11. The Butt（ler） Invasion
THE BUTT(LER) INVASION
Emre yelped, grabbing Abbie and tucking her between his front paws.
He had to get to his feet. He had to keep her away from the threat—
Zenith sighed deeply, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Huxton.”
Emre paused.
That wasn’t the typical reaction to a threat.
“Huxton?” he echoed.
The invader straightened. He was tall—taller than Emre but shorter than Zenith. He had bright orange eyes and curly grey hair, and he wore a vintage pilot outfit, complete with flight goggles.
Who invaded a home while wearing that? The man looked as though he belonged at a Renaissance Faire. Or in a comic book.
“Yes, Scribbly Master?” the home invader said.
Emre frowned. “Scribbly... Master?”
Zenith groaned. “Ugh. Don’t call me that. Emre, this is my butler, Huxton.”
Emre gaped. “Your butler? Why... Why did you say I should be alarmed, then?”
Huxton gasped loudly and pressed a dramatic hand to his forehead. “Has Scribbly Master not said anything about me? At all? How very dare!”
Zenith gave Emre a pointed look and gestured toward Huxton. “You see what I mean?”
“Pshaw!” Huxton flapped his hand. “You love me!” Eagerly, he said to Emre, “I’m his butt-ler. With two T’s in the butt. Scribbly Master scribbles on everything—napkins, cereal boxes, probably even your skin.”
Now that he mentioned it, Emre had noticed the sheer number of paper scraps all over the apartment.
Pages of different colors and sizes had been torn out of notebooks.
There were pieces of cardboard, cloth and paper napkins, even a length of toilet paper.
All of them had been scribbled on. These paper scraps were stuck to the fridge, pinned to the walls, and there was a stack of them on the coffee table, weighed down by a heavy book.
Emre froze. “Are those all fireproofed?”
Zenith and his butler shared a look.
“Not all of them,” Zenith said slowly.
“But they’re your book ideas, right?” Emre yelped. “Surely you’d fireproof them?”
Zenith sighed. “Typically, books are fireproofed as a whole object, with the spell anchored to either the spine or the cover. When pages are removed from a spelled book, they’re disconnected from the spell.
Likewise, no one fireproofs disposable items like napkins, cereal boxes, and toilet paper.
They’re usually discarded too quickly for fireproofing to be necessary. ”
With the sheer amount of loose pages scattered around the apartment, and with everything else already fireproofed, it made sense that Zenith never got around to fireproofing the individual pages.
Except Abbie was here now, and she had already set fire to her blanket and toys.
“I’ll have Uriel come by for some emergency spellwork,” Zenith said when he saw the look on Emre’s face. “Don’t worry about Abbie setting fire to my things.”
“But what if she sneezes between now and... whenever your mage shows up?” Emre asked worriedly.
Zenith handed his phone to Huxton. “Photos of my notes. My phone is safe.”
Huxton saluted. “Aye aye, Scribbly Master! Also, I brought gifts. Would you like to have them now?”
“Gifts?” Emre blurted.
Huxton slipped a leather backpack off his shoulders, handing it to Zenith. “All your requested items, but I added a little extra.”
Zenith narrowed his eyes. “What do you have in here?”
Huxton gave Emre a meaningful look. “Baby pictures. Of Scribbly Master.”
Emre’s eyebrows shot up. “Baby pictures?”
Zenith was huge, towering and broad. Emre couldn’t imagine him as a child.
What had he looked like?
Zenith planted himself between Emre and Huxton, scowling. “I promised Emre I’d let you tell him an embarrassing story, but I’m drawing the line at baby pictures.”
Huxton waggled his eyebrows. “The pictures are guaranteed to make him coo.”
“Baby pictures don’t give me any credibility as an alpha,” Zenith hissed. “People only look at baby pictures when they want to have a baby; there’s no need to show Emre how weak and helpless I was—”
“But babies are adorable,” Emre pointed out. “I bet you were a cute baby.”
Zenith grimaced. “Find me an alpha who wants to be reminded of their time as a baby. Or be described as ‘cute and tiny’.”
Emre shifted back into a human and gave Zenith the best wolf-pup eyes he knew.
Zenith froze, his face going pink. For three seconds, he even seemed to stop breathing. “Fine,” he said suddenly. “Fine, you can look at the pictures.”
“Folded like a cheap suit.” Huxton snickered.
“If you don’t shut up, I’m never going to employ you full-time,” Zenith grumbled.
Huxton flapped his hand dismissively. “Pfft. Look at Emre. The pictures will make his day.”
Zenith turned his intense gaze on Emre, and Emre felt suddenly guilty.
“I-I mean, you don’t have to show me,” Emre stammered. “I don’t like making people do things they don’t want to.”
Zenith looked into his eyes. “I just don’t want to lose your respect.”
