Hot Vampire Next Door: Season Two (Midnight Harbor Book 2)
Hot Vampire Next Door: Episode Twenty-Five

I was eleven years old when my mother sat me down for The Talk.

Not the birds and the bees.

The vampires and the shifters. The witches and the moons. The magic and the fae.

That’s a talk that every mortal child has to have when living in a place like Midnight Harbor. It’s a rite of passage.

I can remember being on the playground the winter of fifth grade when Addison Marquor came over to the monkey bars where Sam was dangling from a cold bar and I was eating a sucker beneath her.

Shoulders back and her head held high, Addison proudly told us her mother sat her down at the kitchen table over the weekend and gave her The Talk.

Sam and I were desperate for the details but Addison had always been the type of girl who thought information was gold and anyone who didn’t have it was meant to stay poor.

When I finally got to have The Talk, I felt like such an adult. I thought my mom was cracking open the universe and spilling all its secrets.

But it was just a bunch of dumb rules.

Don’t go running through Pack territory, especially not close to the full moon when shifter magic is more potent and wolves more volatile.

Do not, under any circumstances, go near the pack alpha under a supermoon.

Don’t insult a witch. At least not to her face.

Don’t tell the fae “thank you” unless you want to be indebted to them.

Don’t walk into a room of vampires and pretend you’re anything other than food.

And definitely do not provoke a vampire.

Sorry, Mom. Looks like I’m breaking rules left and right these days.

I go straight for Julian’s throat.

I don’t have a plan. There is only the one blinding thought: to shred the skin from his bones.

He hurt my sister. He’s supposed to protect my sister.

As I reach out, teeth gnashed, fingers curled like claws, Julian catches me at the wrists and whirls me around.

Stars blink in my field of vision when he throws me up against the wall and my skull cracks loudly against the plaster.

Suddenly I’m swimming and I can’t see straight and a dull ache shoots through my head.

Stupid, Jessie. What were you thinking?!

Julian hoists my arms above my head, just one hand needed to capture my wrists beneath him. His fangs sharpen and his eyes glow bright blue.

“You may not be Pledged to my house—” he starts and then cuts himself off.

Bran is at his back, his eyes like fire, his fangs like razors. “Don’t.”

“You have no weapon,” Julian points out.

“I can tear your heart out through your rib cage.”

Julian glances to his right, maybe assessing his chances. There are several vampires inching closer and none of them are on Bran’s side.

“If you hurt her,” Bran says, his voice low and even, “I will destroy everything you’ve ever touched.”

When Julian turns back to me, his fangs have retracted but the blue glow is still in his eyes. He scans my face, one long sweep of his gaze. “Just a toy, huh?”

Bran says nothing.

The Locke vampires edge closer.

“Bran,” I say.

Kelly is slumped in Maggie’s arms. Her eyes are drooping like she’s high or dying.

I can’t leave her here. I can’t let Julian have her anymore. I don’t know much about compulsion fever, but it looks like it’s destroying her from the inside out.

I have to get her out of here.

I give Bran a pleading look. I’m powerless here. And I have nothing to give.

“Let us leave here unharmed,” Bran says, ‘—all three of us,” he clarifies. “And I’ll give you my lakeside property.”

Julian frowns, but he looks over his shoulder. “You think your garish modern house is worth more than—” He cuts himself off and frowns at himself.

“Go on,” Bran coaxes. “Worth more than what?”

A door bangs shut somewhere deep in the house and Julian’s thoughts wander. His dark brow sinks lower over his flashing blue eyes. Finally, he pulls away from me. “Go on. Take them both if you must. Just blood trash now, aren’t they?”

“What did you say?” I yell.

“Mouse,” Bran says.

“That was a low blow! He has to—”

“Mouse!” Bran’s voice rings with command as he shoots me a castigating look. Even a few of the Locke vampires shrink back.

I shut my mouth. But inside I’m burning.

Bran scoops up Kelly in his arms and then gestures for me to follow him.

We make it out the door and across the front porch and down the front steps.

At the bottom I look back to the open door to see Julian framed in the golden light of the chandelier behind him, several of his Locke vampires flanking him like soldiers.

