My nose wrinkles. It always feels like I’m swallowing pine needles when I drink gin. I focus on that instead of the vampire woman beside me.

“Not long ago, I was abducted by vampires,” I decide to tell her as she pours two glasses of the gin, treating this as though two girls are just having a fun drink in the back of a car.

“Oh?” she muses, though I can’t tell if she’s genuine in her oblivion or not.

“I was under the impression it was in no way related to the alpha house in Shadow Hills. However, I’ve recently learned I can’t really trust the source I’ve gotten the vast majority of my information from,” I say on a mostly steady breath, aside from one minor catch in my throat.

She just stares ahead, swirling her glass under her nose as she hands me mine. I take it and drink it without hesitation, swallowing down a liquefied Christmas tree like it’s great.

I’d rather be drunk if someone’s going to attempt murdering me soon.

She doesn’t offer to pour me another, however, as she takes a slow sip.

“Do I get a clue as to what’s going on?”

“You’re so adorably clueless, and I’ve been ordered to keep it that way,” she states patronizingly as she continues to sip her gin.

“So we ride around in silence until you take me somewhere for more vampires to kill me—”

“You’re not to be harmed, Violet. Don’t be so melodramatic,” she says like she’s already tired with my theatrics.

Exhaling heavily and observing the sort of crazy I’m dealing with, I decide I’m definitely screwed. Why can’t it ever be the bumbling first-timers instead of the cold, calculated ones who want to kill me?

I put my one-trick pony saddlebag on standby and let the dread mount as we ride along in uncomfortable silence. Nothing is worse than riding to one’s possible doom in uncomfortable silence.

That’s when Anna lands in the car, and begins talking about dinosaurs in the park. I miss the uncomfortable silence really quickly.

Chapter 30

VIOLET

“Can I at least get a deadline on how much longer it’s going to take?” I ask Shera as she plays a game on her damn phone, still sipping her first glass of gin an entire hour later.

“Just another few minutes.”

The windows are so darkly tinted that I can’t see anything, and there’s a closed divider window in front of us. For all I know, we’re in the middle of a forest.

“You should know, House of Arion certainly did not condone nor play part in the attack on you. I was only just made aware of the attack today. You really should have taken me up on that tea. I could have been a very good friend to have.”

“Could have been?” I ask, noting the past tense of her wording.

“You clearly have a judgmental attitude toward the female monsters of this town, but have no problem leaving your sweet scent in every other alpha home in Shadow Hills.”

I bristle, feeling a little judged all of the sudden. Judged by a vampire.

“I hate to say it, but she has a point,” Anna unhelpfully chimes in.

Judged by a vampire and a ghost.

I’m not okay with this being my new normal yet.

“I’m…sorry?” I try saying.

“I’m sure you’ll be sorry. You’ll really want me as a friend now that you’re about to have him in your life. Try not to be the crying-and-rocking-in-the-corner type. Those girls are tediously exhausting.”

My mouth opens and closes a few times, as she stares down at her fingernails.

The car pulls to a stop, and she pushes her door open, leaving the freezing cold air to shoot into the vehicle. “And for the record, I make the best tea in town.”

With that, she turns and struts away, and I lean forward, staring through her door to the house we’re in front of.

We’ve driven for over an hour, closer to two, and we’re in front of the House of Arion? This is just ten minutes from where I was grabbed!

“Oye! It’s a massacre in here!” Anna shouts from inside the house as Shera passes through her and disappears inside the home.

I really hope Anna isn’t seeing the real world right now.

Lurch is suddenly leaning in and roughly pulling me out of the car, using my hair as a handle once again. A strangled sound of pain escapes me, because I think he’s managed to find the same exact spot that is still tender from the last time.

Stumbling around, I manage to right myself, not making the mistake of falling again, and keep pace at his side.

“See? You’re learning,” he praises, talking to me like I’m some sort of pet.

I make a mental note to never do business with vampires again, once I leave town. I’m tougher than a normal person, and tears are dangerously close to teetering on my eyelids from his rough treatment.

I keep my hands balled at my sides as I’m led into the house I’ve never once stepped foot inside. Warmth hits me, knocking off the chill just a little…until I’m stumbling again at the sight before me.

Lurch yanks me harder, forcing me to walk when I try to stop, and I swallow down any sounds I have, because I really don’t want to draw attention to myself right now.

It looks exactly like my mind feared it would look inside a vampire home.

Blood is smeared across the walls, and I gag a little when I see a heap of bodies lying haphazardly around the stairs I’m being dragged by. I’m actually forced to step over one headless body, as Havana plays over the house speakers.

“I found a hot ginger! Holy grail!” Anna shouts from a room just before I’m steered into it.

