Violet’s questioning eyes meet mine with timid curiosity, while I brush her hair from her face.
“Indeed,” I decide aloud.
Chapter 20
EMIT
“What I’m asking is how could she have broken the curse?” Arion asks me like I somehow have all the answers.
“Emily hasn’t been here for a hundred years, Arion. How long is she staying?” I ask in deflection.
“Damien’s Portocale nightmare curse is broken, and you’re focused on Emily?” he asks like I’m as stupid as they come.
“Damien’s curse can’t be broken, Arion. He’d be the last one they let free. Even you’d get a pass before him, simply because they hate all Morpheous men equally,” I tell him, dutifully explaining why he’s the idiot.
“He’s was only down for two days, and now he’s already awake, drinking champagne. You can send pictures of yourself drinking champagne to your other mates, who still have to suffer,” Arion tells me as if he’s highly offended how much easier technology has made Damien’s gloating.
I forgot Damien knew how to gloat.
“The other pictures are nice, though. However, I’m positive he sent them to gloat about what he and Vance are doing to her, while I’m still trying to figure out a way to make her fear me less,” he goes on, staring at the screen of his phone from several different angles.
“She’s going to be really pissed about those pictures,” I inform him. “Damien will be in trouble again.”
“Or she wanted him to send them to taunt me,” he suggests.
“She’s not Idun,” I remind him as we head inside the house. I pause when I hear the telltale signs that the fun’s not over. “Stop thinking that she thinks like Idun.”
Arion stills, frowning as he listens. He glances over at me, and both our gazes swing up to the ceiling, as something crashes and breaks. Violet’s a little louder than usual.
“Now I feel like I have to compete with that, and that’s not fair. Damien’s a sex monster. He literally excels at sex. He wasn’t supposed to get a second turn before I got at least one turn,” Arion states, his tone implying this is a complicated development.
“Sounds like Vance is still in there too,” I state disbelievingly.
“What the hell do you three do so differently from me?” Arion’s serious gaze meets mine, as if he’s genuinely expecting an answer.
I could likely kick Vance’s ass if I really wanted to. He’s not gotten weaker, but he doesn’t really mix things up much either. That means I still have a shot of kicking Arion’s ass, even if he does seem stronger than what he was when he went under.
“You came out stronger, as if going mostly dormant somehow empowered you. Idun’s been under far longer, which brings forth some even more alarming concerns. I almost feel like you’re manipulating all this to get Idun out right now,” I say very seriously, not that he gives a damn.
He remains distracted by the sounds overhead.
I’m positive that crashing noise is the bed falling apart.
Arion looks like he’s about to intervene, when Violet makes a sound that assures him she’s just fucking fine.
He’s studying the ceiling too hard, probably because it sounds like they’re using more of their strength on her than even I did.
“Speaking of stronger…” Arion’s words trail off for a beat when something even heavier thuds to the ground.
“Is it just me, or do the mortals seem a little stronger than I recall?” he asks as he darts a suspicious look my way.
“Violet is a Portocale gypsy who has been hunted and survived at least three attacks from Idun’s cult of followers,” I point out in deflection. “And killed four vampires. She knows what she can handle.”
“You talked all around my question,” he immediately says, eyes on me with too much intensity. “What do you know that I don’t know?”
Great. They get Violet to themselves, while I’m stuck with the inquisition into how they can be so rough with her.
I hate them worse than Damien hates Vance.
“A flower pot made her bleed. I’m sure it just sounds worse than it is,” I deadpan in recovery.
He pauses as if he’s considering that, and finally shrugs like it’s acceptable, as he starts up the stairs.
“You completely ignored my question,” I call to his back.
“I didn’t come up stronger, Emit. I went in watered down,” he chirps, treating it as though it’s a casual confession.
“What?” I ask him as I quickly catch up, glaring at his profile as he drinks blood from a flask.
