The air heats around us, and Vance curses under his breath, as Arion’s pupils dilate just barely.

“You acted unfazed,” Arion goes on, darting a confused look to Violet and back to me. “Were you this upset then?”

“I’d rather not discuss it. Dorian is a much bigger trigger than this wanker,” I tell him, slowly calming down. “Violet would never cross that line. But this fucking gnat needs to be gone before I do get upset.”

Arion studies me for a minute longer, before looking back to the coffee house where Violet is sipping from an oversized mug and eating cake from her plate.

“How’d you get an invitation?” Arion asks Vance.

Before Vance can answer, an annoying voice talks over him. “Not important. Violet isn’t being stingy with invitations. Merely ask and receive one,” Talbot Lane says, as he joins us like he has the right.

“I can’t decide if you’re truly this arrogant, or just this stupid,” I tell the fool.

“I’m determined,” Talbot counters as though he’s meeting me in the middle. “They’re busy manipulating her, and the more she’s manipulated, the more she will reciprocate in kind,” he tells me pointedly. “Your only point of valid reference is Idun, because aside from her, you’ve never had the chance to love another woman. Violet is altogether different, and no one knows what agenda she’s been building these past five months.”

“Aside from Emit’s omegas, who are playing dumb, even with me,” Arion states through angry strain.

“The omegas are either clueless or very good at pretending to be,” Talbot points out.

“What do we know about him?” Vance asks me, as he narrows his eyes at the cheeky incubus.

“He’s legit, with a millennium of age and respect under his belt. I’ve made calls and had him checked out. Arguably the best rogue beta of his kind,” I say, prompting the arrogant prat to smirk. “I still don’t trust him,” I add just to piss on his little smug parade.

“A millennium of age under my belt, along with a loud rogue beta title, and yet you’ve never heard of me? Makes you wonder how out of tune with the world the four of you truly are, or at least it should.”

I’d kill him…if he didn’t have a point.

“Idun’s always been a step ahead because she stays in touch. But even she’s blind to many things because they seem irrelevant. Violet is just starting out, and she’s learning everything for the first time. She has an advantage, while Idun is weak, because everything seems important to her,” he tells us.

“That’s not an advantage, you twat. It’s a weakness that Idun will extort,” Arion coldly points out.

“Damien Morpheous is a name that isn’t feared, because it’s a name no one remembers, unless they want to. It takes work to remember any Morpheous. Violet never forgets you even a little bit,” he carries on.

I pause, mulling over that, as I hear the sound of her sweet laughter again. She glances in our direction, but her vision is too limited to find us. Still, I can tell she feels our gaze on her.

“She’s been getting stronger these past five months. She’s started allowing herself to be struck by lightning quite often, and plays it off as an accident. She’s plotting something that will either turn her into Idun’s newest toy, or it will be the end of Idun’s threat,” Talbot adds.

Arion snorts and chokes back a sound of humorless laughter, as he shakes his head.

“You’re a thousand years old. Surely you’re wise enough to know a Simpleton is no match for—”

“No match for Idun before she went under. I agree,” Talbot says, interrupting me. “Before she clawed her way through those seals that Violet effortlessly lifted like she was made to do just that. How has no one still blinked an eye at that? She’s not some weak omega running a bloody house. Wake the hell up. No omega could have taken that beating.”

A chill slithers up my spine, as I narrow my gaze on her.

“She’s young. Just starting out. And already she’s doing things no immortal has ever thought possible. Two hundred licks from a Van Helsing flogger is equivalent to a mortal being hit with five sharp daggers on fire at the hands of the devil himself. Per lick.”

Violet smiles at Jerome, shaking her head in answer to his question about if she’d ever consider moving back.

“And she took it at a true twenty-six-years old. She’d barely gotten her immortality, and the girl landed right in your laps—almost literally—the moment she moved to town. Could any omega honestly do that?”

“You’re saying she’s a budding alpha? That’s impossible. The only alphas are the original alphas—”

“It’s an ever-changing world, old chaps,” Talbot tells us, glancing over to meet our gazes at last. “Even Idun is scrambling to keep up, because she has no choice. Her alphas are in Violet’s home—her main power source.”

“They are pledged to her House, regardless of where they reside, and Idun still gets what she needs through those ties,” I remind him.

“True, but she can’t touch them or play with them,” he says as he starts to turn. “Still, it makes you wonder what Violet is capable of, when she’s effortlessly pulled off this much already.”