Page 61 of Hot Vampire Next Door: Season Five

I want that.

I don’t want to disappoint him.

He slowly climbs to his feet and dusts off his knee with a swipe of the back of his hand. He straightens out his jacket. It’s royal blue with threading in gold and delicate stitching along the lapel showing swirls and four-petal flowers that sorta remind me of four leaf clovers.

His blue-black hair is swiped back from his forehead and the sides are buzzed short as if he’s just come from a fresh haircut.

“If you’re serious,” I say, “you and your blade can have the summer queen if you’ll join me in fighting back against her. I sure as hell don’t want to marry Maven.”

Bran snorts.

“It won’t come to that,” Arion answers. “The betrothal was just a shroud meant to obscure the truth about Maven and the queen’s ultimate plans to steal more power for herself. Once she realizes the ruse is up?—”

“Once she realizes you are no longer her puppet, you mean?” I raise a brow.

“Yes.” Arion nods. “Once she realizes she’s lost both of her best avenues, she’ll go to outright violence. It will not be pretty. She may be blinded by her hunger for control, but she isn’t dumb, and she is powerful. She’ll use all of her assets against us.”

I can sense my grilled cheese growing colder by the second. Stanley is still standing there waiting patiently to serve me. Though I think a little part of him wants to know the details too, and has stuck around so he could have them, regardless of whether or not he plans to fight. I don’t think brownies ever do. They’ve been neutral as long as I’ve been alive, both here in Midnight, and in the history books we read in school.

“Sit down with us,” I tell Arion. “Let me eat that delicious grilled cheese and you can fill us in on everything you know that might help us win this war.”

While I swipe crispy, salty fries through a puddle of ketchup, Bran and Arion are discussing ways into the summer queen’s palace using salt and pepper shakers and hot sauce bottles as entry points.

We have all of The Greasy Spoon to ourselves. Arion’s arrival sent a few people running out the back door and those that remained, Stanley shooed out claiming it was a fae holiday and the Spoon was closing early.

The people I went to school with nodded at me and called out hello as they passed my booth where I now sit beside Bran and across the table from a summer fae lord.

I was never super popular in school. I had Sam and she was all I needed. Bianca was always friendly, though we were never close. Now I think I’m all anyone can gossip about in Midnight Harbor.

“What about this entry?” Bran asks.

Arion clucks his tongue and shakes his head. “This door and the hallway beyond it leads directly to the dance hall. There’s no place to hide here.” He lifts the lid on the straw dispenser, pulling out wrapped straws to make a rudimentary perimeter for the palace, then shifts the saltshaker to the back corner. “This is for deliveries. It tends to be busier during the day, but it’s a great way inside, regardless of if we try to sneak in or waltz in, blending into the crowd.”

I bite off a corner of my grilled cheese. “Which do you recommend?”

He hands me a napkin when cheese catches on the corner of my mouth.

“Thank you.”

“It will be hard for us to blend in,” Bran points out.

“Why can’t you use the same magic you used to kidnap me?” Arion asks, just a hint of accusation in his voice.

I look over at Bran. “It’s a good idea.”

“We’d have to bring Bianca with us,” he answers. “And I’m not so sure I’m willing to risk our witch in the fae realm.”

“She’d say yes if you asked her.” I take a sip of my Diet Coke, then lick my lips. “She made a choice to join Duval House to be an asset to Duval House. If you ask her, she’ll want to help and you should let her continue to make her own choices.”

Both men are silent, staring at me.

“What?”

Bran blinks.

Arion says, “Sounding like a fair and honest queen already.”

I blush because for some stupid reason, his compliments make me proud of myself.

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