Emre shook his head firmly. “You won’t. I promise. I told you my embarrassing story and you didn’t think any worse of me, right?”
“Hmm. That’s true. You’re still amazing.” Zenith relaxed. “Fine. You may see my baby pictures.”
Emre lit up, making grabby hands for Zenith’s backpack. To his surprise, Zenith handed the whole thing over.
The bag was good quality, sturdy stitches on buttery soft leather. It was heavy too. When Emre opened it, he found two bottles—belly lotion and massage oil—a roll of fabric tape, and a small manila envelope.
Something shiny glinted at the bottom of the bag, but he ignored it for now and reached for the envelope instead.
Zenith still looked a little nervous. So Emre took the alpha’s hand and tugged him down to the kitchen floor.
“Here,” Emre said, scooping Abbie up and depositing her in Zenith’s hands. “She’ll distract you.”
Abbie tried to climb out of Zenith’s hands. Zenith broke into a smile as he tried to keep her contained, his expression growing so warm.
While he was busy with her, Emre slid the photos out of the envelope.
There weren’t many pictures, actually. They were all yellowed, a little faded.
In the first picture, Zenith seemed to be a few months old, trying futilely to stuff a huge pumpkin toy into his mouth.
In the next photo, he was maybe a year old, sitting in a half-full trash can with kitchen scraps on his head.
Emre couldn’t help it; he giggled.
Zenith looked over and groaned. “My brothers were around for that one. They were chasing each other through my parents’ place—you know, my centuries-old brothers?
—and they knocked over the kitchen trash can.
No one noticed when I crawled in; someone set it upright while I was in there and forgot about it.
After a while, I stuck my head out. My dad caught me then, and he took a picture.
Then he yelled at my brothers for putting me in the trash. ”
Emre laughed and sighed. “Sounds like fun, having siblings.”
“Mine are great,” Zenith agreed. “They’re all living in or around Cartfalls, but I haven’t seen much of them lately because they’ve been pairing off and starting families.
Hey, actually...” Zenith perked up. “Would you like to make some friends? I know my brothers’ omegas belong to a friend group; they won’t mind you joining in. ”
Emre squirmed. “I’m kind of new to Cartfalls; your brothers are really old. Their mates must already be old friends with each other.”
“Naw. My brothers only began bonding over the last year or so. Their omegas were all single dads—not so single anymore. I’m sure they’d love to have you.
Actually... Uriel is close with them. Maybe he can add you to their group chat or something?
I’m not sure how that alpha is friends with literally everyone’s omegas, but then again, he has a baby. Maybe that’s why.”
The name rang a bell. Emre frowned. Then it hit him.
“Wait. That’s the guy you’re writing the book about.”
Zenith winced. “Definitely don’t mention the book while he’s here.”
Emre bobbed his head. “Of course not.”
“Thanks.” Zenith leaned in, nuzzling Emre’s ear.
Emre nuzzled him back, and Zenith beamed. It was such a good look on him.
He flipped to the third photograph in the pile; Zenith was groaning even before Emre could make sense of the picture.
“Is this... a giant tomato?”
“Yes. That year, my brother Ace tried to grow a tomato plant. But he got tired of waiting for it to grow, so he found a mage to cast a spell on that plant. Well, the plant grew like a giant beanstalk, and every time a tomato fell off the vine, I swear the ground shook. That’s one of its tomatoes.”
The tomato was so huge, it was like a giant pumpkin. Toddler-Zenith was sitting comfortably in the hollowed-out tomato, like a frog in a pothole.
“That sounds like so much food,” Emre said enviously. “Did you manage to finish all the tomatoes?”
“Between us and the huge butler brother family, we did,” Zenith said dryly. “Everyone was making pasta sauce and sun-dried tomatoes for weeks.”
“I would love to have a giant tomato,” Emre sighed. “But my stomach isn’t big enough for it.”
They both looked down at his round belly.
“It’s almost the size of a giant tomato,” Zenith said with a quick grin. “But we won’t be eating you.”
Emre rolled his eyes.
“I’ll see if any of my friends are interested in sharing a giant tomato plant,” Zenith said. “Imagine vine-ripened tomatoes... but huge. We could make so much marinara sauce with it.”
“You’d need to cook that down for a long time, though. And you’d need so many pots.”
Zenith hummed. “Not if you have special cooking equipment for it.”
“You have special equipment?” Emre looked around the small kitchen, seeing nothing that could contain a giant tomato. Maybe if they carved it and cooked it one chunk at a time?
“Scribbly Master?” Huxton said suddenly, all humor gone from his voice.
Zenith’s attention snapped onto him. “What is it?”
The butler was standing by the window, looking out. He nodded toward something out of sight, his eyes narrowed. “Suspicious person.”
Emre froze, his heart kicking. Anyone could be a suspicious person. It didn’t have to be Ronald.