Bran might have threatened to destroy Julian, but I’m vowing here and now that when it comes to Julian’s demise, it’ll be me that wields the wooden stake.

Bran drives the Bimmer back to our quiet street. I sit in the back with Kelly’s head in my lap, her arms curled into her chest, hands tucked beneath her chin like she’s a child.

“I never should have left her after that bite,” I say.

With no attention on his speed, Bran gets us across town in less than ten minutes. “Kelly is a big girl, mouse.”

“We’re all big girls, aren’t we? Until we find ourselves in the clutches of a big, bad vampire.”

“This isn’t a fairytale.”

Our houses come into view and I nearly weep at the familiar sight.

“No,” I say, as Bran parks in his driveway. “I suppose it’s not.”

With the engine off, Bran comes around to the backdoor and reaches in for Kelly. She moans, her head lolling, until Bran gets her comfortably in his arms. He makes his way for his front door.

“What are you doing?”

“Julian hasn’t been invited inside my house.”

“Yeah, but it’s owned by a vampire. I thought the magic of the invitation rule only applies to a mortal-owned house.”

“I don’t own the house,” he says.

“Seriously? Who does?”

He doesn’t answer me as he turns the door knob and then kicks the door in with the toe of his boot. Sᴇaʀ*ᴄh the FɪndNøvel.ɴet website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

There are no lights on inside so I grope around until my eyes adjust to the darkness. I finally locate a light switch and flick it on, and the recessed lighting comes on in the entry hall.

“I’ll put her in one of the spare bedrooms,” Bran says when he’s already halfway up the stairs.

I follow him. It’s a three-bedroom house, and Bran picks the first bedroom on the left. There’s a queen-sized bed against the wall and two black and white photographs framed in thick black frames that hang above the bed.

I know right away they’re Bran’s work. I can see his style now that I know what it is. High contrast, interesting subjects, haunting light.

Bran has the duvet pulled back and is depositing Kelly on the bed before I can help.

“What do we do for her?” I ask as I come around and slip off her leather booties. She’s wearing her favorite socks, the ones with the pineapples wearing sunglasses. “Is compulsion fever dangerous?”

“Only if you keep doing it.” He readjusts the pillow beneath Kelly’s head. My heart thuds loudly in my chest seeing him take care of my sister like this.

I hear Julian’s words echoing in my head—just a toy, huh?

Maybe the reason I didn’t lose my mind in Julian’s office when Bran insinuated that he was playing with me was because I knew he was bullshitting.

Who was he trying to fool? Julian? Or himself?

“Does she need something while she heals? Like, is there some old witch’s brew that’s an antidote? Some ancient elixir? Or—”

“Rest,” he tells me with a half-cocked grin on his face. “She’ll be okay. I promise. But some pain meds will help break the fever.”

“Do you have any?”

He gives me a look like I’m being ridiculous.

“Got it. We have some. I’ll run over and get them.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“It’ll only take a second.”

“Mouse.”

“Okay. I guess you’re coming with.”

Outside, the streetlights cast wide circles of golden light on the pavement. Across the street, the front window on Mrs. Haraway’s house is twinkling with golden string lights. She’s the neighbor that has her Christmas tree up October to March. And the rest of the year, her house is always decked out in golden string lights.

Further down the block, Mr. Taylor is walking his golden lab.

It’s all so normal.

And here I thought I wanted more normal than this.

Instead, I backtracked and descended into the very center of the world of the supernatural.

Even though I’ve lived in Midnight my entire life, I took this quiet, normal life I had for granted. I wanted to escape it.

Now I just want to come home after a long day working my normal job at the coffee shop and find my sister drinking a glass of wine on the sofa while binge-watching an old season of Real Housewives.

But I don’t think I’ll ever have that life back.

How could I after the last several days? After everything I’ve uncovered?

I go to the front door and unlock the deadbolt with my key. I step over the threshold.

I make a big show of turning to Bran and waving out my arm like I’m a showman at a circus. “Bran Duval, won’t you please come in?”

