Page 18 of Vicious and Volatile (Vengeance and Venom #2)

T hree entire weeks pass uneventfully.

Ares is frequently tied up in meetings with attorneys, settling things with the trust. He meets with each of the mothers of his half-siblings. It’s all business-like. There is no emotional connection between him and the others Augustus contributed DNA to. And why would he? He doesn’t know any of them, and the next oldest behind him is only sixteen years old. He explains the trust, sees what the financial needs of these kids are, makes agreements with the mothers, and that’s it.

I see a lot of James. Ares’ assistant becomes vital now that Ares’ portfolio just expanded. He’s at the office. At our house. Meeting us anywhere and everywhere.

I’m still trying to figure out my role in this new version of my life. I’m not entirely sure what it is yet, but I feel like I’m on the right track.

Finally, I make the call to Elle .

On a gorgeous day in August, Billings and I make the drive up to Boston.

I watch every bit of scenery go by as we drive. I’ve barely left Manhattan. Boston is only a few hours’ drive away, but I’m surprised by how different it feels. It all seems… older. A little more magical. There’s something a little cozier about it than New York.

Billings weaves his way into the city, and finally, he pulls up to the curb of a beautiful park. There, just inside the gate, I spot Elle.

“Thanks, Billings,” I offer as I open the door and hop out before someone can honk at us for blocking traffic. “I’ll call you when I’m ready to go?”

“Of course,” Billings says with a slight dip of his head. I close the door, and he merges back into traffic.

I smile as I walk through the gate, taking note of the sign that hangs from a post: Public Garden, Founded 1837. There, waiting for me, stands Elle. She’s about the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen. Her pregnant belly is round. She’s dressed in a white sundress and wears soft brown leather sandals. Her blonde hair is left hanging down to the middle of her back.

“I’m really glad you came, Lana,” she says with her own smile as I walk up to her. Again, she looks like she’s considering giving me a hug, but I can tell it’s really not her nature. I just give her a smile in return.

“I’m actually really excited to be here,” I admit. “I’ve never been to Boston.”

Elle practically glows as she looks around at the garden. “I moved here right after I finished college. To be honest, I didn’t have any good reason to come here, but it just called to me. ”

I think I get it. I’ve only been here for a few minutes, and it just has this certain feeling to it.

We set out through the garden. It’s beautiful. More landscaped and manicured than Central Park. There are statues of historical figures, fountains, a beautiful pond with ducks. There are dozens of people walking around, but it doesn’t feel as chaotic as Central Park.

“What did you study in college?” I ask. My curiosity when it comes to Elle Dawes is rampant, and this is the perfect opportunity to ask every question I’ve ever had.

“Botany, with a minor in chemistry,” she says as she aims us down the path like she knows exactly what direction she’s headed. Which she obviously does. “I went to Northwestern. It was kind of the only thing I ever wanted to do. In high school, I had this garden. I was already studying plants and their chemical reactions before I could even drive.”

I shake my head. “That’s about one of the coolest things I’ve heard about a teenager. The extent of most kids’ chemical study is getting drunk at parties.”

Elle just chuckles. “That was definitely not me.”

“How old were you when you got involved in all this vampire business?” I ask, setting myself free with all the questions I’m dying to get the answers to.

“I didn’t know it until I was a little bit older, but honestly, I was born into it,” she says. Something in her demeanor shifts. It goes darker, heavier. “My mother had been obsessed with vampires for a long time. She wanted nothing more than to be a Born, but you can’t do anything about that. So, she had an affair while married to my father. My brother Ian and I look nothing alike, so we should have known we didn’t have the same father. But we had no idea until he was killed and very, very unexpectedly Resurrected four days later. We’d had a funeral and everything.”

“Holy shit,” I say, my brows rising.

Elle simply nods in agreement. “But the vampires were a part of the picture from early on. My father was killed. Ian was actually a vampire Hunter before he became one.”

Wow. Harry Kim mentioned Hunters before, but hearing that Elle’s brother was one is mind-boggling.

“My grandmother was my legal guardian until she died,” Elle moves on. It’s like every sentence she speaks is a massive revelation, but she just keeps moving on so casually. “After that, Ian took guardianship. I was sixteen. I moved into the House of Conrath and was the only human living in the mansion.”

My eyes trail down to her arms as they swing at her sides. “Is that where you got the scars from?”

She glances down at them, but she doesn’t seem bothered by me asking about them. “The cross came in Mississippi, but the rest of them came later. I was always well protected at the House of Conrath.”

Every. Damn. Sentence.

Every single one is a story from this woman.

“To be honest, Ares and I just learned about the Royals and the Houses less than two months ago,” I admit. Elle feels safe to admit the truth of anything to. “It feels kind of impossible. Your sister-in-law, she’s one of these Royals?”

Elle nods. “Alivia didn’t have any idea who her father was until she was an adult. She inherited everything. Came to Silent Bend. I love my sister-in-law with everything in me, but she sure knows how to make a damn mess. ”

I’m not sure how to take that. Elle told me that I remind her of Alivia. Do I make messes?

