“She’ll be perfectly safe,” Vance states like he’s defensive on the matter.

“And completely cut off from the rest of us,” Emit growls.

“Well, she’s sure as fuck not staying at the local House of Morpheous or House of Jessup,” Vance says, causing me to groan.

Everyone stops talking at once, and something crackling gathers my attention, seconds before a chill slithers over my skin.

“Easy, sweet gypsy,” Damien murmurs close to my ear as I lift up, slowly blinking my eyes open.

We’re sitting on a couch in the middle of what appears to be a collapsing cabin.

“All these houses are in another neutral ground, which is a ghost-fueled town, right?” I ask, my throat a little dry, but I still manage to not miss much of a beat.

“Yes,” Arion answers, sitting across from me and leisurely raking his eyes over my body, as I lean against Damien’s side.

“Are you okay?” Vance asks from behind me, drawing my attention over my shoulder to see him standing just behind the couch.

His hand runs down my cheek as I give him a quick nod, not wanting to discuss the whole lightning rod thing just yet. Jeez, I forgot how much that sucks.

“I’ll stay in the town hotel. Perfectly neutral,” I finish. Then I rush on to say, “I’m sorry about Fiona.”

Vance’s eyebrows bounce up in surprise. “Violet, it’s not your—”

“Lightning from miles away will find me if I’m not properly quarantined, so don’t say it’s not my fault. I can’t afford to replace your jet, but—”

“Bloody hell, she’s being serious,” Arion cuts in, sounding so damn amused.

Vance’s lips struggle to keep from turning up at the edges.

“I have others,” Vance tells me as he strokes my cheek again. “You can pay me in apples.”

“You named the plane. It was clearly special,” I point out, since they all act like it’s no big deal I just caused us to crash by simply being an ideal conductor.

What if one of them had died for twenty-eight years?

“He names all his vessels. Old habits die hard. You named your steed, so you named your ship,” Damien states very dismissively, casually dragging me onto his lap and holding me to him as he breathes me in.

I essentially lie against him, letting him hold me, since it feels like he needs the reassurance that my pain is gone. A full body breath seems to leave him, all his relief pouring out with it.

“Who’s Fiona?” Arion asks, causing me to glance up at Vance.

Vance looks like he’s about to punch Arion, who’s grinning.

Ohhh…

“Really?” Vance asks Arion a little pointedly.

Arion grins over at me, getting my attention, as he raps his fingers on the arm of the chair. “Vance named all his ships after women who’d made him bother to remember their names.”

I give Vance a lazy look, as he palms his face and mutters some threat of violence under his breath.

“Where are we?” I ask as I look around the one-room cabin that isn’t getting very warm, despite the burning fireplace.

“At the base of Neopry Mountain, debating where you’ll be staying. We’d all finalized these plans in our heads…but not with each other,” Damien answers dryly.

Another chill slithers up my spine.

“Are you searching for Idun?” I ask, causing Arion to snort.

“Hardly,” he tells me with a roll of his eyes. “The last place she’d be is the first place we’d look. She came here first, though. We’re here to see if she left any clues when she was here. She hasn’t been up for too terribly long, so there might be a trail for Vance to pick up on, with any luck.”

“With her weakened state, she’d very likely be somewhat sloppy,” Vance explains like he’s already argued this multiple times. “She’s been under for over a thousand fucking years.”

Emit cuts in, talking over them. “Violet’s been through a plane crash tonight. Let’s get her sorted in a hotel room and return to investigate the Castle de Blanc—”

“Wait, that’s the last Neopry family home, right?” I ask in interruption, finally catching up to everything going on around me. “We’re at the base of the mountain that goes to it?”

“Yes,” Vance says with a wave of his hand. “It’s a good starting point to get an idea of what her next step was. The sooner we catch up, the better, and—”

“Idun is your problem. I just want to see the castle,” I tell him, wincing from the lingering tenderness left behind from hundreds of thousands of volts of electricity that has certainly powered up my heart a few painful notches.

“Violet, you’ve had a trying night—”

“It’s quickly becoming my norm,” I say in interruption to Vance. “And that actually was pretty normal for me, aside from the plane crash. But all the lightning sort of took my mind off the plane crash,” I babble on. “Regardless, I want to see the castle.”

“For fuck’s sake, Violet. You were struck by lightning, survived a plane crash, had hardly anything left to change into after all that, and that’s after learning about something as crucial as your mother possibly being an immortal. Why is it so important to see Idun’s home right now, after what you’ve endured?” Vance argues, a little loudly.

