With my instincts maddened by the thick, choking tension and imminent danger that is only ratcheting higher with every passing second, and my body still recovering from the confining tomb of silver, I take a deep breath.
It’s not the first time I miss the man Arion used to be. If he still had a soul, he’d be a better man than me and far more capable of fixing this.
It is, however, the first time in too long that I’ve had something to lose.
Chapter 37
DAMIEN
Staring out the window, watching the electrical storm build, I find myself stroking Violet’s hair.
“Twenty minutes is as long as you could make it?” Marta asks, not sounding thrilled with my return.
“Vance has to figure out a plan. Arion’s going to blow the town to hell with his military-grade weaponry in hopes that it blows the bitch into enough pieces. With any luck, it’ll be hard for her to come back too soon. In the meantime, we all die, sans you and Violet.”
She simply gives me a flat stare once I finish that lengthy ramble.
“We’re in desperation mode, in case that’s not already obvious. In other words, this is our last resort, Marta. So, yes, I’ve damn well returned to see her like this one last time, before she realizes how much blood is about to be on her hands.”
“Idun’s actions won’t be on my daughter’s conscience,” Marta says in a nearly muted tone, cutting her gaze to the window.
“You’re entirely too calm for what comes next. Are you already defeated, Portocale? Have you lost that much of your fight?” I ask her.
“This isn’t my fight,” she says too solemnly. “My fight has been fought. Now I’m simply here to aide my daughter in any way I can.”
Violet’s hair slips through my fingers, and I straighten and stand.
“What the hell are you talking about? It’s all of our fight, Marta. Violet broke Idun’s fucking bones in front of two crowds. Idun isn’t going to just lie down after that. Idun killed her network feed immediately after, because she’s that pissed,” I remind her.
“The night I landed in Violet’s biological mother’s body, it was storming just like this,” she says, gesturing outside.
“This is most definitely not the time for you to walk down memory lane. It makes it sound as though you’ve truly given up. Don’t you dare,” I grind out.
She doesn’t even acknowledge me, as her eyes stay trained on the windows.
“It was storming like this the night her head came off too,” she carries on.
“Damn you, Marta,” I say, shoving a hand through my hair, as the woman stays a shell the one time I want her to keep her furious, relentless fight.
My gaze darts to Violet, who is still smiling, enjoying the scene of the four of us ravishing her.
“It was storming like this on her thirteenth birthday, the first time her monster broke free and burst the bubble I was living in. I had no idea I was playing house. I thought I’d built a home with my child, comfortably living in denial. I kept telling myself she was just a gypsy freak, but I knew better. She had a monster inside her, and it was scary to realize the future ahead of her.”
“Are you saying she’s the reason it’s storming?” I ask, wondering about the point to this ramble.
“No,” she says with no emotion, her look as lifeless as her words. “She can catch the lightning, but she can’t create the storm. This is someone else.”
Great. She’s broken. Perfect.
“Pandora brought the shifters and minor-league blood witches who came to murder her as a child,” I’m quick to argue. “She confirmed to Vance she was handling the shifters in Idun’s family’s absence.”
She cuts her gaze to me. “I figured as much long ago. Demetria may be a strong beta, but she’s a soldier who follows orders. She lacks leadership skills. They were too organized and entirely too smart at eluding both Van Helsings and Portocales. Only someone as powerful and crafty as that witch could manage that. See, I put thought into this long ago, because it mattered to me long before Violet came into your life and you suddenly started caring. There was nothing I could do about it. Even with her magic dried up, I’m still no match for Pandora on my own, much to my dismay. If it hadn’t been for Violet, Vance would have successfully been lost today. Consider that.”
She looks back out the window, as though that somehow qualifies as a response.
“Violet lured them into a trap the day they beheaded her. They had no idea her head would stitch itself back on. She’s a girl who doesn’t fear death. Or at least she didn’t. Not until she lost me,” she continues, her tone still cold and emotionless.
I look back, finding Violet turned over to her other side, and return my attention to Marta, as she wipes a stray tear from her eye.
My phone chimes with a text, and I glance down, seeing it’s from Vance.
VANCE: If you see Anna, salt her. It’s not a ghost. It’s some sort of mystical spirit that haunts the mind and drives it mad. Usually it can’t be seen, which is why I didn’t realize it sooner. It’s always been trapped inside the mind, but it’s found a way to somehow show itself, using the ghost plane.
Bloody fucking hell. I can’t handle a revelation of that magnitude right now, because I don’t have the energy to feel one more single, exhausting bit of fury.
Not tonight.
Not when I’m so close to possibly losing it all.
And Marta is pointless right now.
I’ve never heard her so detached. Marta Portocale is a relentless, spitfire pistol. Not even an eternity as long as ours has slowed her down.
“I never should have come here. I knew this would happen,” Marta confesses on a quiet breath.
We missed all the signs that Violet was turning into a mutinous beta. It’s completely understandable as to why she would want to rise against Idun, but…Idun can’t be overthrown by alphas, let alone betas.
“Betrayal does have a way of riling a monster’s instincts, but Violet isn’t betraying anyone. She never agreed to pledge loyalty to Idun, and she’s not just a Neopry monster.”
“None of which is relevant, because this is Idun we’re dealing with. And—”
“And none of it matters,” she butts in, standing and going to stare out the window, as the lightning crashes harder and harder. “I don’t need it explained to me.”
“I planned. I plotted. I came up with an abundance of wild ideas to prevent this from happening,” Marta adds. “Still, it happened. It’s as though I lost all my influence over Violet the moment I died.”
She tilts her head, staring into the storm.
“Now it’s too late. I never should have brought her here. I was scared, which is a damn near novel feeling for me these days. I let my emotions get the better of me for the first time in centuries, and now my daughter is a part of this world. I doubted myself and her. I relied on what I knew. I came back here, even though I should have stayed gone. She’d still be blissfully unaware and mildly lost.”
Wolves break out into a panicked set of barks somewhere in the far distance. Or maybe we’re just hearing them since the storm isn’t quite as loud at the moment.