“That’s something we mean to discuss with your alpha. Not you,” Emit tells him.

“Alpha is preparing the barn, but Arion isn’t permitted on the property,” Gerald says as he quickly lowers his eyes.

“Arion won’t need to be here,” Emit states as he turns and walks back through the pack that quickly clears a path for him.

“Can you promise he’ll not cross a line while in our region?” Gerald asks like he’s nervous to do so.

“We have an ace,” I assure them, glancing down at my phone, as Arion’s name flashes across the screen.

I quickly open the image he’s sent, and then I grip the phone just a little tighter when I realize it’s a very short clip of Violet. Naked. Showering. Oblivious to the ten second video being taken…

I really should delete it. Instead, I save it to my damn phone and mentally note to let her know I have it so that it’s less Damien-creepy.

CHAPTER 19

VIOLET

First time ever being in a very nice hotel lobby in nothing but a coat, boots, and a bra. I’m paranoid every time I feel a slight breeze that someone is seeing everything.

There are no less than five elaborate chandeliers in this lobby. Shadow Hills is not this nice. The one motel there advertises free wifi as its solo selling point.

I’d feel much more comfortable in a seedy motel than a fancy place like this, given my current attire—or lack of.

“On holiday or business?” the receptionist asks.

I’m not sure either of those apply to us.

“Bit of both, given how very nice tonight is shaping up to be,” Arion states absently.

The woman taking Arion’s card casts a dubious look at me, and then bats her lashes. She pulls her lips up in a flirty smile, and deliberately brushes his hand with hers, as she hands him the key cards.

Arion seems oblivious to it all, as he stares at his phone, typing one-handed. All on autopilot, he casually takes the cards and pockets them with his free hand, as though this is all too simple for someone who was buried for a century.

“Please don’t be afraid to call the front desk for anything you may need. Our concierge won’t open again until nine tomorrow, but I’m capable of handling all your needs,” she goes on, flirty smile still plastered on.

I feel almost sorry for her, since he’s too busy checking his messages, rolling his eyes at the screen, and making a few amused sounds here and there.

“Thank you very much, Linda,” he says as he threads his fingers with mine.

He turns and stares at me very deliberately, as I walk us to the elevator and press the button.

“You have to call Vance once I go get our things, because I’m going to put his bloody head through a wall if he doesn’t stop making this damn thing go off.” He wiggles his phone at me. “I can’t turn it off, due to the Idun alert. We voted. All agreed,” he says as he pockets his phone at last. “Tell him you’re fine, of sound mind, and warn him that I’m on the verge of doing something just to make him miserable, simply to punish him for trying to interfere.”

I never have a reply at the ready when he says things like that. Instead, I awkwardly check once again to make sure my coat is shut. I never got to find out where my underwear went, but it was probably swallowed up by dust or put in someone’s pocket.

That’s just my life these days.

I don’t understand it either.

“Oh, Mr. Arion, I meant to ask, would you like any room service?” Linda calls loudly across the vast, empty lobby.

“We’ll ring if we do,” he answers as he steps onto the opening elevator, dragging me with him, as he pushes me back against the wall and cages me in.

I just stare up at him as the doors slide together.

“What do you want to do now that you have me all to yourself?” he asks me with a slowly growing grin.

“I have a lot of questions,” I tell him, careful not to touch him and start a spiral. “We can start them once cameras aren’t on us, though.”

He quickly puts a hand on my hip and drags me closer, glancing around like he’s checking the box for cameras, when the doors suddenly open. Linda startles before blinking at us in surprise.

“Oh. You’re still here,” she manages to say.

Sometimes I forget that Arion doesn’t know all things from this century.

“We got distracted,” I say by way of covering up the fact I forgot to push the button to our floor.

She eyes Arion, who is holding me to him like a predator who thinks I’m going to be snatched away at any moment. Clearing her throat, she presses the button to our floor and another, and then glances over at Arion again, as he straightens.

The awkward elevator music is a rendition of Ghost Busters, and I shake my head at the irony. Anna would be singing every single word.

At least I’m not wearing the underwear this time.

Hell, I’m not wearing anything but a bra, a coat, and boots. I’m not sure my life situations have improved, at present.

I triple check to make sure no one is getting a money shot.

Speaking of triple…

The triplets show up briefly, eye my coat and Arion, and disappear before the slow doors of the elevator close at last.

Linda smiles brightly at Arion.

“If you’d like, I could have some champagne sent up,” she offers as Arion continues to twirl a lock of my hair around his finger, eyes dipping to the little bit of flesh showing on my chest.

