“You’ve missed a lot in the five months you’ve been standing still,” Marta adds happily, as she walks away with an I-won-the-lottery smile.
“Five months isn’t generally a relatively long amount of time, is it?” Arion asks as he eyes the row of ornate chandeliers. The place actually looks a lot bigger…
“Did Marta pay for all this fancy detailing?” I ask in some moderate admiration.
“The Simpletons are craftsmen by nature,” Vance murmurs as he slides his hand over one very impressive door arch. “The money comes from the fact she only paid me eight hundred dollars for this place once she realized how much she’d have to spend on repairs,” he adds with a small smile, as he glances over something on his phone. “Hell, I never even bothered looking at that either,” he adds as that smile falls away, and he returns his attention to the fully finished— My thoughts and all else cut off when Avery opens the front door, and Zuela Van Helsing steps in.
The air in the room gets sucked out. Apparently, so does everyone else who dared to loiter close by, since we’re all that remains.
Lemon abruptly scurries by like hell is on her heels. Judging by the look on her face, she was far too distracted to know he’d arrived.
She crouches and dives into the makeshift delivery room. Violet immediately pops back out, her eyes looking exhausted when they meet ours.
“Really?” Anna says from behind us, scaring the fuck out of us. “I used to champion for you, but now I realize you’re all too obtuse to be sexy beasts,” she adds before anyone can say anything.
“Coincidental her being here?” I ask aloud.
“Not the biggest problem we have at current,” Vance says as he buttons his coat, watching Violet step right in front of his father.
Zuela casts his eyes over us, rolling them like he’s ashamed.
“What do you want, little Simpleton?” Zuela asks her dismissively.
“What the hell are you doing in my town without phoning ahead?” Vance asks him.
“I copied you on the invitation Ms. Carmine extended to him,” Avery whispers just barely loud enough to be heard. “You told me it’d be fine when I asked you about it, Sir Van Helsing.”
“For fuck’s sake, Vance,” Arion snaps, glaring at Vance.
“You signed over a very dangerous, unregistered, nightmarishly problematic shifter prisoner to her, so you shouldn’t be too riled,” I tell Arion, narrowing my eyes on him.
The vampire hesitates, as though reason has actually rooted in his mind, as he mulls that over.
Violet ignores all of us, and Zuela frowns as though he’s now confused.
“I thought I was called in on matters regarding Idun,” Zuela cuts in. “It’s why I’m here.”
“Sorry to disappoint, but I invited you here for me,” Violet says, as she walks him toward the center of the foyer and looks up.
We all mimic her, mostly because we just want to look like we know what’s going on at this point. At least that’s why I do it.
There’s a large skylight, and I let my eyes flutter shut, as my lips tighten, immediately discerning where she’s going with this. This day is going to be a bad fucking day at every turn.
“I’m great at building glass,” Violet tells him. “But I’m not an artist, and I can’t make that glass as pretty as you can, Sir Van Helsing.”
He eyes her, probably a little shocked that she titles him when addressing him.
“What?” he asks her in an indignant tone, when the surprise quickly wears off and her alluded-to request presumably sinks in.
“I want you to design a stained glass piece that will fit up there and steal your breath. I just made something to hold the place, because I didn’t want you to feel rushed. If you decide to take the job, that is,” she goes on, wording things as professionally as possible.
Zuela snorts, and then outright laughs in her face.
Vance’s fists form, but Violet just steps between them with subtle intention.
“I’ll take that as a no,” Violet says like she expected as much.
“Hell no. I’m not putting one of my master pieces in a fucking Simpleton house. Even if I had no dignity and did it, it’d be wrecked the second Idun has a tantrum.”
Violet nods and starts walking away.
“That’s all then, sir. Sir Avery can take you back to your plane if you need him to,” she says like it’s no big deal, because she clearly already knew it was a long shot.
“You had me bloody fly across an entire sea to ask me a question, girl? Do you not understand what a waste of alpha time that is?” he grinds out.
Vance starts to speak, but Violet smiles broadly at Zuela, speaking before Vance can get a word in. “Sorry, Sir Van Helsing. It wouldn’t have been a waste of time if you’d said yes, but you didn’t.”
My lips resist the urge to grin, before she walks back into the room with the baby once again, leaving Zuela turning forty shades of furious red. I do love that woman prickly.
I really wish she wasn’t pointlessly trying to dump me right now. I’d reward her for that behavior.
“So you’re her beta too?” Vance asks Avery like he’s somehow been disloyal.
Avery shrugs a careless shoulder. “She’s going to need good, suicidal recruits to even stand a small chance here. The least I can do to support her cause is contribute some of my time to her efforts.”