“Since when have you noticed more than your own dick, you savage mongrel?” she fires back. Giving me no time to retort, she adds, “I never should have come here.”
“Before this devolves into pointless bickering, let’s have a toast. At long last, your vindictive, vicious, monstrous curse could possibly be lifted. I’ll toast just to the hope it has inspired in my old, cold, dead heart, even if it turns out to be a heartbreaking fallacy,” Zuela says, lifting his glass toward Marta’s direction and arching an eyebrow.
Zuela Van Helsing toasting Marta Portocale.
Rolling my eyes, I mutter, “Maybe the chill in the air is from hell finally freezing over.”
Chapter 20
ARION
“You need to be farther back. This is actually freaking me out a little, because I’ve never attempted it around people I don’t want dead,” Violet says, shoving at my chest.
I can’t help the grin that spreads across my lips, as she puffs out her cheeks, struggling to budge me an inch. When she glares up at me, I smile broader, mocking her naïve innocence, and allow her to walk me backwards.
“You remember that I scaled a mountainside, plucked you from mid-air, and landed rather perfectly, with you safely in my arms. That’s just one of my many heroic feats you’ve witnessed, and you worry for my safety?” I muse.
“Absolutely,” she says after she finishes putting me at a terrible distance.
“Even I can barely see the marker from here,” I inform her in a dry tone.
“If I accidentally kill you, I’ll be too devastated to recover any time soon. So, please keep your bloodsucking ass back here, and for once, don’t make something more difficult than it has to be,” she says, pointing a finger at me like I’ve been naughty.
I don’t know why I find her so delightful today. Perhaps it’s because she truly does fear she’s the biggest, baddest monster there’s ever been. I was more convinced it was possible yesterday than today.
I’ve had sleep, and…
“I really can’t wait to see it. Get on with the show, love,” I tell her, hearing the other three approaching from behind me.
Violet points her finger at them. “Stay here,” she commands. “And seriously, stay back. No one gets hurt, or I’ll never forgive you for talking me into this. You better believe there will be some major trust issues after that,” she calls over her shoulder, not sounding one bit happy about this.
“It feels like she’s not used to losing an argument. Who talked her into it?” I ask, still smiling.
“I convinced her it was necessary this morning, while she was in a relaxed and agreeable mood. It was just before I called you to come pick her up,” Vance tells me, as Violet hikes the field to head to her spot. “I wanted to hurry it along before she talked herself out of it. She genuinely thinks she can menace the four of us.”
He battles a grin.
“It seemed more conceivable yesterday,” Damien murmurs under his breath. “Still, I’m too curious not to see it with my own eyes and put any doubts to bed, one way or the other.”
“Why are you naked?” Vance asks Emit, as we all mildly groan at the nude barbarian.
“Went for a run,” Emit answers very unapologetically.
“She agreed far easier than anticipated,” I note aloud.
“Something’s changed since the day of Dorian’s attack,” Damien says quietly, his eyes on her. “She’s changed since then. More so from the moment I delivered his punishment.”
We don’t have a chance to respond to that.
“Okay! Here it goes! Lie on your bellies and stay hidden in the tall grass. Don’t make any sudden movements,” Violet calls from across the field.
“She’s not serious,” Vance states in a slightly horrified tone.
When Violet taps her foot as though she’s waiting impatiently for us to comply, I roll my eyes and move to the ground.
“Even in the event she could be a struggle one-on-one, it’s insulting that she thinks her monster is capable of harming all four of us at once,” I point out, narrowing my eyes through the tall blades of grass toward Violet. “Her arrogance is astounding.”
Vance mutters a curse and joins me, along with Damien at my other side. Emit is the last to comply.
“She told me to stay out of sight the night she tore open the casket. Silver doesn’t affect her, as demonstrated the night she shredded a Van Helsing box. Maybe—”
A very awkward, somewhat embarrassing little roar shoots out of Violet, and we all gawk, as she…grows a little extra muscle.
There’re a few ominous pops, as some clear definition abruptly outlines her biceps. Her thighs expand, rippling with more muscle. Little by little, she starts to look like a light-weight body-builder, with a few harsher features…
It’s incredibly underwhelming, and it happens so fast that it’s not even all that exciting.
She stalks firmly…toward a tree, and she snaps it with one hand. With another embarrassing roar, she slings the tree into another so hard they both crack.
Then she pounds the ground like a gorilla, as though the flowers there have offended her.
“This is anticlimactic,” I state with utter disappointment, as I stand and put my hands on my hips. “Let’s liven this party up a bit,” I add as I race away from them.
I cringe for her.
This is too hard to watch.
I hear Damien hiss my name, but I’m willing to risk Violet’s pathetic wrath.
She’s a Simpleton Neopry.
I knew this.
Not only that, she’s a Simpleton Neopry freak accident, who was born to be immortal. It makes her unique. It…doesn’t make her powerful.
For whatever reason, I still expected more.
“You look disappointed, vampire,” Anna says, as she cringes, while Violet bites down on some bark, chewing it with clear abandon.
Suddenly, her fully violet eyes turn to meet mine, and I…easily dodge her obvious, lumbering charge. Too easily, in fact.
She roars in rage, and I effortlessly sidestep her next attack.
“Now you’re just making her look pathetic. She’s so certain her monster is dangerous to you guys. I’m not sure anyone should tell her differently, and let’s hope she doesn’t remember this,” Anna says, cringing when Violet trips and crashes to the ground, before rolling into another tree…that snaps in half.
“I mean, to a human, she really would be terrifying,” Vance says as though he’s attempting to spare her some dignity.
He barely puts forth any effort to dodge her crazed arm swings once she sets her ‘vicious’ sights on him. He catches her wrist when he tires of the cat-and-mouse fixation she has on him, and spins her around. With a slight shove, he sends her in Damien’s direction.
Damien sighs, as she charges him with full-on rage…that is much less fueled than any of the other Simpletons. She’s a watered-down version of them, even after all her feeding.
Her biggest strength truly does lie solely in her resilience.
What a terrible superpower to have.
“This is almost tragic. I think I secretly hoped she’d be some epic freak alpha that would bring Idun down once and for all,” Damien confesses in a way that suggests he’s ashamed of himself.