“I want her fully sober tonight,” Arion says, leaving those words out there like he’s prepared to break his promise.

I narrow my eyes on him, but he just grins without ever meeting my stare.

Poor Linda loudly clears her throat, signaling she’s uncomfortable, and I start guiding Arion off the elevator the second the doors ding for our floor.

He gracefully follows my stumbling steps, and rights me before I can fall.

I jerk my coat shut, and he keeps his hands placed on decent areas on my body, as I follow the numbers that count down toward our room.

“The technology of this era is simply astounding,” Arion says as he stares at the keycard in his hand. “I remember the day we celebrated the invention of the wheel,” he adds as I take the card from him and then pause, my brow furrowing, as I open my mouth and close it. He adds, “We rolled each other around all day, and life drastically improved.”

When he grins, I feel like a complete, gullible dumbass.

“Not that old, love. Even scary vampires can jest,” he quips like the cheeky asshole he is.

Rolling my eyes, I push the door to the room open, hearing the slowest elevator ever as it dings shut. Arion moves in behind me, as I sort of gape around at the massive living room area.

I look around a few more times, catching sight of a very large bedroom off to the side.

Immediately, I’m a little uncomfortable, because this is way too fancy for a girl who lost her clothes in a dog fight, for Pete’s sake. I’m too much of a hot mess for fancy things.

“I feel unworthy,” I confess.

“It’s hardly that nice. You’re welcome to order food if you’re hungry, love,” Arion says from behind me, pushing my hair aside.

I actively force myself not to angle my head and expose my throat to him, since there’s apparently some merit to this omega crap. If that’s what I am.

“What am I?” I ask curiously as I stare at the ornate carvings on the round dining table off to the side.

“I thought we’d already determined that, love,” he murmurs against the top of my head, as his hands slide down my shoulders, then to my elbows, and back up again.

“I’m the impossible daughter of a woman with a dead womb—”

“According to Tom,” he cuts in. “I worry we’ve gotten your hopes up too much for something that feels less and less likely, the more I think about it.”

His doubt doesn’t give me doubt. I felt my mother’s death. However, it never made sense why it never really felt like she was truly gone, or why her spirit didn’t find me.

She was busy coming back to me.

I don’t say that aloud.

“You’re a Neopry monster—a little on the small side, considering most are over six feet tall, and you’re a gypsy freak in the non-offensive sort of way,” he adds like he’s summing it up and wrapping it with a pretty bow.

“So these are the kind of answers I’ll be getting. The ones answered by Arion, because Ace is truly gone,” I say quietly.

“I’m not really sure what else you want me to say on that matter, Violet,” he tells me as he releases me and goes to casually pull his jacket off, tossing it aside.

He grins as he glances over his shoulder. “Can I take your coat for you?”

I guess I should have expected this.

“I’ll wait until I have something else to—”

He pulls his shirt over his head, revealing the shorter sleeved one underneath, before tossing the top shirt to me.

It’s when he does sweet things that I go back to singing Weak in my head.

His phone goes off again, and he tosses it to the table, still staring over at me, as I fold his shirt in my lap.

“I think I’ll shower off the flight first.”

“The lightning doesn’t burn you,” he says almost randomly.

“Conduits don’t always burn,” I state as if on autopilot.

He nods, eyes sharp, like he’s the one assessing me.

“I should go scavenge the wreckage for any remaining clothes of yours. For the most part, the plane stayed intact, but it did lose its wings and part of its tail,” he goes on way too conversationally, given the topic, while he props against the table, still watching me. “For a girl scared of planes, trains, and automobiles, you don’t seem too rattled by the crash.”

“Thousands of volts of electricity coursing through my body and causing every muscle to contort in agony is a marvelous distraction,” I dryly inform him, giving him a pointed look. “Is this your way of trying to sample my blood again to see if I’m who I say I am?”

His smirk could mean a number of things, so I don’t read into it.

“I’ll have to do that when I return.” His eyes grow serious. “I’ll need you to stay on the phone with Vance until then, though. By now, they’ve likely found Emit and the regional alpha. We crash landed just beyond their territory,” he goes on.

I don’t even argue that, or ask the reason why.

“I saw a portrait of you,” I tell him just as he picks his phone up again, and he grimaces. “Right down to the threads, you looked the exact same as when we first met…the night you were haunting Vance.”

“The night he painted your toes like a common, new-age teen girl,” he says with a shudder. “That portrait was done just after we’d turned immortal. I could explain the complicated details of astral projection—”