard you were knocked on pretty good by a Renshaw spell. Glad you’re on your feet again.”

“Me too.” Kelly smiles, but the light doesn’t reach her eyes. In fact, for a brief second, it’s almost like she checks out, like her gaze is empty.

I try not to dwell on it. It’s probably because she’s tired.

Rita goes to the picnic table set in the center of a brick patio. The table is covered in a black and white checkered tablecloth with a bouquet of freshly cut flowers in the center and a flickering lantern beside it with what looks like a solar light but might actually be magic.

Rita plops the bag on the table and digs inside, pulling out three jars. Inside the first is what looks like sand, and in the other two, a dead beetle and a mottled feather.

“All items from the fae realm,” she explains. “Witch magic, on its own, cannot undo fae magic. So I’ll channel what I can from the items to help remove the collar. And once we remove it, we can perform the unbinding.”

Bran steps beside me. His energy is putting off serious bodyguard vibes even though he knows damn well Rita would never hurt me.

I suppose getting kidnapped is reason enough for him to be on edge so I say nothing and let him do what he needs to do to feel comfortable.

Rita unscrews the jar with sand and spreads it out on the picnic table. Next comes the feather. She holds it in her hand like a quill and writes several symbols in the sand. A few of them look vaguely familiar and I wonder if they’re a match to some of the tattoos on Arion’s fingers or if I saw them while in the fae realm.

When she finishes, Rita looks up, the string lights highlighting her cheekbones in gold. “I’m ready if you are.”

Kelly takes the place on my other side, with Damien flanking her.

I give Rita a nod. “Will it hurt?”

“Probably like hell,” she admits. “I’ll try to make it quick.”

“Do what you have to do.” I glance up at Bran. “Don’t stop her. Whatever happens.”

He narrows his eyes at me and says nothing.

“Do it,” I tell Rita.

She unscrews the jar with the beetle, and reaches inside, capturing the dead insect in the curl of her fingers. She brings her hand to her mouth and whispers several words into it, before slamming her hand to the sand, crushing the beetle, then smashing it in with a hard twist of her palm.

I have no idea how this works, so I watch raptly, wondering when the pain will start, braced for it.

Rita keeps mumbling.

A breeze shifts through the backyard and the leaves on a large magnolia tree rasp against one another.

Rita pulls up a handful of sand and as she does, the grains start to glow bright green, the same shade as the beetle. She flattens her palm, brings it level with the collar, then sucks in a deep breath.

On her exhale, the sand lifts, swirling in the air around me and settling on the collar.

The metal heats up.

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