“But Arion is right, which is hard for me to say. We’re being too lax with her, thinking our name strikes more fear than it does in this era,” I go on, keeping this casual.

“Your wolves don’t know how to properly fear, and I’ve been underground for a fucking century, which debunks a lot of my motherfucking fear factor!” Arion snaps, his calm edge now gone.

“I have three missing,” I say, sniffing the air, smelling their trail. “I’m assuming they’re headed back to town.”

Ian is the only one who will talk, and I already have his trail scented toward the east, moving away from town. He’s running. He knows he’s fucked, and he’s terrified, because I can smell his fear from here.

“Who?” Vance asks on a growl. “I just need a name or face to hunt.”

“You don’t get to touch them,” I caution.

“Now’s not the time for—”

“They’re still my wolves,” I say on a low growl. “No one touches them until I say so.”

Vance exhales harshly. “The punishment better be fitting of the crime,” is all he says before Damien is back on the line.

“Call when you have Violet close to home,” he says like he’s the only one left with any faux calmness.

“Send my omegas to my house. You’ll probably have to look really hard if they were attacked along with her.”

“You really think now is the time for—”

“I had to let the wolf take full control tonight. It was the only way to get us out, because they tried burying us alive. She would have suffocated,” I start, knowing Violet will be stalked and hunted by wolves who feel she’s a threat if I don’t get my packs sorted first.

“Did you hurt Violet?” Vance asks quickly, back on the line.

“By some miracle, no,” I answer quietly, my eyes back on the girl who left an entire room in bloody ruins in less than five minutes. “I’ll call you back when I know where I am. The first two wolves won’t be hard to find. I’m sure there’s fresh blood on them, but remember to keep them alive. Happy hunting, Van Helsing.”

I have no idea how they’re going to react to this new information, so I decide it’s best to keep it to myself. For now. At least until I’ve convinced myself of what’s going on before I start convincing them.

Looking back at the carnage, it’s possible my wolf—fully unleashed—could do just as much damage…if it had more time than she did.

“Anna was wrong. Buffy would so not kick your ass,” I hear a girl saying, and I glance over to see the triplet ghosts and one male.

I snarl at them, stepping closer, needing them to forget what they saw as I clutch the phone in my hand.

They all take a wary step back from her.

“If anyone learns of this, you’ll all be tortured piles of salt by the time I’m finished with you. Understand?”

The guy smirks like he’s won a prize before he disappears. The triplets give a quick nod and also vanish.

Violet is still unresponsive, talking on autopilot, muttering things her mother told her to never do.

I lean over and lift her up from the ground.

Her arms limply and reflexively move to my neck again, and her wet, blood-matted hair drops to my shoulder.

“The omegas will get you cleaned up,” I say softly. “And then you’re staying with me.”

I start carrying her into the woods, following the scent of the one runner I worry will speak. The other two will die in silence and fear.

“Then you can tell me how you’re even possible, when I can’t mistake the scent of Portocale blood,” I say to the paradox who goes completely limp in my arms.

Chapter 26

DAMIEN

“How is she?” Arion asks over the phone, as I lie on my bed next to her, taking in every feature as she sleeps.

“She’s still sleeping,” I say as I stare down at the halo of dark hair swirled on my pillow. “The omegas finished cleaning her up, and we’re all at my house. Emit says he’s collecting her when he returns.”

Her neck has a small red mark on it, like she was strangled or something, but the mark is fading really fast for such a fragile girl. Her fragility has become a joke at this point.

“She may not ever be right again if she saw this happening with her own eyes,” Arion states very quietly.

“That bad?” I muse, hating him more than ever right now.

“I’m finding it hard to believe Emit stepped up and did this—it smells like something I’d leave behind. And I can only get so close because Vance is making me stay downwind of the wolves he has assembling. I can’t help but wonder if it looks anything like the picture the stench of blood is painting.”

My phone chimes, and I look down. I’m too old to be disturbed by anything, but I’m also wiser. If I’m right, this is only the beginning of what is sure to be a brand new, horrible era of Idun.

I almost snarl at the girl I once obsessed over.

“How did you manage to do this?” I ask quietly as I stare down at the enigma.

She’s too good of an actress if this has all been a play. Idun’s not a patient woman, so it figures she slipped and tried to get me first, expecting one mind-blowing night of pure, unadulterated, exhausting pleasure would get me right on board like the good puppy she always wanted me to be.

It’d be considered crafty, if I was still young and stupid. It’s nothing more than insulting when I’m not.