“It’s part of her own family history, dick,” Emit points out, as I grimace for Vance.

I see the immediate fuck-my-stupid-mouth look in the Van Helsing’s eyes, and actually feel almost sorry for him.

“I know it’s easy to forget, but I’ve spent most of my life searching for answers. Now I’m sitting under an entire pile of answers to questions I haven’t even started asking yet,” I explain softly.

Vance clears his throat, looking away as he nods.

“Of course.” One more throat clearing, and he parrots those words again. “Of course.”

“Well,” Arion says as he stands. “There are two ways we can ascend.”

Someone has changed my clothes, likely because mine were burned away from my body. It’s a bad day when you can’t remember the details of a plane crash because you were too distracted by the back-to-back strikes of lightning.

Doesn’t matter.

Right now, nothing else matters. Everything else gets a big freaking pin pushed into it.

I pull on the red coat that managed to escape the crash in pristine condition. Arion arches an eyebrow as if to say he’s finally won this battle, as he finishes helping me into it.

“What are the two ways we can do this?” I ask, looking away from his weirdly playful eyes.

“Really fast, so that it’s over as soon as possible,” Arion says from behind me.

I can hear his grin growing.

“I’m not sure you want to set the precedent as that being a bragging right,” Damien tells him dryly, giving him a pointed look.

I turn to see Arion still grinning at me.

“Aye, she knows I’ll take my time with her when she finally gives in. The double entendre won’t hold, mate,” Arion answers dismissively.

“The two ways?” I cut in, interrupting their shared tangent. “So far I’ve only heard one option, and I’m not sure what it means.”

“The other way is rather slow; however, you’ll have a long time to think about how high up you’re being carried, because the only way to the castle is to go straight up,” Arion carries on, pressing closer to my back.

He moves abruptly and walks out the door, letting more of the cold slither in.

“It sounds like a blizzard out there,” I say as my teeth chatter a little, despite the new, very nice and warm coat.

“Damn thing came out of nowhere,” Damien states conversationally, as he opens the door for me, smiling tightly.

I hesitate, and then grimace. “This blizzard is my fault, isn’t it? It’s probably because of the super charge from the lightning. Sorry.”

He cups my chin, brushing his thumb over my bottom lip. “After just witnessing that helpless torment, I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t apologize for inconsequential details, sweet gypsy. Apologize for not warning me how truly severe that is.”

I blink a few times. “Aside from the plane crash, that one really wasn’t all that bad.”

Emit makes another strange sound before stalking out, as Arion rakes a hand through his hair on his way back in.

Vance mutters a curse before also storming out.

“Why do I feel like everyone is mad at me? What’d I do?” I ask as Damien starts out as well, a series of peculiar sounds slipping through his tight lips.

“Apparently the voltage made me stupid, because I’m not even getting the gist of this tantrum,” I call from behind them, walking out quickly…and then I stumble to an abrupt halt, as my jaw flops open.

The massive mountainside in front of me has me gawking up at a painful angle, but I still can’t see the top, because there’s an ominous ring of fog obstructing the impossibly high view.

“You couldn’t have just gotten me up there while I was unconscious?” I ask incredulously.

“We weren’t planning on including you on this adventure, remember?” Arion points out.

“So you’re plotting at the bottom of the mountain because…?” I let the question trail off and literally tap my foot.

“The cabin was closer,” Damien says like it makes all the sense in the world.

I open and close my mouth a few times, unsure how to even counter that statement.

“I want it over as quickly as possible,” I decide before walking toward a grinning vampire.

His arms open like he expects me to run into them, and Damien snorts.

“Again, not bragging rights, mate,” Damien retorts.

“You beautiful fucking girl,” Arion murmurs against my ear just as I get my arms around his neck, “climb me.”

Rolling my eyes, I pull myself up, and his hands immediately go to my ass the second my legs are around his waist.

“A kiss for the ferry charge,” Arion says as he teases my cheek with the brush of his lips.

“For fuck’s sake, Arion. Don’t make the girl so—”

Emit’s words cut off when I quickly kiss Arion, pressing my lips to his. It catches him so off guard that he doesn’t have time to react, and I’m able to keep the kiss chaste.

“Not everything has to be an argument. Can we go now?” I ask, staring Arion in his dark eyes, as a slow grin curves his lips.

“Impatient, aren’t you?” Before I can formulate an equally smartass remark, he whispers, “Brace yourself, love.”

It’s all the warning I get before gravity is stolen from me. My arms and legs tighten around him, and the feeling of weightlessness settles, as gravity slams back into place.