She gestures to my chains.

“You should be more concerned about yourself than Idun or your soon-to-be-broken toy. You’ve set off the spell. It’s a spell that has a terribly negative reaction to your silver, but only if your silver is manipulated. Maybe your father should have warned you about this spell.”

She beams as though she’s boasting, and I finally understand what’s craziest about her. Besides her very creepy eyes.

“You’re sucked into the game. You like one-upping the alphas. You think you’re one of us,” I bite out.

That’s not the Pandora I know. She was never an advocate of the game. She saw more than we could fathom back then.

“If you can’t beat em’, join em’,” she says, eyes getting creepier by the moment, as the silver continues all the way up to my abdomen.

“What’s my silver doing?” I ask her, trying to get any sort of tip as to how to stop it.

“I’m afraid that was the kill switch, Van Helsing,” she says more seriously, somehow making it sound regretful.

“What?” I bite out.

“Only, you won’t die. When it happened to Zuela, I had to save the fool. I left him entombed in his silver for three long months, watching and waiting to see. It was an accident, of course. However, I knew I could use it against you because that old fool would be far too prideful to ever confess such a thing happened to him. He’s died less and lost fewer true-fought battles than any alpha among you.”

She tugs at a chain that doesn’t budge, and she smiles up at me.

“I’m sorry,” she says, sounding both genuine and insincere at the same time. “She’s only been topside for twenty-six years. Almost twenty-seven now. You put her underground for a thousand years, Van Helsing. It took me a thousand years to raise her all on my own. The vampire unknowingly aided me so minorly it doesn’t even count as help. For nearly twenty-seven years she’s watched you, studied you, learned all she needed to know, and formed a plan that she set into motion long before you discovered she’d been unearthed.”

She gives me an eerie grin, as the silver closes over my thighs and starts climbing my torso.

“The only way to stop this spell is for me to undo it one tricky thread at a time. It’ll hold you, Van Helsing. It’ll hold you for a thousand years if that’s how long it takes to break your pride once and for all. You’ll bow at her feet and treat her like your queen,” Pandora continues, as a familiar feeling I scarcely feel starts to emanate deep inside me.

That gnawing, gut-clenching, damn near consuming emotion I’ve buried in a shallower grave than I realized before this moment.

It’s fear.

This isn’t some omega on a power trip. This is bloody Pandora, who has siphoned nature’s magic from a long-dead dragon, and then bound me with chains not even my silver can break.

Now my silver is attacking me, entombing me, and I’ll be left in this web.

Conscious.

“Tit for tat with Idun, Van Helsing. And then she goes the extra mile to really one-up you,” Pandora carries on.

“This has nothing to do with Arion planning to make Violet his bride,” I state in a quiet breath.

“No. Sorry. It is the obvious conclusion to draw, but again, you fail to take in account how very well Idun knows you. She lost the vampire and she knows it. Arion has proven one thing: He’s loyal and there’s nothing you can do to change it once his mind is made up. It’s more effort than it’s worth.”

My gaze stays on her, as Pandora takes a seat, as though she’s content to watch me be entombed alive, while she fills me in on what’s to come.

“You expected a little push and pull, but you fail to see the biggest picture. Always. All of you, really. You probably feared it at first, but Violet was such a fresh breath of air you allowed yourself to forget the reality of your lives.”

“I certainly didn’t forget,” I bite out. “You fail to see that I’m done with Idun. Even if you leave me in here for two thousand years, I’ll still say the same.”

Pandora shrugs a careless shoulder. “I’m not particularly concerned one way or the other. I’m just delivering the message and doing my assignment. You’ll bow to her, be faithful, be loyal, and submit to your true queen. Or you’ll rot for the rest of eternity, while Violet becomes Idun’s favorite new toy.”

I strain to move, but the only thing I can move is my head.

“We’re officially enemies, Pandora. Of that you can be certain,” I assure her through gritted teeth.

“I’ll worry about that when hell freezes over. Your pride will never dip low enough to bow to her,” she says on a puff of laughter. “Honestly, this is why I stayed single. All your relationship drama ruined the world. It’s enough to put anyone off.”

Bones crunch in the background, and my jaw grinds.

“She believes she’s buying me extra time, doesn’t she?” I guess, my chest physically hurting when I realize at last what Violet’s doing.

“I believe so, yes. She really does love you, Van Helsing. Shamelessly and truly. It’s sad how dumb she is compared to the rest of the Simpletons, isn’t it?” she muses with no emotion in her tone.

“So my last few minutes alive will be spent with you insulting the woman I intend to marry, while I can’t do anything about it,” I tell her very bitterly. “You’re only making yourself that much more of an enemy. I will get out of this, Pandora.”

She grins. “By the time you get out of this, your ire over my insults to your temporary girlfriend will be the least of your concerns. That pride always rears its ugly head with you, Vancetto Van Helsing. You’ll be humbled and finally recognize your queen by the end of your sentence. I don’t think you know what isolation in Van Helsing silver feels like.”

My silver crawls up my neck, and I choke in a stubborn breath that turns out to be even harder to do with the next breath.

Pandora pokes my cheek, grinning the entire time.

“Idun will keep kicking your girl around on that field for however long she can endure it, because she truly believes she can buy your family enough time to find you.”

I’d make another threat if my vocal cords weren’t frozen stiff by the silver that is making breathing a more and more difficult challenge the higher it climbs.

“And it’s all for nothing,” Pandora gloats.

Just as the silver quickly begins climbing my face, taking my nose and mouth so abruptly that the labored breathing turns into immediate suffocation, I spot a brief glimpse of a familiar ghost behind Pandora.

It’s gone so quickly that I’m positive I imagined it.

Seconds before the silver takes my eyes and seals me into darkness, I catch one last clip of Violet being pummeled. Between my useless, last attempt to struggle free and the darkness surrounding me, my breaths slowly return.

It’s as if breathing becomes only a mild nuisance instead of an impossibility. It takes me a long moment to realize how stiffly I’ve been cast—as unyieldingly rigid as a proper sword.

The silver has dried.

It’s solid.

And I really am going to live inside here with only myself.

Swallowing thickly, I shut my eyes, feeling the weight of so many crushing hunts call to me.