“But she’s probably also the strongest person I know,” Elle adds, giving me some comfort instantly. “Everything she’s had to endure. Everything this world has put her through. She’s grown a lot. She’s amazing.”

Okay, now I feel better.

We’ve circled a good portion of the garden by this point. On the far side of it, there’s a road and then a big park that reminds me a little more of Central Park. But we’re pointed for the northern corner of the garden. There, across the street, I see gorgeous brownstone row houses. Boston really is beautiful and old.

“What about you?” Elle asks as we step to the sidewalk and wait for the light to give us a crossing signal. “When did you get mixed up in this world?”

“Just a few months ago,” I admit. “My best friend went missing, and I figured out the party she went to was filled with vampires. I was trying to track her down when Ares first approached me. He tried to get me to leave, thought I was putting myself in danger. When I refused, that’s when we… teamed up. We worked together to figure out what his father was really doing, and find my best friend.”

The signal changes, and we cross the street with a crowd of other people, headed up a road labeled Charles Street. It’s… stunning. For a moment, my footsteps falter as I take it in. The street is filled with adorable shops in the most charming buildings ever. It almost feels like something that should be in Harry Potter. The sidewalks are uneven and narrow. The shop doors are of varying heights, some of them comically short, some of them up sets of dramatic stairs. The wi ndows give glimpses into beautiful boutiques or busy bookstores.

It's wildly charming.

“Seems like it was fate,” Elle says with a smile as she looks over at me. “I’ve only spent a few minutes with the two of you, but it’s easy to see how much he loves you, how much you care for him.”

I feel myself blush, but I’m not embarrassed. Elle isn’t teasing. She’s so damn genuine. “I certainly never expected my other half to be a vampire.”

Elle chuckles and nods. “Me either.”

“Your husband is a vampire,” I say, simply a statement, recalling the brief history James shared.

Elle hesitates for just a moment too long. “Lexington joined the House of Conrath around the same time I had to move in with Ian. We were around each other for a few years, but then I went off to college. I had been living here in Boston for a few years before we reunited.”

I take in Charles Street as we walk up the slight incline. It’s kind of breathtaking. I’ve never pictured myself living anywhere but New York, but I can certainly see the appeal of Boston.

“We were having some trouble with the House of Allaway, and Ian decided I needed a protector,” Elle says as we wait to cross another street. “He sent Lexington here to watch over me because he used to be a member of the House of Allaway. He knew how their leader thought.”

I suspect there’s a whole lot more to this story, but there’s an edge of pain in Elle’s tone, so I don’t pry.

“We spent a lot of time together,” Elle continues as we cross the street. “And Lexington wasn’t the same bitter man I’d lived with before. He was light and carefree and easy going, things I’d never been in my whole life. And being around him felt…” she hesitates, searching for the words. “I’d never had feelings for anyone, but I knew I’d fallen in love with Lexington.”

There’s a softness in her expression when she talks about her husband, and it’s easy to see how much she still loves the man. But I don’t get the chance to study her more because she suddenly turns into a building and pulls the door open. My eyes rise up to the sign above the door, and I read Oleander Apothecary .

I follow Elle inside, and the moment I step through the doors, my eyes widen in wonder.

There are shelves all around the small but cozy space. And each of the shelves is filled with beautiful bottles. Bottles of liquid, bottles of flowers, of crushed herbs. And it smells like a divine witch’s paradise inside.

“What is this place?” I ask in wonder.

Elle is practically beaming when she turns back to me. “This is my shop. I opened it just after I moved to Boston.”

Elle got her degree in botany and chemistry. She’s studied plants since she was a teenager. Of course she owns a magical apothecary.

“I fucking love it,” I say in wonder as I turn, taking it all in.

“Me too,” she says with just a little bit of a sigh. “Lana, this is Tiff. Tiff, this is my friend Lana.”

I turn to see a woman sitting at the counter. She has pitch black hair and a septum piercing. She wears this pale brown duster dress and absolutely looks like this is exactly where she belongs. “Nice to meet you,” she says with a warm smile.

“You, too,” I say, wondering if this woman is human or a vampire. Elle seems to be surrounded by vampires at all times .

“Come on,” Elle says, waving me toward a curtain blocking off the back of the building.

The second part of Elle’s shop stops me in my tracks, just as the first part did, but in a very different way.

Behind that curtain is a lab. It couldn’t be mistaken for anything different.

But unlike Florence’s lab, which is all high tech and sterile, Elle’s lab is cozy and far more witchy.

Counters frame all four walls. There are shelves rising to the ceiling. There’s a big worktable in the center. It’s all dark wood and textured walls. All of the modern equipment stands out in sharp contrast: microscopes, bins of pipets and beakers, Bunsen burners. But while Florence’s lab was filled with glass vials of clear liquid, Elle’s lab has dried plants lying everywhere and brown glass bottles.

It's beautiful in the most deadly way.

“Holy shit,” the words breathe out of me. “Elle, this is incredible.”