Arion says nothing for several long minutes, and I half wonder if he’s even still on the line.

“Shera is on her way to take over,” he notifies me.

“I’m not leaving,” I counter, moving over on the bed when Violet makes a soft whimper.

Unconsciously, she moves into my touch when I push her still damp hair out of her face. They spent a lot of time cleaning off the blood and cement. I’m going to be here to ask her questions when she wakes and find out exactly what’s going on.

“The missing wolves have been rounded up, and I’m not privy to their current location. Emit just keeps bloody staring at the doors that conceal crime scene like he’s either feeling guilt or just thinking. Out of the two, which sounds more like Emit?” he asks very quietly.

“His wolves have gotten vicious,” I say like I’m playing along with him. “One could blame you for this.”

I leave that vague remark in there. Emit was triggered by dear sweet Violet. Shocker. Now he’s tearing apart wolves like never before.

“Or you could blame him for letting them get so out of—”

“Would you two shut the fuck up?” Emit snaps.

Violet—as I decide to continue calling her before cementing my decision—mutters something I miss, as she turns over in the bed and begins to snore softly.

Lemon pops her head inside the room, opening the door up just a crack.

“There’s a vampire bitch here. I’d kick her ass, but my instincts make me a runner, not a fighter,” she states very seriously.

“Where are we meeting?” I ask Arion, even though I don’t want to be pulled away at this moment. “They won’t stick me underground,” I add as I grab the gun loaded with silver bullets from my bedside.

Lemon whimpers and scurries off when she sniffs the silver in the air.

“We’re in agreement?” Arion asks in an almost muted tone.

“Why wouldn’t we be?” I ask as I hang up.

Lemon frowns when I dump the loaded clip and put in an empty one.

“It’s just for show,” I tell her with a wink as I glance back down at Violet. “It’s a gamble, but I’m guessing I’m not wrong about this.”

“About what?” she asks as I walk by her.

“History always finds a way to repeat itself, even when she’s fucking buried and as dead as she can be,” I say so quietly I know she can’t hear the words.

Chapter 27

VIOLET

I hear a door shutting, and my eyes fly open.

Ingrid pops out from under a table across the room, pushing half her hair out of her face as she slowly approaches me with a drink in her hand.

I give her a weak smile. “I don’t think drinking is a good idea.”

She nods as she starts drinking the drink. “This is for me,” she informs me, causing me to try to laugh, but I end up whimpering in pain instead.

It always feels like I’ve been hit with—

“Emit,” I whisper as I close my eyes tightly. I killed his wolves. Right in front of him.

“He’s okay. He made us clean you up. We thought they slit your throat, but it was just a red mark when we found you. One of the glass balls in your bra blew up a bunch of mirrors downstairs when we were playing with it. Can you tell Damien it was you? He won’t be mad at you,” Ingrid says in her very quiet, hushed tone.

“Where is he?”

“He left. Arion’s top vampire is here, and she’s—”

“Shera?” I ask on a grimace, remembering what I did to her just recently.

She nods. “All the others are hiding like I do right now. She’s terrifying.”

“Yes,” I agree as I sit up, wincing when my throat burns, “she really is.”

Considering my luck with wolf betas, I decide not to hang out with the vampire beta I’ve actually pissed off. I never did anything to the two betas who grabbed me, or the third who came out of nowhere and battered me over the head.

I’m not even sure who slit my throat.

Those betas were wolves. At least one of them was. And all the people in that barn were…wolves too…I think.

It’s a bunch of incoherent snippets and flashes of memory after the latest throat-slitting incident.

My hands comes up to my throat, feeling the skin completely sealed and the lacing absent. How much did Emit see? Thank fuck he stayed out of sight.

“Where are you going?” she asks when I wobble to my feet, still exhausted from my panic attack—as I like to call it when I break out and turn into a lethal, crazed, unstoppable monster.

“To find Emit,” I say when my shaky legs threaten to give out.

“He’s dealing with the…mess he made,” Leiza says as she comes through the window, startling me. “Shera is downstairs!” she adds on a hiss, a little growl lingering in the back of her throat.

The mess he made?

I don’t say anything as I try to recall what happened after the mess I made.

My hands shake a little as I go to look out the window at the long drop.

“I can make a rope with sheets,” Ingrid suggests.

The telltale whirring of threads finds the air as the drapes begin unraveling.

“Or you could do it that way,” Leiza says with a shrug as the threads start wrapping around my waist and then tie off to the massive bed post.

I turn and climb out the window, as Leiza leaps out over my head.