I mocked Damien for treating her like she was Idun, and I’ve been doing the same damn thing. Which makes zero sense, since I’ve never once confused any damn woman for Idun.

When she gives me her back to start making her sandwich, I exhale and turn to leave, shaking my head at my own damn self.

I hear the sound of her walking out not far behind me, but I can’t pick up my jaw and fix this right now, so I just step into the shadows and simply watch her go up the stairs in her quiet, thoughtful sort of way.

Damien is coming down at the same time, and he pauses in front of her, as she huffs out a sound of exasperation.

I watch the ease and familiarity he uses with her when he brushes his hand over her cheek and kisses the top of her head. The surge of envy is unexpected, and I bite back an unbidden growl.

The hell is wrong with me?

Why are my claws extending?

Why is my wolf trying to surface?

“I may not know why you’re mad at me, but I do know we’ll discuss it when you’re not exhausted,” he tells her like it’s a clear warning, and I see the tired relief on her face.

Damn it, now Damien looks more thoughtful than I do.

Another unexplainable growl gets suppressed.

“It’d be easier to bring up the things that cross severe boundaries if all of you wouldn’t exhaust the reasoning for your actions,” she says as she walks by him, not sounding the least bit angry or argumentative, just ready to be done with this for the night.

Damien scrubs a hand over his face, staring forward.

“I don’t know what that means,” he calls up, finally looking behind him.

I watch—the way Damien watches when no one can see him—and hold my silence, not understanding the enigma who has crashed into our lives and completely bewildered the lot of us.

“Violet, throw me a bone here, since you won’t even tell me why you’re mad. Please,” he says, lying to her about not bothering her with it tonight and dropping back down to my level with that action.

My envy flees when I see he’s no more mature about this than I am.

She stops at the top of the stairs and looks down at him like he’s the true tosser she’s been carting around.

“It means you all spend hours, days, even centuries arguing your own individual points, or explaining your way of thinking, but none of you ever simply come up with a sincere apology. You sure as hell never listen to anyone else’s needs. Tonight, I don’t feel like hearing all the reasons and no apology.”

With that, she ducks out of sight from my angle, but Damien watches for another few seconds…before he groans to himself and drops his head back.

“You stood there and listened to all that,” he gripes, glaring over at my corner as I smirk. “Not fair. Now you have an advantage.”

“Not really. I already dug myself in deeper,” I tell him as he jogs down the stairs.

“I apologized about the Idun thing. It was all over the flowers I sent,” he grumbles as he finishes the stairs. “I didn’t try to reason that away.”

“That probably means this is something she’s positive you will try to reason away.”

“But she said never.”

“She said we never give a sincere apology,” I point out with a shrug. “Maybe all those superficial, thoughtless flowers in the house full of sensitive wolf noses seemed to be less of a sincere apology and more like you were just buying your way out of trouble.”

“What’d you do?” he asks, gesturing toward me. “You look less lethal and guiltier again. Clearly you stalked her and questioned her, breaking Vance’s house rules for the night.”

With his hands on his hips and the glare in his eyes, I almost feel like Damien is the one chastising me right now, and it’s fucking with my head.

“I was about to deliver a very sincere apology, sort of, for the wrong thing, it seems. Now I just feel like a jackass. And it’s your fault,” I explain.

He snatches Vance’s best scotch right off the top shelf, and waves it in the air over his head.

“We’re drinking on Vance’s silver dollar tonight,” he grumbles as he walks out. “Just to piss him off.”

Vance gets the girl all to himself, and we get his liquor.

“I don’t think he’ll miss the fucking scotch,” I say on a frustrated exhale.

CHAPTER 6

VIOLET

Vance is lowering a bow as a deer falls, taking the shot so quickly that I missed him even loading his arrow.

Arion drops down from a tree, but he looks…a lot different. In fact, they both look really different. A lot more hair and beards, for one. The clothing choice is confusing me as well.

There’s a large gathering of people off to the side, as Vance quickly heaves the deer over his shoulders and carries it toward the silent grouping.

“All clear,” Arion calls out, and whistles emerge, as people quickly start setting things up.

“Fresh kill on the menu doesn’t seem like a bad way to start the day,” Arion says with a broad grin, as Vance preens with cocky assurance, tossing down the massive deer just outside the forest.

Their clothing is…very Victorian era—on the cheap side.

“I crafted five swords this week. Pure, unrelenting silver,” Vance tells Arion.

“That’s a lot of progress,” Arion says as he eyes the blood on the deer.

“You want the heart?” Vance asks him as he stabs his blade into the chest.

I almost vomit.