“Thanks,” she says as she pulls out a seat from the counter. She sinks into it and lets out a hard breath as she props her feet up on a stool. She tucks her hands under her growing belly and shifts its weight. “Besides home, this is my happy place.”

“You study vampirism?” I ask eagerly, suddenly very anxious to introduce Elle to Florence.

“To a degree, but not directly,” she says. She’s watching me with interest, a slight smile pulling at her mouth. She’s excited that I’m excited about her work. “I mostly focus on… products. Products that affect vampires.”

That pops one of my eyebrows up as my eyes snap back to her.

“You don’t survive life being surrounded by vampires as a human without a little bit of help,” she says cryptically, a teasing smile on her lips.

“You hardly have to lift a finger to take a vampire down, do you?” I ask as realization hits me. I tried for days to get the upper hand on Lawrence when I was trapped in his basement. And even though I’m trained in mixed martial arts, I never stood a chance.

But Elle… she has secrets hidden up her sleeves.

She reaches for something on the counter behind her and hands it to me. It looks like a dart. “Take that. It contains a toxin that will take a vampire down instantly, and keep them out for a few hours.”

“Elle Dawes,” I say teasingly as I adjust the dart carefully. “You are the most interesting person I have ever met.”

She just smiles and folds her hands over her stomach.

And the gesture reminds me of what I want to ask her most about.

“You’re human,” I say, my tone growing heavier. “Your daughter will be a vampire someday. That baby will be a vampire someday. The love of your life is a vampire. How…” I struggle to form the question because I’m not exactly sure what to ask. “How do you handle it, knowing the man you love is going to live forever, but you won’t?”

She doesn’t answer me immediately. She studies me, and I can see an entire lifetime in her gaze. She’s been through so much in her life. She’s experienced things most people can’t even dream of.

But in this? This I know she is one of the few in the world who can understand the turmoil I feel right now.

“It isn’t easy,” she says finally. “Knowing they’re different from you. Knowing you have an expiration, but they don’t. The world can feel so… unbalanced sometimes. But I think it was easier for me, maybe a little. I’d been around immortals most of my life. I had so much time to get used to the idea of them living forever. I’m friends with a vampire who is over two thousand years old.”

Fuck. From my understanding, the only vampire that old is King Cyrus himself. And Elle just called him a friend?

“It was hard, thinking about the fact that I’d keep aging, turn into an old woman, and Lexington was always going to stay the same,” she moves on. “That someday I am going to die, but he and my children would live on forever.”

Her gaze is so intense. So evaluative. It’s like she’s trying to read if she can trust me, as if the future is written on my skin.

“I struggled with these ideas,” she says, her tone dropping lower, quieter. “But the world is a whole lot more complicated than what we see with the eye.”

My heart starts beating harder, faster.

I lean closer, every ounce of my attention laser-focused on Elle Dawes.

“I’m not the only one who studies things related to vampires,” she says. The look in her eyes is heavy, deadly serious. “Lexington was a vampire for over a hundred years. But some things can reset.”

Was.

Reset.

Adrenaline crashes through my blood as my brain tries to sort this new information out.

Was. Reset.

“Lexington isn’t a vampire anymore?” I ask, the words coming out as an uncertain whisper.

Elle shakes her head. I see it in her eyes, how critical and dangerous this information is. “As far as I know, he is the only vampire who has been reset. But even though it’s only been six months, we can tell. Lexington is aging again.”

No longer immortal.

Holy shit.

Holy fuck.

This is huge. This is wild. This… this could change the vampire world.

And be incredibly dangerous for those who know about it and for whoever made this… cure.

“I trust you, Lana,” Elle says, her blue eyes fixed on me. “I haven’t known you that long, but I know you, I can tell. This is dangerous information. The House of Marshals obviously figured it out pretty damn quick, but no one outside the House knows. But I can see it in your eyes, Lana. Him being immortal, and you not, is eating you. So, I want you to know. It doesn’t have to be this way.”

“You could turn Ares mortal again?” I say in a breath.

“Not me,” she shakes her head. “But if it’s what you both wanted, I could ask who can, and I’m sure they would do it for you.”

My heart is racing. This changes everything. This could be the answer I didn’t know I was looking for. It could mean Ares and I could have a normal life together. We could grow old together.

“It isn’t something to be taken lightly, Lana,” Elle says softly. “It would be a big damn deal. When Lexington was reset, it shook our whole reality. But the relief, knowing that we’re the same…” I see moisture glisten in her eyes. She shakes her head. “I’m grateful every day.”

The air feels heavy and light at the same time. This feels earth shaking. But… wrong. Wrong. Why does it feel so wrong to have this knowledge? To even consider it?

“Think about it, Lana,” Elle says as she shifts. My eyes go back down to her belly. Seven months or so, that’s how pregnant I’d guess she is. And her husband has been human once more for six months.

That baby in her belly is going to be a Born someday.

And its parents are human.

Holy shit.

“There’s no rush,” Elle continues. “Just think about it. Know it’s an option. And decide what is best for you and Ares.”

I swallow once, and nod, a very large part of me wishing Elle had never told me this truth, but I can’t exactly pin down why.