Page 36 of Vampires and Violas

“No, in addition to the cut flowers. I’ll have to fix up my greenhouse, though. It was one of those kits. Grandpa bought it about twenty years ago, and it’s falling apart.”

“I know a guy who could build you a new one.”

Cassian knows a guy for everything.

“Let me think about it for a bit first. I’m not sure I can afford to make any modifications this year. Besides, I doubt I have room to expand. Not without tearing out a bunch of the landscape, which wouldn’t make Grandma or Grandpa very happy.”

“Or you,” Cassian points out.

I nod, knowing he’s right. It’s one thing to use Grandma’s old vegetable garden plot for cut flowers. It’s another to plow under all their landscaping.

“Maybe you need a rich benefactor to invest in your business?” Cassian says.

I look up from the magazine, smiling. “Are you offering?”

“Maybe.” He leans against the counter and takes a sip of his broth. “How much do you need? A hundred thousand? A couple hundred?”

I nearly choke. “I’m honored the Bank of Chevalier is interested in doing business with me, but I think I’m going to pass.”

Right now, I’m not in debt. And with a business based on something as unnecessary as flowers, I think that’s a good thing.

“Think about it. If you change your mind, I’m not hard to find.”

“No kidding. You’re usually in my house.”

Noah returns to the kitchen and asks Cassian, “You ready to go?”

The vampire drains the last of his broth. “Now I am.”

Noah frowns at the prescription bottle on the counter like he just remembered it. “I need to run these upstairs.”

“I can do it,” I tell him. “Do you want it in the medicine cabinet in your bathroom?”

“Yeah.” He pulls a bag of beef jerky out of the cupboard and heads for the door. “Thanks.”

“That’s not your lunch, is it?”

“It’s all I need.”

“But there are a ton of nitrates in that. I’m not sure you should make a meal out of it.”

“It doesn’t matter when you’re a vampire.”

I don’t have an argument for that. He’s right—nitrates won’t kill him.Nothingwill kill him, except a stake or a bullet or some other physical blow. Even then, it would have to be severe, or his body would just regenerate.

Cassian follows Noah out the door, and I finish my smoothie, sighing over the seed catalog one last time. Then I take the prescription upstairs.

It feels a little weird going into the spare bathroom—like I’m invading Noah’s space, even though it’s my house.

His shaving cream is on the counter, along with his deodorant and comb, and his shampoo and body wash are in the shower. He even has a black bath poof that I’d love to tease him about, but the mental image of himusingit pops in my head, and I decide that’s a subject best left alone.

Feeling like I’m snooping, I open the medicine cabinet. My hand freezes on the door, my eyes scanning the contents.

There are so many prescription bottles all lined up, each with names I don’t recognize.

“It takes so many drugs to keep a vampire sane,” I murmur, a funny feeling coiling in my stomach.

Without these, Noah wouldn’t be stable. He wouldn’t be the Noah I know.

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