Page 50 of Hot Vampire Next Door: Season Five

Of course, Jimmy questions me all the time. I suppose I can understand where the Alpha is coming from.

“The power is already open to you,” Baspin tells Mouse, nodding at the glowing flower in her hand. “Now use your voice and tell it what you want. But be careful with the words. You have to be extremely direct and concise.”

Mouse nods. We’ve already discussed what we’d like the flower to do, what commands we’d like it to issue to Arion. That’s not the hard part. The hard part will be getting it to him, and then getting him out, separate from his army.

We’ve discussed that too, but it’s a bit of a risky plan.

Mouse bends forward and whispers to the flower. There is a hint of a blush to her cheeks, as if she feels silly speaking to a plant.

“Arion,” she says, using the power of her voice, “come to me directly, without question, without harming anyone, without speaking a word of it to anyone. You’ll find me at my home. Bran will take you there.”

I’m not one to be physically moved by words, but when Mouse uses her voice, it’s fucking nirvana. Even though the words aren’t directed at me, or the Alpha, or his shifter, we’re all a little dazzled by it.

It’s like a cool drink of water on a hot summer day.

The flower pulses once, then twice, and then the glow fades until the flower looks like any flower.

“Is that it?” Mouse asks.

Baspin gives her a nod of encouragement. “That should suffice. Well done, Your Highness.”

She smiles at the title now, instead of cringes.

She’s well on her way to being a queen.

Because I’m still an asshole who wants to shield Mouse at all cost, we split up. Jimmy takes her to her former house in Midnight suburbia, while the Alpha, Baspin, and Bianca and I go to Bramwell Park.

Our latest intel on the fae lord is that he’s preparing for our battle in the fae grotto. So we need to get inside and get to him. I suspect he doesn’t want to fight his sibling and so offering him some kind of truce will get us an audience with him. After that, things get a little shaky and I’m putting all of my faith in Baspin and Bianca.

“Everyone know what to do?” I ask them on the edge of Bramwell, far from the grotto’s entrance.

The Alpha strips off his clothes without hesitation. Shifters care not for modesty.

Though most shifters have a hard time using their animal form outside of a full moon, most Alphas I’ve met can use their animal at will. It comes with the power. And Cal is no different.

Within seconds, a few pops of his joints, a contortion of his back, the Alpha is a wolf.

His animal form is a large black wolf with bright yellow eyes. It’s plain to anyone that it’s a shifter and not a wolf, considering his shoulders reach as high as my torso. But we’re not trying to hide that fact.

“Ready?” I ask them and they all give me a nod. Cal growls deep in his throat. “Let’s go kidnap a fae lord, then, shall we?”

The hidden door into the fae grotto appears as soon as we near it, almost like they were waiting. Two guards come out to greet us and Baspin, as planned, speaks for us. “Friends of the princess would like to speak to our esteemed lord to discuss a truce.”

The guards stand back, giving us entrance and we move forward with Baspin in the lead, the Alpha at our rear. His hearing is better than all of ours combined in wolf form and we all agreed if an attack were to come from behind, he’d be the one to hear it first.

The grotto is quiet as we’re led across the main gathering room. It’s a far cry from the party atmosphere when I was here last.

In fact, I don’t see a single soldier. Baspin already warned us that the soldiers are likely hiding in the level below the main hall, so this isn’t unexpected.

I’m not nervous, yet.

We’re led to a hallway tucked behind a half-wall of entangled vines. Yellow and purple flowers bloom along the vines and the air smells sickly sweet with their scent.

At the end of the hallway, two large, arched doors pull open revealing a suite of rooms beyond. “Our Summer Lord will see you here,” one of the guards says and gestures for us to enter.

I glance at Baspin and he gives me a nod. I don’t yet know if I trust the lower ranking fae, but he’s all I have, so I go with it.

Beside me, Bianca’s fists are curled at her side and her teeth worry at her bottom lip. Before the fae lord comes in, I grab her hand and give her a squeeze. She glances up at me. I need her relaxed. I need her in control. Not afraid. Not anxious.

---