He was so close to having it all and he almost lost it. He couldn't afford to, not when he was the closest he'd been in millennia. The closest he'd been to finding her, the angel that would solve all of his problems.
Andras didn't like to waste time, he never did. He was impatient and selfish and he was also obsessed with her. So he felt no remorse as he removed his old friend from her current lover's bed and stole her away. Coveying her over to his penthouse in New York. She was the final piece in the puzzle, and after finding out some disturbing news, he decided he was going to retrieve her by force.
Not his preferred method, but it would do. He wasn't particularly known for being patient.
He shoved her off of him and watched as she tried to convey away using her usual shadow method. "Please," he was almost insulted she thought she could run from him. He looked at her, noticed she was crying, and rolled his eyes "Would you stop behaving like a weeping infant, you are over five hundred years old."
"I need to go back," she said, narrowing her eyes at him, just like she did all those centuries ago. She didn't even pause to take a look at her surroundings, she didn't care. It seemed like she was too used to being the strongest person.
She'd changed. A lot. And it suited her.
"I can't say that I care, darling" he replied, walking over to his bar and pouring himself a drink. He was pissed, stressed, and anxious, which was strange because he usually didn't feel a thing. Maybe being around so many humans was beginning to get to him.
"You're a monster," Her anger was almost funny. The utter gall of this woman. To be mad at him when she almost--
"I'm a demon," he corrected her "You, dear Violette, are the monster" he took a sip "Blood-thirsty vampire and all."
Normally, he would have cared she was upset and currently trying to attack him if he wasn't so pissed off. "You tried to break our deal," he tried to calm himself down but it wasn't working as he kneeled to meet her eyes "You wanted to kill yourself" he seethed "You, my love, are no use to me dead, so I took you, sue me."
He was so close, he would not allow her crisis to affect his planning, he needed to find that woman. He'd known Violette for a very long time and was familiar with her plan of ending her life, he just never thought she'd have the guts to do it. Turns out, she does.
How dare she? Oh, he was mad, fuming, but he kept his face neutral as he kept thinking.
He stood up and walked away turning his back on her, which, of course, gave her the perfect opportunity to attack him. But he knew her too well, so he used his magic to freeze her in place before she could stab him or whatever she would attempt. At least that hadn't changed.
He turned around, surveying her curvy yet slim body and jet-black hair, then her eyes, the eyes that were the key to everything he wanted. "Now, I know you have a death wish," he said as she glared "But why would you do that? You know only an angel can kill high-ranking demons."
"Which is why I don't understand why you want to find her," Violette said as he set her free.
"Why I want what I want is none of your concern, little fox," he said smoothly "You made a deal with me, and darkness help me, I will have what's mine." He would find her, be it the last thing he did.
"But Blaze--" she started again, but he had no time for her complaints.
"You will be back with your little mate eventually," he said, rolling his eyes but she froze on the spot.
"What did you say?" she asked, voice grim.
Andras surveyed her and couldn't contain his laughter as he took another sip of his drink "You didn't know?" He didn't intend to break the news, he thought it was common knowledge. It was strange, he supposed, for a vampire to be mated to a wolf, but it was possible nonetheless.
Violette had ventured into a wolfpack and had helped in their little internal squabble. He couldn't for the life of him understand why, but she had done it. And she'd found herself a mate, a man she could love had she not been so afraid.
Violette stared at him with those ice-cold eyes, the eyes that had once made him confuse her for someone else, at the time they were not empty and hollow, but the blue of her eyes was full of life, full of laughter. "It can't be" she seemed to almost grimace, and as much as he loved the drama and wanted to help her unpack her feelings he was running out of patience.
He wondered if he had something to do with those glacier-colored eyes of hers turning into actual ice over time as he said "Let's get you to a witch soon so you can go back to your werewolf friend."
But he wondered if she even wanted to go back in the first place as someone spoke.
"Already here" a third voice, one he knew to be Oscar's, chimed in. "Long time no see."
He'd called Oscar even before he went to fetch his old friend, turns out, he timed it perfectly.
"Fun! We're all here," he feigned child-like excitement "Now, let's get this done." His face went back to its usual bored state.
Oscar cringed, he was about as happy as Violette was of being here.
He always liked the man, he was a middle-aged warlock who looked nothing like a supernatural being. He was your regular office-working-polo-wearing man. He needed the money and took any job Andras gave him, but he could tell this one bothered him.
The vampire and the warlock looked at each other with hesitance "Why is everyone so opposed to this?" he knew why. He was going to use Oscar's magic and Violette's blood because he needed to locate a certain allusive angel that always died on him or fled before he could catch her.
"This is an angel, I don't want to go to hell," Oscar said.
"Hell isn't so bad" he lied, it was awful, there was a reason he wasn't there right now" And you?" he asked Violette, he was well aware she did not have anything against going to hell.
"I promised my mother I wouldn't do this, we all did," Violette said, referring to her unending amount of siblings. The truth was, he could have used any of her siblings, but half of them were dead and the rest were dreadful.
"Well if your mother had stayed true to her promise to me, you wouldn't have to," he said annoyed, this was already taking too long.
"Why is it you want to find her anyway?" Oscar asked.
"She's a cursed angel, I'm a fallen one, like calls to like," he lied again "Now make haste."
Oscar reluctantly pulled out a map of the US, he had managed to reduce it to the country using questionable methods. But every bit of information he had was found out using questionable methods, so it wasn't like he particularly cared.
Violette refused to be cut with Oscar's knife, so she used her fangs to bite her own wrist. She let the blood fall on the map, barely a few drops before it instantly healed, but it was enough. Oscar started chanting and the blood moved and eventually, it soaked into the map in a certain spot: Massachusets, Cambridge.
"She's at Harvard," Oscar said and he smiled.
"Good," he waved his hand and money materialized on the table. "Leave."
Violette made to move but she was stuck in her place "What are you doing? We had a deal" she protested.
"I have not found her yet Vi, I will let you leave once she's in my possession."
"I need to go back," she said, face scrunched with effort as she tried to dispel his magic.
Oh, he'd about had it with her, and of how little she knew of herself. Maybe it was the alcohol or the anger at the fact she had tried to end her life, but he snapped at Violette.
"But you won't," he stated "Because, my dear Violette, you are a coward," he said with a smile, "Ever since Arthur died you've been terrified of falling in love again, and now that you have, you want to run from it." Violette's life story had been destined to be detestable the moment she was born as a daughter to the vampire king. Vesper was old, cruel, and calculating, and he was very upset to find out his strongest daughter had fallen in love with a human, so he did what any other monster would do.
He killed him.
Her face filled with hatred at his words, venom dripping from her fangs as she spoke "Don't think you know me, Andras, I'm far from the little girl you met five hundred years ago." The ruby-incrusted cross she had on her neck was thrumming with power, he could almost smell the blood of every witch she had killed to get that cursed amulet to be so powerful.
But in the end, Violette always had been and always would be the same girl he met the day she was turned. She might be more powerful, more secure, and cunning, but one vital part of her would always remain the same.
"Are you sure?" he teased "Because you still have the same heart, I can see it." Because no matter how hard she tried, Violette had always worn her heart on her sleeve. And he'd taught her better than that.