Like rip out the throats of every beta who challenged me tonight and sent me running headfirst into a fight I wasn’t ready to face just yet.

Chapter 11

VIOLET

I’m tiptoeing down the stairs, as the horrible sawing continues just outside my window. Dad apparently didn’t bother waiting until I woke up or even had more than two hours of sleep before going to work.

Now I just sound whiny.

Angrily, I start the coffee and take a deep breath as I focus on the fact Dad is actually here. For once, I was the one who bailed on him and still haven’t explained why in the hell I was coming home dressed like I’d been stuck in a dryer with the too-tight, too-small clothing…after wearing a sheet before that.

Hopefully, he’s in his usual stoic mood today.

“I bet it sucked having him for a father when you were little,” Damien says too close from behind me, and I scream as I jump.

I whirl around, finding him at the kitchen doorway, a grin on his face as he props up there.

“Do I even want to know how long you’ve been here?”

“I can’t read minds, Violet. At least not without touching you first,” he adds, his grin only growing.

The sawing stops, and he disappears seconds before the back door swings open. Dad barely glances in my direction before going to pour himself some coffee into his thermos.

“Damn cold out there, but I didn’t want more sawdust in your house than necessary,” he grumbles.

“Thanks for that,” I state flatly.

Damien snorts, and I try not to throttle him as my father looks over his shoulder at me, frowning.

“I was being nice,” Dad defends. “We can talk about what you were wearing last night later.”

I try not to turn around and knee Damien in the nuts when I feel a hand squeeze my ass.

I’m surrounded by barbarians.

And I’m a horrible person for feeling a single flutter in my stomach, because that makes it sound like I secretly like it. Though…I am starting to wonder. I should have run long ago if I really wanted out.

I can’t help but be curious if this is where I truly belong. Surrounded by harmless looking deadly things. And possible freedom from the cult has me reanalyzing my situation minute by minute.

I could actually have a home here instead of staying a nomad and moving every year or two.

So long as the psychotically creepy-romantic vampire alpha doesn’t kill me tonight on our date…that I have to keep in order to spare a bunch of wolves…that could possibly trigger another war…

Awesome.

Aside from that—

“Violet, are you even listening to me?” my dad asks, causing me to blink out of my thoughts.

“Sorry. No.”

He sighs. “I do that too. I guess it’d be hypocritical to be mad at you for that,” he adds. “I’m sorry about just showing up without calling you too. I know it’s unfair.”

“That actually makes me feel a little better. Especially since I have to go somewhere tonight. I feel wrong for just leaving again, but at least I’m giving you a head’s up.”

He nods as he looks away.

“So the town is okay?” he asks.

“I possibly made some new friends last night,” I go on, smiling as I feel a little lighter.

He just smiles back and nods. “I need to get back to that sawing while the sun is out. I haven’t heard a single correct weather prediction since I made it to town.”

“It’s the ghosts,” I tell him, circling my finger in the air.

He nods like it makes all the sense in the world and turns and walks out.

The second the door shuts, Damien appears from across from me with a horrified expression on his face.

“What?” I ask a little defensively.

“What the hell kind of life have you lived? I’m sorry about just dropping into your life after being gone and a total douche codger,” he says, mocking my father’s voice. Then he continues, mocking a girly tone this time, “Oh, it’s okay, because I made friends, Daddy.”

I glare at him.

He shoots me an incredulous look. “Throw something. Yell at him a little. Tell him how you really feel. Have a tantrum. Be—”

“Five?” I supply dryly. “Sorry. I have twenty years of maturity in front of that number. How old did you say you are?”

This time, he’s the one to glare.

I’m the one to shoot him a look. Mine’s more of a smartass look.

“You were grinning like you had new girl-crushes, and he grinned right back at you. It’s disgustingly nice and all the other fake things that give me a headache,” he drones on.

“It’s not fake if it’s sincere,” I point out as I go to pour my own coffee.

Dad swings open the door, and I know Damien has vanished, because Dad doesn’t ask any questions.

“Forgot my tape,” Dad says from behind me before the door shuts behind him on his way out again.

“Puh-lease. Like any of that was sincere. I heard how sad you were that night after you got off the phone with him. Before you forgot all that,” Damien continues, tacking that last part on like he’s expecting me to have forgotten again.

“How much do you watch me?”

“What else am I going to do with my time?” he asks me on an exasperated sigh. “Every time I look away, you’re disappearing for days, killing vampires, or shagging Vance in my bedroom.”

“You weren’t looking away on that last part,” I remind him.

He grins as he waggles his eyebrows. “Certainly not. Your face is far more beautiful when you stop being so serious. Which is surprising, since you already have a very distracting face. The body is just my speed as well.”