Shera is doing the cha cha with a tall, red-haired man, and Anna is turned over and dancing with her ass in the air behind him.

A body rolls down the stairs in the room, slamming into the wall hard enough to crack it, and it lifelessly drops to the ground. Even though there are plenty of others standing and breathing around us, I’m the only person in the room to react, and my hair is yanked again as punishment.

Fresh tears spring to my eyes without warning and almost tumble down my cheeks, as the pain bites through my skull. I force myself to calm and actively stop my heartbeat from trying to slow.

If my heart slowed, there’d be less pain. There’d also possibly be a monster unleashed in a roomful of vampires who know how to deal with…whatever I am.

There’s less blood in here. In fact, all the bodies on the ground look to be completely depleted of blood.

Shera laughs as the man twirls her, and they end the dancing abruptly when the guy kisses her. Meanwhile, a second body comes tumbling down the stairs, and I try really hard to be as stoic about it as everyone else.

My survival plan seems really flimsy at the moment, because the bodies on the floor are dead vampires. Lots of dead vampires. All the eyes have been left black, the same way they were when I killed those four.

If this is what they do to their own…

“Arion, she’s here!” Shera shouts up the stairs.

My heart starts hammering in my chest just as my mind finally clicks together the most obvious picture, leaving me feeling like the world’s biggest, naïve, gullible fool.

My eyes dart to the top of the stairs when a familiar, shirtless man dressed only in a pair of sweatpants that barely hang on his hips starts dancing his way down them, licking blood off his fingertips as his head tips back. He dances up two steps, and then he dances back down the rest of the way, his eyes closed as he moves toward us with the beat of the music.

His eyes open and hone in on mine, sending a trickle of painful awareness and dread coursing throughout me, just as the song changes. A wicked smile curves his lips as he keeps dancing his way down them, hips moving in a salsa rhythm in beat with the music.

I’ve tipped my head back without even realizing it, staring like I can’t believe this is actually happening. At some point, Lurch apparently let go of me, and it’s a struggle to stand on my own when my knees threaten to give way.

“Ace,” I say on a rasp as the devil in flesh grins down at me.

“Call me Arion, love. It’s more fitting,” he says like this is all a cordial, friendly affair—monster style.

His smile falls immediately as his eyes dip to my cheek, and he glances over at Lurch.

“Shera,” he says like it’s a command of some kind.

Shera sighs as she pushes away from her dance partner and walks over to Lurch, who looks to shrink a little.

A gentle touch on my chin turns my head away just as Lurch gets bashed over the back of the head by some unknown beast of a man behind him.

I miss the rest, because my eyes are back on Arion’s.

“Is that entirely necessary? You have no idea how fucking hard it’s been to train new recruits since your last tantrum,” Shera’s boyfriend says as he walks by us, groaning.

“We’ll discuss that later,” Ace, also known as Arion, also known as the vampire alpha of Shadow hills, also known as a psychopath of some kind that I just unleashed onto the world, says.

My lip trembles just barely before I can stop it, and he narrows his eyes as he moves quickly. One second I’m standing on the floor, and the next I’m sitting on the bar in the room with him standing between my legs, putting us at eye level.

The breath hisses between my teeth as the dizzying motion almost makes me sway with the abrupt shift in location.

“Don’t be scared, love. The bodies are just my gifts, and they’re the perfect gifts,” he says as he turns and gestures around him.

He really is a murderous psychopath, just like Ace said Arion was.

At least it wasn’t all a lie.

His nose drags along my neck as I remain rigid, and I fight the urge to tremble again as he inhales very deeply and groans in the back of his throat.

This day started out with hope to save my friend.

It’s ending with the murderous vampire alpha sniffing my neck.

All because I’m a trusting idiot.

My life can suck so hard sometimes.

“I’m very much enjoying touching you,” he whispers, his breath chilling the skin on the side of my neck, only adding more all around me. “And you smell even more incredible than I imagined you would,” he adds on a hushed breath that chills me to my core.

What have I done?

Chapter 31

VANCE

Wiping blood from my face, I step over the two bodies and toss a match onto the gas before walking out.

Damien is glaring at me when I exit the burning home, and I look away from him to ensure no one else is witnessing my departure.

It’s still just as quiet out here as it was when I went in a few minutes ago.

My attention returns to Damien, who is leaning against my car.

“I just bought that,” I point out with a dark smile. “I’d rather there be no smudges on it.”

“Killing some of mine without so much as a polite warning?” he drawls, gaze flicking down to his nails.

“Two succubae needlessly draining mortals of their life source doesn’t garner you a polite warning. They’re freshly registered, and barely cared I was killing them. Someone turned them against their will, and they wanted it to end.”