He steps inside and comes over to me, wraps his hand around the back of my neck and brings his mouth to my ear. “Good girl,” he says, causing a goddamn riot in my panties.

“Damn you,” I mutter.

He smirks at me.

We always leave the light on above the stove, so there’s a warm glow in the kitchen when I go there for the bottle of ibuprofen.

Bran looks around our living room. It’s weird, him being in my space. I’ve given him more of myself than I’ve ever given anyone, but seeing him inspect my entire life in the pictures on the wall and the odds and ends on the bookshelves gives me a weird sort of glow. It’s almost like he wants to know me better.

I find the pain meds shoved in the back of the vitamin and supplements cabinet.

Bran picks up my monthly copy of Cosmopolitan. “Really, mouse?”

There’s a bold headline across the bottom that says The Beginner’s Guide to the G-Spot.

I go over to him and snatch the magazine from his hand. “This is why I didn’t want to invite you in.”

“More lies.” He moves to the built-in cabinets and scans the books on the shelves and pulls out a beloved copy of Pride and Prejudice. He holds it up. “Yours or Kelly’s?”

“Who do you think?”

“Kelly.”

“Yes.”

“You’re not a romantic at heart,” he decides and puts the book back.

He isn’t wrong.

“Let me tell you a secret,” he says.

“Go on.”

“Mr. Darcy was based on my brother.”

I burst out laughing. “Really?”

He nods and continues to scan our shelves. “Jane Austen met him at a ball and immediately hated him. And loved him too, I suppose.”

I roll my eyes. “Damien seems like the type of guy to be loved and hated. Like his brother, I suppose.”

Bran rewards me with another one of those lopsided grins. “We are very much alike, Damien and I.”

“Oh really? Does he fuck his neighbor too and call her a toy?”

All of the humor is suddenly gone from Bran’s face. “I didn’t want Julian to know.”

“Know what?”

I can’t miss the way Bran’s shoulders rise with a heavy breath, the way his chest expands and he closes his eyes.

He’s reluctant to answer.

“Know what, Bran?”

“That the thought of him taking you away from me makes me want to murder things.”

When he opens his eyes and looks at me, his irises are molten amber.

Warmth spreads through my chest. Of all the answers I thought he’d give me, that wasn’t one of them.

I swallow hard and try to catch my breath.

“Really?” I squeak. “Is it because of the sex? Because you like controlling me? Because—”

“No.”

“Then wh—”

“If I told you to hide something where you’d never look, where would that be?”

“That’s a really weird question.”

“Humor me.”

I cross my arms over my chest as I think. Somewhere I’d never look? I never go into Kelly’s room but I doubt I’d hide something in there. I’d never find it again. There are a few closets in our house that I don’t go into often, but I do get an urge to reorganize them at least twice a year.

“Well,” I start, “my first guess might be those drawers.” I nod at the cabinets. “Kelly loves shoving shit inside of them. Like important documents and stuff so I never have a reason to go in there and if I opened them, and I saw the mess, I’d have to reorganize them and then Kelly would yell at me when she was looking for a thing from nine years ago that she needs right this second.”

Bran opens one of the drawers in the cabinet and roots around inside.

“What are you looking for?”

He opens the next drawer.

“Bran?”

On the third one, he spots something that makes him pause and then he pulls it out to the light. The envelope has my handwriting on the front. It reads Important Shit. Don’t lose.

I don’t remember writing that. I don’t even know what’s inside the envelope.

“What is that?” I ask.

Bran is a blur as he crosses the room and comes to a stop in front of me. His speed kicks up a sharp breeze and it sends several loose strands of hair fluttering around my face.

“Open it.” He hands it over.

A creeping shiver rolls down my spine. There’s this shadow in the back of my mind like I should know this envelope. I should know what’s inside.

I finally take it from him with shaking hands. The flap has been sealed, so I run my finger inside the fold and rip it back.

There’s a piece of thick, folded paper inside. I pull it out and unfurl it, my fingers rubbing over the embossed symbol of a notary stamp on the bottom.

It’s a deed to a house.

The address listed is Bran’s house.

And the owner?

Is me.

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