I swallow a grape harder than necessary.

“Right,” I say, trying to keep this from being awkward.

Emit’s treating this weird breakfast as though it’s already perfectly normal, while he starts eating the mound of food he’s piled on his plate. At least I’m clear on the casual boundaries this time—sex between two new friends. Not a relationship.

And I’m weirdly okay and even sort of relaxed with that idea. My confidence needed this boost, not that I’ll say that aloud.

My oranges were starting to droop; that’s not a euphemism.

“Empathic Portocales is par for the course, really. I’m not sure why we didn’t suspect it sooner,” Damien says like he’s carrying on a dropped conversation with Vance.

“Their oranges turn bitter, and we’re surprised she can sense our tone and emotion so easily?” Emit chimes in, clearly in on this conversation as well.

I don’t really know what they’re talking about. Half the time I don’t even know how I feel, let alone how someone else feels. I think they’re overreaching on this one.

Vance gives Emit a bit of a glare.

“What now?” I ask, intrigued.

“She’s not very empathic at the moment, or she wouldn’t be ignoring me,” Damien says in a very annoyed tone.

I finish making my plate, eyes on Vance and Emit, as Vance pours me some water and puts it in front of the seat between him and Emit. I guess that’s where I’m expected to sit…

Just a little weird, but it’s not as awkward as I worried it would be.

“Could you two have the dignity not to talk about her in front of her?” Vance asks, passing me the syrup before I even have to ask.

I eye him, the syrup, and glance back at the breakfast spread, before shaking my head and carrying on with my task.

“We often overanalyze every detail, and sometimes we don’t pay attention at all,” Emit answers me, drawing a confused expression from Vance. “You really are going to be here with Damien,” he adds.

I shrug a shoulder as I eat.

Damien makes a frustrated sound. “This is juvenile,” he says from behind me.

“You ignored her,” Vance points out.

“You mostly did too,” Damien rushes to say.

“I wasn’t cold about it,” Vance goes on. “And my reasons now seem null and void.”

I narrow my eyes on my breakfast…and keep eating.

“Could you have the dignity not to argue about her in front of her?” Emit drawls mockingly, smirking, even as he chews his next bite of food.

Vance tilts back one corner of the paper just to give him a go-to-hell look.

“Maybe she’s onto something with treating you like you treat people. It seems to irritate you more,” Emit goes on, apparently discussing me again.

I just eat my breakfast, finding it funny that I was the one called juvenile.

“Clearly, none of us are going to have dignity this morning,” Damien cuts in, getting his own jab into the condescension party.

This goes on for another…fifteen-ish minutes or so.

I stand up and empty out my plate, as Damien takes my vacated seat, and their argument escalates.

“You’re only out in front for one reason, and we both know why,” Damien says to Emit, only farther annoying me.

“Because I’m not an incurable ass,” Emit is saying, as I go upstairs to the room where all my things were put.

Damien actually starts in about a sharing compromise to play along with Arion’s agenda, still discussing me in front of me. I roll my eyes. My life these days…

They’re men when they’re on their own. They’re dramatic, scheming, and competitive teenage boys when they’re all together.

I shower and take my time getting dressed, still hearing them arguing and a faint sound of something crashing. That draws a tired breath from my lungs.

I’d blame myself, but they look for reasons to argue, so I decide I’m just the newest thing to argue about.

It isn’t until I’m finished changing and walking back down the stairs with a towel over my arm that they all stop arguing at once…and look at me. It’s almost done in eerie unison too.

Damien really looks at me, to the point he turns all the way around in his seat. Emit smirks as he slowly stands.

Vance lets his eyes linger on mine for a second when I look at him, but he quickly looks back at his paper. Emit surrounds me suddenly, backing me up and caging me in against the wall, blocking out the rest of the room. I’m happy to give him my full attention.

I just wish I didn’t smile like a dopey idiot when he does that smoldering-barbarian thing where I feel like I’m about to be thrown over his shoulder. Again.

I want to be carried to the broken bed.

He looks at me differently than they do. He looks at me like I’m the rarest find, and it’s the sort of look that gets you down to the toes.

I grin wider…like an even bigger idiot; the way I did most of the night.

One large hand cups the back of my head, and I lean back as he ghosts his lips over mine.

“I’ll wake you when we’re back,” he says like it’s a promise before…squeezing my ass.

“How romantic,” Damien says dryly.

I just smile against Emit’s lips when he kisses me just barely deeper, like he needs a little more but not too much.

I lean forward, chasing his lips when they’re gone, and he continues to smirk as he unties his robe, drops it to the floor, and starts walking outside. By some miracle, I manage not to turn into a puddle in front of everyone.

