Page 46 of Hot Vampire Next Door: Season Five

Glass in hand, she takes a sip, but if the alcohol burns, she doesn’t show it. “That’s where you’re wrong.” She curls her arm inward, holding the glass up by her shoulder as she considers me. “A shifter is always fighting for balance with their animal. It’s a give and take relationship. And what Cal and Cal’s wolf wants, is their mate. And both of them think you have influence over that mating. So they’re going to do whatever they can to protect you too.”

I really can’t argue with any of that. Cal said as much when he revealed the secret to me. But I would never force him to follow me into battle just to manipulate the situation with my best friend.

Keiko doesn’t look much older than I am. Maybe in human years, she’d be about thirty. But as a shifter, I know she could easily be a hundred. Probably she has lots and lots of wisdom from experiences that I don’t have.

“Okay,” I say and pour myself a glass too, downing the shot for courage. I, unlike the dark-haired shifter, do wince at the burn. “If you were me, what would you do?”

She narrows her eyes, assessing me. She takes another tentative sip, lets the alcohol roll around on her tongue before swallowing it. “In your position, I would do the same thing.” She knocks back the rest of the whiskey and sets the glass down with a loud thud. “Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”

“Fair enough.”

“Just know that when it comes down to it, I’m protecting him, no matter what. Even if it leaves you in the lurch. Even if you end up dead. Even if he’ll hate me for it later.”

“I understand.”

She crosses her arms over her chest. She’s wearing a black crop top that’s boxy on her lithe frame. There’s an Art Deco dagger tattooed on the underside of her left arm with the initials MXP etched on the hilt.

“I would regret not trying one last effort to save him though,” she says to me.

“What do you mean?”

She pulls her cell phone from the back pocket of her jeans and types out a message. It takes me a second to put it together—she’s typing me a message so Cal won’t hear it, whatever it is. In fact, I can feel his eyes on us, watching, waiting for some detail to slip.

Keiko shows me the screen.

Use your voice power on him. Turn him away from this.

I look over at Cal again. In the overhead lighting, his blond hair almost looks white. It’s a sharp contrast from the black ink that swirls in an arch over each side of his scalp.

Our gazes lock and he gives me a barely perceptible shake of his head.

It doesn’t matter what the request was, he doesn’t want to ditch this fight.

And I think this might be where Keiko is wrong. I don’t think Cal is here solely to protect me because I’m Sam’s best friend. I think it’s more complicated than that.

I think he’s a good man who wants to do the right thing.

But I also think he and Bran are becoming friends, and men like Cal and Bran do not turn their backs on the people they care about.

It makes my chest a little warm and fuzzy with how adorable it is, but I don’t want to get distracted by it. Not yet anyway. Someday when this is over I will properly admire their growing bromance.

For now, I need to focus on one thing: kidnapping my fae brother.

Episode Eighty-Seven

FAE QUARREL

When I accidentally faced my fae brother in the mortal courthouse not that long ago, he overpowered me easily. I’m not so foolish now. I know better than to go toe-to-toe with him without a plan. Which means I need something else, an edge over him, even if I have been unbound and now have an unwieldy winter power that seems to have no qualms about harming anyone in its path.

I find myself, yet again, with a power I don’t know how to use properly or control when I need it. So it’s not a viable weapon.

I have the vampires and the shifters on my side, but they’re the muscle. My best bet is witch or fae magic.

Which is why Bianca and Baspin are now sitting in the Duval House library at my invitation. Bran and Cal are with me. Cal is sitting in one of the leather chairs on my left enjoying a beer someone fetched for him. Bran is on my right, arms crossed over his chest. He’s already drank two glasses of bourbon, and he doesn’t seem any less settled. If given the chance, I think he would tear Arion’s head from his shoulders just for having the audacity to come after me.

“I need something that will help me kidnap Arion,” I tell Bianca and Baspin.

Bianca’s eyes get big. “Arion, as in the Lord of the Summer Court?”

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