Still clinging to the vampire, who is seizing the opportunity to run his hands over my bare ass—

Oh, dear lord have mercy on my fractured mind. I forgot I lost my panties as well, thanks to…one of them…during that really heated moment.

Someone call the psych ward. I’m overdue.

My mental tangent cuts out when I gasp, seeing Blue fully lit up by the bright flashlight, as Vance scratches the dog’s head like it’s a pet.

Arion kissing along the side of my neck only mildly distracts me from the really, truly, disturbing dog in front of me.

It looks like a Bloodhound and a Doberman had a baby. Then that baby got with a Rottweiler/Greyhound mix, and those two had a baby with some patchy fur, horribly yellow-eyed thing with massive teeth and enough height to keep Vance from having to bend over, as he scratches the dog’s chin.

“Holy massive scary dog,” I say on a gasp.

That dog isn’t far from being eye-level with me. At five-feet-nine-freaking-inches. And that’s with all four paws on the ground.

“It’s a horse. Not a dog,” I hiss.

“Very much canine,” Vance assures me. “Gets mean when he’s spooked. This is Bobo’s dog.”

“The dog is immortal?” I ask in disbelief.

“Freaky things happen when gypsy magic fuses with blood magic,” Vance says with a shrug, just as Arion’s touch grows more aggressive.

Mostly naked and only covered in the coat he bought me as I cling to him is sending all the wrong signals, and I feel like a bitch for that. It’d be easier if I feared him like I should. Being only slightly hesitant around him isn’t working as effectively as it once did.

“Let me stay with you tonight,” he whispers, causing Damien and Vance to both glance our way for the first time since the pet’s emergence.

Blue walks into Vance when Vance stops petting him, bumping him hard enough to prompt a new petting session. I guess it’s starved for attention after this long being up here all alone.

“I’ll let you lead. I won’t push too fast. You’re mostly naked and I’m mostly behaving,” Arion goes on, grinning near my ear. “Just let me stay tonight, and you can ask whatever you want. I’ll answer.”

He had to go and make it really damn tempting. I have so many questions only he can answer, and the longer he touches me, the more complicated it makes spending a night alone with him, even if he is as good as he promises to be.

“I’m the sexual deviant, Violet. Not Arion,” Damien mutters like he’s annoyed to have to say something encouraging.

I feel Arion’s grin growing.

“No feeding from her without supervision,” Vance says very pointedly to Arion.

“Yes, father,” Arion says, smirking as he leans back, feeling really relaxed against me.

“I mean it, Arion, don’t—”

We’re gone before Vance’s sentence can be finished, and I screw my eyes shut, as the vampire takes me away from all my safety nets, in a country I’ve never visited, to a place we never discussed.

This is why giving a little is always giving too much with Arion.

The problem is, I never actually agreed to this.

They just decided it for me.

CHAPTER 18

DAMIEN

“He’s not answering his phone,” I growl as I shove my phone in my pocket. “Violet’s phone was ruined in the plane wreckage.”

Vance picks up a piece of threading from Violet’s clothing.

“He’s not looping. He’s heading straight into town,” he says as he opens his eyes, exhaling in premature relief.

“He could be smart enough to make you think all’s well, knowing you’ll only hunt them if he’s doing any suspicious looping,” I reasonably argue.

“You’re the one who talked her into agreeing. I don’t even know if she actually fucking agreed, or if we just agreed for her—now that I think about it,” Vance gripes, as he huffs and runs a hand through his hair.

I pause, running the scene back through my mind, and let my head fall back as my lips tense.

“She didn’t ever agree,” I say on a long groan. “Why is it impossible for us to stop fucking up the first good thing to happen to us in bloody ages?” I ask very seriously.

“He’s not hiding, and her mind is still open to letting me find her, so she’s okay. She’d be hiding herself from me if she wasn’t,” Vance states like an absolute imbecile.

“You’re off your rocker. Where the hell is she? If she’s opening her mind, it must already be bad. What the fuck have we done?”

“Calm down, you drama queen,” Vance states as he exhales harshly. “Violet leaves her mind open now, letting me find her. But when she was jumping from the castle and yelling for Arion, I reached, and the connection was severed.”

“What?” I ask, confused.

“When she’s scared and thinks danger is lurking, she cuts me out to protect me.”

“She thinks you weak?” I ask, wondering if it’s a holiday or something, given the two-for-one bonus with Emit being considered feminine.

“She thinks to protect us. Even fucking Arion. Presumably, that’s why she called for him after she was certain Blue wasn’t following and she leapt out of a window.”

