She knows better than to force my intrigue. It only adds to my numerous twitches, and that royally pisses me off.

When my left eye suffers a timed sequences of blinks, I cut my gaze to Arion, unable to stop myself.

A muscle jumps along his jaw, as Damien pretends to be disinterested, but I notice how his fingers have now twined with Violet’s.

How does Idun know something we’ve never been able to uncover? When Arion came out of the ground, he forced Violet into silence about a secret only the two of them have since shared.

Arion keeps his glare now trained on Idun, as the blacks of his eyes return.

“Why don’t you tell them, pet? It’d be better coming from you. Secrets like these only fester and cause more unnecessary resentment,” Idun says to him, her voice changing to an old, familiar one.

The woman Arion thought her to be when he fell in love. Victoria’s voice.

Arion’s gaze flicks to me, and in a flat tone, he says, “If you let her tear us apart over this, she wins. I’ll still be at Violet’s side, so you’ll have to deal with me, regardless. I’ll release her from her gypsy’s pride promise, and she can tell you all about it herself.”

Simply because I know it’s going to eat Idun alive if I go along with this, I cut my gaze back toward her, pretending to restrain a smile.

She doesn’t react.

She doesn’t acknowledge his response.

She simply dusts some lint from her very revealing dress and shrugs a shoulder. “Arion watched you all for decades as an astral projection of himself, after you made the terrible mistake of locking him away in a coffin,” Idun states as she feigns examination of her nails.

With all the power in me, I resist jerking my gaze to him. That son of a bitch…

“Deny it, gypsy Vampyre. You’ll see who they still believe more,” Idun goes on.

“I have no reason to deny it. Violet already knows the truth,” Arion says, as the tension in the room slowly starts to shift.

I glance at Damien, who is smirking down at Violet. “If our sweet monster knows, then I’m sure she won’t have any problem explaining,” Damien states, not an ounce of anger in his voice.

“He knows you begged for death and was denied,” Idun cuts in.

Damien’s smile slips, and Arion looks away, scrubbing a hand over his jaw.

The vampire finally cuts his gaze to me, but before he can speak, a howl erupts through the air so bone-jarringly loud that it rattles all the pictures off every single wall in my room.

Idun startles, whirling around with a hiss, as her eyes go black and her pupils shrink. Her claws have extended, and her back hunches as it creaks and pops, her height quickly lifting up four inches, as her skin turns an ashen gray.

Trigger happy with her monster, it seems.

That’s good.

That means four predators have successfully put her on edge, and now the three of us know we’re getting to her.

Emit’s howl bowls through my house once again, and this time I’m not paying attention to Idun’s reaction.

Arion’s eyes have gone solid red, and Damien’s have whited out. They both dive for Idun, just as Emit’s wolf crashes through the wall of the room.

“What the fucking hell?!” I shout, knocked to the ground.

I’m forced to cover my head, as my entire roof is ripped, since Arion slings Idun through it.

She shrieks, just as several buzzing bats quickly shift, a full fleet of shapeshifters hitting the ground in two-footed form, as they hiss and arch their backs at us, surrounding their alpha.

Idun cracks her neck, her large canines protruding and overlapping, as she snarls at us from the ground. I can only see through my wall of windows, as I look over just in time to see Emit’s wolf surrounding Violet, standing over her body like he’s ready to kill the next shifter in this house.

His mouth is bloodied, but it’s his blood and no one else’s I scent. His claws look just as bloody. This mate-fevered hellhound just somehow managed to dig through my silver cage.

That’s not good.

He damn well may attack Idun, and then we’re all fucked.

Arion and Damien both hiss at the wolf, who growls at them, but the growl tapers off into nothing when Violet makes a whimpered sound in her sleep.

Emit turns quickly, shoving his nose into her stitches. Please, for fuck’s sake, don’t let Caroline’s smell still be on her.

He lets out a low groan, nudging her cheek with his muzzle, when she doesn’t notice him.

All wolf. He’s all fucking wolf right now. It’s not even time for a full moon. It wasn’t the same when he mated Idun. This is different.

Apparently, he denied it for too long, and the wolf has taken things into his own hands.

Arion starts to move toward him, but Emit growls low in his throat again, warning the vampire to keep a distance.

“She’s not just yours,” the stupid vampire says, even though I’m thankful his eyes have dulled back down to only black.

“You’ll be on your way then, right?” Damien calls out the window, waving like a loon. “Been great catching up. Our girlfriend’s unconscious and Emit’s wolf has decided now’s the perfect time to mate. Ta ta for now.”

He shuts the window and glares over at me, as if I’m somehow responsible for this entire messy situation.