“My father is just outside,” I remind him very quietly, as his grin only grows.

“And kinky. Well, I think we have a winner,” he says as he hops off the counter, more mischief than menace in his eyes.

He’s in front of me and behind me, and all around me in the next instant when I see seven of him instead of one.

It also feels like I have seven sets of hands all touching me at once when he pulls me to one of him and leans down in my ear, the weight of the other bodies pressing in, which should be impossible.

His lips ghost mine as the illusion vanishes. It takes a second longer for the phantom touches to also disappear.

My eyes slowly blink open when I feel him backing away, and I make sure I’m steady before I prepare to slap him. Only to stop short and leap practically into his arms when I see something with fur scurry by.

A shriek leaves me, and Damien grabs me at the waist, pulling me to him as his eyebrows bounce up in surprise.

Another shock of black fur catches my eyes, and I shriek again.

The sawing stops abruptly, and Damien tosses me onto the counter before vanishing, just as the door swings open.

I gawk across from me at the black cat on the table who is licking its paw.

“How did a cat get in here? If a cat can get in here, what the hell else is in here?” I shout, looking for Damien, and then remember…my father.

Dad pulls off his hardhat to scratch his head. “Maybe…it came in before I patched the roof. I thought I heard something making meowing sounds last night, but you were acting odd enough that I passed it off as you.”

Damien snorts with humor this time, and I feel him shaking with silent laughter next to me.

Dad turns and frowns at me again as I roll my eyes. “I wasn’t that odd. I was just tired. And I don’t meow. Do I have mice? Are there other rodents besides mice that come inside? Or snakes? What made the feral cat claim this as a hunting ground?”

“I’ll check it out. I’m going to be in and out all day, so don’t stick around on my account. I’ll let you know when I’ve finished up for the day. Maybe I’ll still be up when you get home from whatever it is you have tonight.”

Damien nudges me, but I’m busy watching the cat dart out, relieved it’s gone.

“I have no idea what time it will be,” I say to Dad, grimacing.

Damien starts silently shaking again.

I really miss Anna.

Speaking of which…

I hop off the counter as Dad heads back out. Again. It really feels awkward having him here. In Mom’s house.

The urn is right where I left it, and I pick it up, carrying it upstairs.

“I thought your mother was buried,” Damien calls from just behind me when I reach the inside of my room.

I was hoping he wouldn’t follow.

“This is Anna. I have to put her in a bunch of my salt balls, per her final request. And I’m going to do it at your house, since you’re clearly determined to stalk me today and I don’t want to be in a house a cat can break into,” I go on.

“My house is wrecked, thanks to Vance. Be sure to bring thick-soled shoes.”

I pause, canting my head. “Actually, I know a better place I can go, and maybe even get away from you too,” I say as I stand, my smile forming.

Chapter 12

EMIT

I’m not sure what to think when I come home from my run and smell the telltale scent of Portocale oranges.

I do know that I want to break a jaw when I see Damien sulking at my counter and eating one of the oranges that are spilling out of the large bowl on the counter.

“What the hell?” I ask, seriously confused.

“Violet said half of these are mine, so fuck off. I drove her over here, and got tired of hearing your omegas talk you up hours ago. They didn’t even acknowledge me standing there. I think Violet’s the only one who even noticed I left the damn room when she tossed me a pity conversation-starter that I promptly ignored. I remember when women used to clamber over each other just to be close to me and hope I might spare them a simple glance.”

He releases a long, frustrated sigh, before popping another orange slice into his mouth.

I scrub a hand over my face. “Exactly half. If you try to take one more than that, I’ll cut off your—” I stop talking when I notice the oranges have not even a single bruise on them.

“Despite her current circumstances, she’s not a bitter girl, that Violet,” Damien says like he’s taken notice of where my attention has returned. “Funnily enough, neither are her oranges.”

I toss aside my keys and phone and move to the counter, studying the bowl a little less hungrily and a little more appreciatively.

They’re flawless.

“Maybe that’s why Marta Portocale didn’t tell her daughter the same story that would have made her as bitter as every other Portocale gypsy.”

“Maybe Violet will be the first Portocale gypsy to listen to our side of things,” he surmises.

“Even hearing our side won’t change the truth of what happened,” I remind him very quietly, since it’s clear she must be here, probably in the omega wing, if I had to hazard a guess.

“From what I’ve gathered during the time I could stomach listening to your omegas exaggerate every good thing about you, Violet is going tonight to try to talk Arion into some deal with real peace between you two. It’s cute how she thinks life is simply that simple. The omegas adore her just for trying to give it a shot.”