Blue scratches his hideous, saggy neck, as if he’s happy he heard his name and is getting frisky about that itch.

“Why’d she call for him at all?” I decide to ask, since Vance clearly learned a lot about her in that two-day stint he hoarded her like the selfish bastard he is.

“Violet leapt out a window on top of a mountainside and was plummeting very damn fast,” he says, simply staring at me like I’m the rusty tool in the shed that gets kicked out of the way for a reason.

“But why did she call for Arion, tosser? That was my question.”

“She wanted it over as fast as possible,” Vance states like it should have been a rhetorical point. “She literally said so herself.”

I can’t believe I’m the only one being asked to play nice with this lot, and I sent her off with Arion like I had some divine right. I’m never going to be out of trouble.

“She had something important to tell me. I think I was fucking out of trouble, and I never even got to hear it before I’m back in trouble.”

His lips twitch with wry amusement as he looks away.

“She turned over her wrist because she wanted the suspicion over as quickly as possible too,” he says like he’s so bloody insightful, petting that disgusting thing once again.

I want to kick him in the bollocks just to make him cry, but I don’t think Blue would like me too much afterwards, since he’s apparently Vance’s new pet.

Damn dog is starved for affection. Makes sense. I’ve been a thousand years without much of it too, and I’m just as starved.

A sobering thought hits me, and the jealousy flits away like thin shards of glass, as the true reality of it all finally crashes down on me.

“How did Violet know which room was Caroline’s? Nothing in this place has remained intact enough to show ownership, aside from Idun’s many things,” I state quietly. “I’m positive she was Violet. There are some things that simply can’t be faked, because no one even knows all the ways Violet does things differently, including Violet.”

“Violet hints at secrets, wanting you to tell her the answers to questions she’s not sure if she should ask,” Vance answers, lips thinning. “She keeps her questions limited to related topics, in most cases. On occasion, she’ll swing a random question your way, and you’ll wonder why she even asked. It’s not the question to pay attention to. It’s the answer. Only Violet knows the real question in those cases.”

“Something specific on your mind, Van Helsing?” I ask as we move through the woods at a slow pace, smelling Emit in the far distance.

Just a little blood tinges the air, as can be expected amongst alpha wolves in the same areas, so we take our time as we press on.

“She asked about the first time Arion fed. She knew which room was Caroline’s. She never once mentioned the portraits of Idun. She flew out a window instead of fainting because we were near, and she trusted Arion could catch her. She’s a contradiction, because she’s figuring out the answers on her own without the deliberate questioning, all because we never gave her the answers she sought when she tried asking directly. She changes and adapts so quickly to her surroundings that it’s jarring by the time you catch on. I have a lot of specifics on my mind. Pick one, Damien,” he answers like he’s getting annoyed with me.

Lately, I sincerely find myself fantasizing about punching his face more than I ever have in these many long centuries.

“Why’d she ask about the first time Arion fed?”

“She had a dream,” he answers absently. “I filled in the blanks as to why she was curious, not listening to her, and she went with it because it saved her the trouble of telling me something that would likely be a vague truth.”

“Now you’re going to make me revisit every single conversation I’ve bloody had with her, and I’m already in enough trouble. I don’t want to know if I’m in even more trouble,” I say too loudly.

Arrows stab the ground in front of our feet, and we both cut an exhausted look in the direction of the wolves moving this way—some on two legs, some on four.

Emit’s naked as he lowers his bow, streaking toward us with a cocky grin on his face. That grin falls when he sniffs the air a little harder, and his eyes narrow.

“Where’s Violet?” he asks.

I toss a thumb in Vance’s direction. “He told Arion he could take her without even asking Violet’s opinion on the matter.”

Vance glares over at me. “That’s not—”

“It’s true enough. Maybe Violet will roll with it,” I say with a fantastically enthused smile, loving my new plan.

Fake it until I make it.

Vance rolls his eyes, muttering something about me being dumber than a wolf, which causes the dumb mutts to all growl.

I just grin more.

“Probably best not to insult wolves in wolf territory,” Emit says with a dark grin. “It’s also probably best Arion’s not here—”

Growls break out all around in agreement.

Emit continues on. “We have a lot to discuss with the regional alphas, unfortunately. The threat is too close—”

“Fully intended to,” Vance cuts in. “But first I need to lay eyes on the burial ground and see if I can pick up any trail from there. She circled back and likely did a series of loops from one location to the next and back again, so I wouldn’t know which direction was the last she took.”

“Gee, I wonder why we overthink everything,” Damien states dryly.

“Who?” Gerald asks from the back as he shifts back to his two-legged, slightly less hairy form.