Vance lowers his paper and pulls on his tactical vest as he stands.

“Violet has a gun,” Vance tells Damien like he’s warning him.

Damien grunts, but I don’t glance over at him.

Vance purposely brushes just a little too close on his way by, eyes meeting mine just briefly before he goes.

Even though I have no interest in revisiting that rejection, he’s still the one who looks at me like I’m all he sees in that moment. It’s also different from how the other two look at me.

He rarely gives anyone his attention just to look at them, which makes me feel absurdly special. It’s like alpha lure for the weak. It’s the reason I have those embarrassing butterflies. It’s also the reason I sat around and stared at my phone for days after I had to miss one call and got four of mine ignored. Then it was just a simple aloofness, as though he’d detached.

All because of this ancient horror story from too long ago.

They’re both gone before I get out of my own head, and Damien props up right beside me, just shy of invading all my personal space. I look at him for a second, before turning away and walking toward the hot tub.

“Make sure to dip your head under every ten minutes,” he calls to my back.

The snow has left a small blanket of white powder on everything today, and I regret skipping my robe when I struggle with the top of the hot tub.

Damien is suddenly there, taking over, moving it away with little effort. He runs a hand through the water, presumably testing the temperature, before he reaches over to the complicated panel and starts the jets for me.

I hurry into the warm water, instantly soothed from the cold, as I sink to my neck and shut my eyes.

“I’m a man most people never remember, Violet. I’m quite used to being ignored, because very few see or know my purpose. I often worry what happens when you forget me and I have to start all over again.”

Hearing the soft, sincere tone of his voice has me inwardly groaning, as I reluctantly turn around and meet his eyes.

“Find another way to punish me,” he adds as he leisurely crouches beside me, eyes staying on mine.

“No one really likes being ignored, Damien. Including me.”

“Fair enough,” he says as he reaches down and brushes my cheek with the back of his hand.

I pull away very gently, floating back in the hot tub.

He narrows his eyes.

“Emit doesn’t own you just because he had you one night,” he tells me.

“I’m agreeing to not ignore you. I never said I wasn’t still mad at you,” I tell him.

He dips his eyes, cocking his head, as he remains crouched by the edge in his blazer and slacks. He slowly stands, eyes still raking over me, as he pockets his hands.

“Every ten minutes,” he says as if he’s reminding me to dip my head again.

I dip under the water, and when I surface, he’s gone from sight. However, I assume he’s sitting right next to me. I’m content to let him watch as I pretend like I’m on my first ever vacation and relax.

Chapter 11

VIOLET

“That toothpaste of yours is driving me insane,” Damien says from across the room as he absently flips through channels.

It’s just after midnight, and the last word from Vance was that they were circling their scent to hopefully drive the unregistered pack into the center. No, I have no idea what that means, but I’m still rolling downhill right now. I’ll go back and look around when I find out what the bottom brings.

“I’ll add it to your bi-weekly order,” I tell him.

“If you’re still delivering, I’ll start getting a daily order. You are bumping up your delivery dates, aren’t you?” he muses as he adds some wood to the fire that I’m sitting as close to as I can.

The cold has gotten increasingly brutal.

I start to tell him that he’s ridiculous, but the triplets appear in the room with us, causing him to curse and jump, while muttering something about being an idiot.

“You should probably go…”

Another triplet speaks when the first’s words trail off like she’s distracted, while weirdly studying me.

“The pack of werewolves aren’t a pack at all,” the second one tells me. “They’re a horde, and they’re heading this way.”

“A horde?” Damien asks in an eerily chilled tone as he quickly moves to my side.

“Over three hundred,” the third one says before they disappear, leaving only the first to linger as she continues to frown at me.

She blinks out of sight in the next breath, as Damien starts talking into his phone. “Three fucking ghosts just dropped in to tell us a horde is heading this way.”

He goes outside, sniffing the air, leaving the door open. I move to my feet and collect the gun.

“Nothing at all. You’d smell it if it was a fucking horde. You have to be getting close,” Damien goes on.

“What’s a horde?” I ask, not really expecting an answer.

“It’s when a lot of wolves try to form a pack without an alpha,” he says as he looks over at me. “Or any large gathering of monsters with no alpha they’ve sworn loyalty to. Hordes are rare these days, because they draw too much attention.”

He puts the phone on speaker, dropping it to the table.

“Unless they’ve built on gradually and somehow eluded Emit’s attention,” Vance says. “Not hard to do, since he doesn’t pay a whole lot of attention.”