He smirks around the edges of it before lowering it, still staring ahead as we slowly approach the loud room.
“Just curious, does Violet ever knee you in the bollocks?” he muses, knowing he drives me insane.
“No,” I bite out. “Now answer my question.”
He pulls out a very familiar apple and tosses it to me, even as my stomach sours at the sight of it.
It’s a beautiful red one with no scent at all. However, if you were to bite into it, it’d be the most disgusting thing you’ve ever tasted. It’s like you’re seeing and tasting two very different things.
“This is one of Idun’s apples,” I say, confused. “How did you get this?”
“I had to eat one a day for as long as I can remember. It was a rule she wouldn’t allow me to break. Naturally, it poisons me.” He pockets his hands when we’re standing in front of the room.
Both of us glance at the blade that’s stabbing through the door.
“When I went underground, I realized one very important thing: Idun broke my rules. That means I can now break all hers.” He taps the edge of the blade, studying it like he’s searching for its purpose. “Is this like the tie-on-the-door thing Shera was explaining to me when my sister and Isiah were fucking in my parlor?” he asks like he’s genuinely perplexed.
Only Isiah and Emily could get away with that.
“What rules did Idun break?” I ask him, forcing him back on topic.
“The only ones that really mattered, and all the unimportant ones too, it seems.” His eyes dart to mine briefly before moving to the side. “I thought you told them we were coming.”
I turn my head just as Shera walks over with a magazine, her fingers holding the pages, suggesting she doesn’t want to lose her place.
“I did,” she says with a humorless smile before pointing to the blade sticking out of the door. “That was the Van Helsing’s warning.”
“That’s Violet’s blade,” Arion tells her as if that calls into question all she’s said.
“I’m positive it was the Van Helsing who threw it at my head. I opened the door to tell them, and got it shut just in time,” she goes on, bristling just barely. “They want their privacy with the sweet and innocent Violet,” she adds somewhat mockingly. “I’m starting to think none of you know anything at all about her.”
“Violet doesn’t want to be her friend,” Arion says, gesturing at Shera as he grins, seeming to feel as though he has the whole world figured out. “That’s why she sounds so bitter.”
Idun’s supposed to be his whole world, and I’m not sure exactly what rules he found so important. I know better than to trust anything out of Arion’s soulless mouth.
“She’s a snowball downhill,” I tell Shera, even though I’m not entirely sure what it means. “I think it means she adapts quickly or something,” I add, happy that seems to confuse her as well.
“Of course she does. It’s why she likes all the little nobodies who go with the flow. She’s weaker,” Arion states like it’s a fact. “It’s why she’s so much more perfect.”
“I strongly advise against leading with that, Alpha,” Shera says as she starts flipping through her phone, already bored with this entire situation.
The impatient, alpha vampire pushes through the door when he hears Violet laughing. Violet startles, as Arion claps his hands, already smiling as his eyes drink her in. She’s holding a sheet over her, no longer surprised by our interruption.
Damien grabs a discarded robe from the floor, covering his bare body that is practically glowing from the fresh feeding. I idly note the destruction to Vance’s room. He doesn’t seem bothered by it in the least, and that speaks for itself.
I hate both those fuckers more than I already did.
“I do hope you remember she’s fragile,” Arion says as he glances around at the damage.
“It looks worse than it was,” Vance assures us as he clears his throat, cracks his neck, and starts pulling on his fucking Thursday pajama pants.
“Not really ready to be done just yet, but sure, come on in,” Damien says with a heavy dose of sarcasm, as he goes to take a seat on the couch and lights one of the cigars.
“If you didn’t want us over here, then you shouldn’t have sent the pictures. Though, I do admit I love the technology at my fingertips these days,” Arion says as he holds up his phone, smiling like the ass he is.
The color drains from Violet’s face.
“I was in a good mood and trying to be nice, and this is how you repay me?” Damien asks with narrowed eyes, glaring at the vampire.