A round of cheers has my eyes swinging up, finding a crowd of fifty or more…wolves.

The sting of betrayal never burns any less, no matter how many centuries dwindle on.

My eyes adjust to the dim lighting inside the large barn. The mobs never get more creative. They form, they stage a coup, they kill, and I come back to kill only the ones I must.

“This almost went south, but tonight, we stepped up and we did what had to be done. We cut the loose ends like he’s failed to do. We cleaned up the mess like good alphas should. And we’ll take our packs like the alphas we’re meant to be, and deal with the fucking vampires the way wolves were intended to do.”

I laugh under my breath, drawing Ian’s attention as the restraints on my arms and legs hold me in place to…something. My head is still a slight fog after the clocking I took.

I was on the phone with Damien…wasn’t I? Now I’m here with a mutinous bunch of traitors.

My life on a cycle.

My head falls back as Ian glares over me with far more contempt than I deserve from him, of all people. I’ve practically raised him.

Sheltered him.

“You think this is funny?” he asks as the rest of the room goes quiet. “Was it funny when Arion came in and tore apart all your wolves? Was it funny when you let him off with a slap on the wrist?”

I shrug a shoulder. “Get the taste of blood you want, Ian. Kill me and enjoy it for the next twenty-eight years while I take a little break during full reincarnation. Then, on my twenty-eighth birthday, I’ll return and kill you as I’ve killed every other beta before you for doing this exact same—”

“We’re not killing you, alpha,” he says, spitting that word out like I’m the disgrace to it.

I’ve only ever wronged one pack.

I take in the fact that I’m clamped inside what appears to be a silver coffin. It burns when I move just a little and a hint of skin slips off the rubber mat I’m strapped to, so there’s definitely a lot of pure silver in it.

“Not the first time someone has buried me. You going to bury Vance too? Before he finds me?”

Ian continues to smirk. “I know how to trick a Van Helsing.”

“You went in a long loop?” I muse, wondering just how many people know that trick.

He nods like he’s a smug genius, and I look away.

It’s going to be a painful day or so of suffocating, so that helps me resist the urge to feel sorry for him for simply being an idiot.

He pulls out a knife, and I give it a bored look.

“I really hoped you’d be more crushed. Maybe feel the way we did when our friends were slaughtered at the hands of that psychotic son of a bitch who kicked your pathetic ass. I hoped this would disgust you just as much as it disgusted us to hear you stand before us and tell us no farther retaliation will be taken toward him, after you’d attended his homecoming party,” he goes on, his jaw ticking.

“Live for over a thousand years, and tell me you still feel that burning anger every time someone lets you down, pup,” I say with a bitter smile.

He just stares at me like he’s disappointed, and I bite back the defense of Arion, even though the words are on my tongue. I’ll never publicly defend him.

I was careless, and he overstepped. We were both at fault, but he was far more at fault than I.

“He suffered,” is all I say to defend myself.

“He can never suffer enough,” Ian growls.

“Vance should have killed them when I failed to. Arion overstepped. You’re making this personal, just like I did when I decided his sentence. The difference is, I know when someone’s been punished enough.”

“You don’t get to decide that for us,” Ian grinds out.

I stare at him for a long minute as the other wolves, sensing my ire, slink back a few steps, no longer as brave as they were before.

“You willingly turned over that sort of control the day you signed over your loyalty for the chance at eternal life. Yes, Ian, I do get to decide that for you, and I will. Sooner than you’d probably like.”

Just the hint of fear shines in his eyes before he steels them. “We made this world at any cost. We’ll ensure civilization does not collapse around our wars,” I go on.

“War gets paused until we find a work around. It’s a stalemate. A draw. Not over. I know the speech,” he bites out. “But you won’t give us that—”

The scent of sweet Portocale blood hits my nose, and the iron cracks around my wrists, causing silver to burn much worse. The sound of my skin sizzling hits the air as I growl at Ian, causing his words to cease.

Everyone turns as Violet is dragged toward me, and my stomach churns when I see her throat slit open and her skin paling. She’s bled out for so long that she’s not even dripping blood anymore.

My fangs snap when my body tries to shift, denied the right by the silver sizzling into me the more I struggle.

Ian’s gaze returns to mine. “It’s more upsetting when it’s personal, isn’t it? I spared you the sight of watching it done and being able to do nothing about it. I’m not heartless,” he says with a cruel smile, as my jaw tightens. “When Arion comes for us, we’ll be ready. Even if he could break the loop, the Van Helsing won’t find you, because he’ll be too busy getting buried as well.”

I shove hard, causing the iron to creak more, and he darts a look over his shoulder as I growl with the effort I put into the next push. The silver burns so much that I finally have to stop, unable to get past that next barrier of pain.