What the hell is going—

“The hearts aren’t working so well anymore,” Arion says idly, as he steps to the side, eyes lifting to a woman who is massaging the side of her throat.

He’s not staring at her cleavage or the hint of midriff she’s showing off with her less-than-conservative skirt and partial shirt.

It doesn’t matter what she’s wearing, really, since Arion is staring very directly at her throat.

“The hearts will have to do,” Vance says like he’s warning him; however…it feels like a loosely translated foreign film where the words don’t match up with the movement of the lips.

“I’m a growing boy, Vancetto. I think it’s time we acknowledge that, or we stop bringing along the humans who keep joining our pedaling market,” Arion tells him. “Or I get my home back and have a reason to settle for the blood of dead animal hearts.”

Arion reaches up, massaging his gums like they’re hurting. I’m still trying to figure out what the hell is going on, when a flock of people come in on foot, following a man with a torch.

I tense, worried this is where the pitchforks-and-torches metaphor began. Suddenly, the people quickly scatter, searching through the outdoor vendor stands I’m finally noticing. It’s definitely not a bad thing that people are pouring in, because there’s excitement instead of fear.

It’s like the view just keeps widening, spreading around me, pouring in new, more confusing sights.

Everything from clothing, to weapons, to weird and slightly beautiful food selections.

Potions, charms, and trinkets are hanging at the edges of every stand, as if this is a gypsy flea market or something.

In a language like I’ve never heard, one woman seems to be timidly arguing with another, distracting me.

She’s tall, wafer-thin, and her jaw is fierce. I would so make friends with her, because she looks like she could be a formidable enemy if you’re not friends with her.

I have no idea what they’re saying, because the language is foreign. But from the exchange, I’d say the small, plumper girl behind the temporary table is conning the woman into believing a love potion works.

And she’s winning. I think the tall woman is buying enough to start her own harem.

As if I have a right to judge at this point.

My eyes dart back over, and I see Arion grudgingly taking the heart from Vance, as they stay partially hidden in a small recess behind a grouping of rocks at the bottom of a mountainside. I’m frozen to this spot, like I’m seeing it all and confused by just as much, idly noticing the grinning tall girl as she lumbers by me, heading into a covered wagon off to the side.

“Caroline,” a man calls, and she pokes her head back out.

The rest of his words are said in a language I can’t understand, and his voice is raw and jagged, scratching up the notes as he speaks.

My gaze shifts again, just in time to hear the thundering of horses. Screams erupt, and Arion leaps flat-footed from the ground, bounding over the short partition of the natural rock wall, and landing on the other side in a crouch.

Vance swings his arm out, sword raised, as a man stops the raid with a flat hand in the air.

I can’t understand what he shouts at Vance, but I don’t miss the rusty sword he stabs into the ground at Vance’s feet. Vance frowns in obvious confusion, and words form again, not matching the movement of his lips.

“What is this?” Vance asks him.

No idea what the other dude says.

“That’s impossible,” Vance is arguing, the words forming despite the different language he’s clearly speaking, giving me a migraine from trying to figure out what the actual hell is going on.

A ripple of men all drop their swords to the ground, forming a rusty heap, and their glare deepens as the leader snaps something.

Vance takes a step forward, anger etching his features, as he shouts at them. “It wasn’t trickery! I wasn’t—”

Arrows whistle in the wind, seconds before Vance’s body is struck from what seems like twenty angles. Five hit his heart. I gag when I see the ones jutting from his face.

He drops to his knees as Arion lunges, but he’s batted down with another round of precisely aimed arrows from seemingly invisible archers I can’t even turn my head to locate.

It’s like a dream within a dream inside a dream.

I’m starting to figure out this helpless sort of feeling now, because my dreams suck balls. I’m always useless in my dreams.

Vance shouts something, forcing himself to his feet, not nearly as fast or sturdy as I know him to be.

The man who commanded the archers looks slightly horrified that Vance is still standing, and Vance snarls at him just before another barrage of arrows sail from the sky.

“Take out those fucking archers,” Vance shouts as he’s pelted by hailing arrows once more, barely grabbing a shield in an attempt to block his neck from being hit too many more times, swaying on his feet as he loses more and more blood.

He slings his sword, slicing through three necks and severing three heads, arrows jamming out of his body in a multitude of directions, as he practically roars with rage.

That’s when the ground starts vibrating, and howls ignite the air. The horses start to stir, making a collective, restless, high-pitched whinnying, as they try to flee on instinct, but keep getting pulled back by the tight reins.

The traveling gypsy market has already turned into a ghost town, as though everyone knows the drill when shit gets bad.