“Remember that you made this personal. It was just life before, Ian,” I say in a very calm tone.

“It was already personal,” he assures me.

My eyes flick to his. “‘Sick and searching is the man who cries for blood on the backs of the fallen he never really knew. He’s a soul in need of bloodshed, and soulless are those who follow with righteous damnation on their tongues.’ I knew a pastor once who told me that when I came to him for guidance, back before I was ever a monster,” I say as I’m fully lowered, the casket jolting and causing the edges of my skin to sizzle until I wiggle back onto the mat.

My breath is knocked out of me when Violet is rolled in on top of me, her lifeless body slamming into mine as dead weight. Ian actually smiles down at me.

I swallow against the lump in my throat, forcing my expression to stay neutral.

“What would that pastor tell you to do right now?” Ian asks with a smirk.

My lips twitch, even as my jaw grinds, feeling the tickle of Violet’s thin blood as it barely drips on my neck. She’s bleeding again now that her open throat has been tilted at a new angle.

“Right now, I’m just hoping that fallen pastor doesn’t rip out your spine before I can. I can assure you it’ll be whoever gets their hands on you first. I won’t fault him for your life.”

His smirk slips and he steps back. I lose sight of him when the lid to my casket is dropped abruptly. It’s aligned, sealing out the light, causing my night vision to kick in.

The sound of zipping tools assaults my ears as the vibrations jostle me, causing painful shocks of silver to slash against my skin as they bolt me in.

What has me confused is why the hell I’m not writhing in pain already. I’m always wide awake when the first strike of the Portocale curse hits me. I’m almost always hit first, unless the Portocale is killed during one of the specific times that make one of the others go first.

I nudge her head when the jostling stops, and I feel us being lowered. There’s no way she can be alive.

More of what I assume is blood tickles me, but it almost feels like fabric pulling between my chest and her neck, growing noticeably more insistent.

Still, nothing.

“Violet,” I murmur, feeling stupid for doing so when I nudge her head with mine again, the absence of the Portocale curse’s pain giving me a false hope.

The telltale sound of a truck backing up and the stiff scent of cement lets me know Vance is going to have to dig extra hard, and I’ll suffocate for even longer.

I can hear the sound of laughter just before the roaring of the cement trucks crank into gear, getting prepared. All of it combined stops me from hearing clearly, because I swear I hear the faintest heartbeat that I wouldn’t be able to hear if not for my stronger senses.

Violet suddenly makes a pained sound, and her heartbeat becomes easier to hear, steadily thrumming as she freezes on top of me, moving one hand up my side.

I’m half horrified and half relieved when her head moves over mine, and wide, really fucking creepy pale eyes stare into mine.

She squints like she’s trying to see in the dark. She clumsily moves a hand over my face when she’s unable to, as though she’s trying to identify me by touch.

I’m completely fucking motionless, too confounded to even react, when a second hand joins her search. Her hands move to my hair, and she sucks in a sharp breath.

“No,” she says on a pained rasp. “No, Emit! No,” she says as she bends quickly.

I stop breathing when she presses her ear to my chest, listening for my heartbeat, presumably.

“Emit?” she asks, her voice getting a little shaky as she starts darting her gaze around and curses when she hits her head above us.

“Emit, wake up,” she shouts.

Just as I open my mouth and struggle for what the hell to actually start saying at this particularly…fucked-from-every-angle moment, she shouts at me again.

“Emit!” Then she hiccups out a scared sound before she slaps me hard across the face, enough to jar my entire head to the side and force a surprised grunt out of me.

She’s nowhere nearly strong enough for that smack.

“How the fuck can you hit that hard, and what the actual hell are—”

“Where are we?” she asks on a shaky sound, moving her hands around the top of the casket that keeps her pressed on top of me, giving her only a few inches to push off.

It’s wide, full of pure silver panels for the strongest burn, weakening me every time I move just wrong. She tries to climb off me on those sides, certainly not burning. But not even one of my wolves could have survived a throat slit that deeply.

I’m not imagining that.

“We’re…currently being buried. Is that a problem? Are you a vampire somehow? Does your blood mask the scent? How? I know you’re a Portocale gypsy—”

“Emit, I can’t be here. I can’t,” she says, her voice shaking more as she starts shoving back, crying out a little when she hits the top too hard.

“Hey,” I say quickly and soothingly, lifting my hips and forcing her to slide forward, putting her over my face as she shakes all over.

“Vance is going to be here real damn soon. Okay? Can you suffocate?” I ask, ready to start narrowing down any of the gypsy freak mutations she could also be. If, by some miracle, I’m not just already hallucinating during the suffocation process.