“She’s shy,” Anna says as she pops up beside him.

He startles, but recovers quickly, eyes finding mine. There’s a familiar edge of fear there, but also…guarded relief.

“Even if I told someone, they’d never bloody believe it unless they saw it for themselves,” he says in response.

With one last look, he turns to go, giving us the privacy Violet’s requested.

We’re standing in the middle of town, right on Sanctuary’s steps, so I’m not sure it could be called very private. However, I don’t think anyone knows it’s over.

There’s a suspended moment where I get lost after that thought.

It’s over.

In one night, it’s over?

It can’t be over.

Idun’s in two pieces with a missing head, but I still don’t trust that it was this easy.

“I’m not shy. I’m just worried everyone is going to freak out and stop coming to Sanctuary if they find out I made Idun scream from sundown to sun-up,” she says, humbly bragging a little, as she eyes Idun’s body.

“I lost her head.” She rushes to add, “I’ll find it, but Anna doesn’t let me see everything. She keeps secrets. Apparently, this is something I have to trust my monster with. I’m sure there’s a reason.”

Her words are rambled, the way she does when she’s nervous. It’s one of the few signs this is truly Violet, because it’s too Violet to be anyone else. Hyde can’t imitate Violet, which is why it took Anna and all the others as a persona.

Surely…that’s a fair assumption.

She’s essentially a brand new monster to learn everything about.

She swallows thickly, and I watch her with a great amount of suspicion. Talbot’s become a nonissue at this point, since he’s laid on the ground and covered his face with both hands, clearly relaxed and satisfied that he was wrong.

He’s fickle.

I never trust fickle people.

After some clear hesitation and what appears to be a steeling breath, she says, “Vance, I didn’t know Anna was my monster until recently. Even if I had known, I wouldn’t have known what it meant for you to sleep with both my monster and myself at the same time…”

She lets her words trail off, as though she expects me to figure it out for myself, once again giving me a taste of what it’s like to be her on the clueless end of things.

Something that she apparently finds obvious is bewildering to those of us not in the know.

Namely me.

And also once again, I fucking hate this feeling and have no desire to experience such in the future.

I will learn all the things.

All of them.

Hell, I may even investigate Bigfoot sightings.

“Violet, I know we circle around conversation, make it impossible to learn anything in a straight-forward fashion, and struggle to understand how ignorant you are about our world. However, don’t repay that by doing me that way right now. Spell it out for me. What did you do to me?”

Anna moves up to my side, and I hiss out a pained breath. My eyes dart down to my hand, where that watchful eye is once more visible on my skin, almost perfectly resembling an innocent tattoo.

Then…the eye moves, and I stumble back like I can get away from my hand.

“That’s fucking creepy as hell, mate,” Damien says, sounding too tired to show surprise.

Emit grabs my arm and examines my hand, but he makes sure not to get too close.

“What the hell is this?” the wolf asks, while I continue to stare at the black eye that is staring at me.

“Based on what I’ve learned, I have a possessive monster,” Violet answers very quickly, and with some clear nervous tension. “Once I claimed you, it left a mark on you so that I could find you at all times. But like all things related to my monster, she knew how to hide it. She picked you because you scared me so much. Hyde doesn’t like for someone to have the ability to make me scared. You were targeted…in an unconventional way.”

My eyes dart back down to the roaming eye on my wrist. It fades to dull black, and it slowly sinks back into the skin until it’s lost from sight once more.

“That’s how she found you after you were taken. She gives me memories instead of answers, in most cases. I had no idea I’d claimed you, until just before I turned myself over to let Anna play with Idun,” she says, her voice still strained with dread and apprehension.

It takes a second to really digest her words.

“You claimed me?” I ask, those words standing out above all the others.

“For a lack of another term, you’re my mate, Vance,” she says with a lot more apprehension, eyes warily gauging me. “I didn’t mean to force you into it, and I have no idea how permanent it is. As far as I know, it doesn’t do any sort of cosmic ownership that forces you to feel things for me. But…you’ve been mated to me since the day you were generous enough to help out my ‘dying ghost friend.’ She tricked you into mating me, because the name Van Helsing scared me. You know, back before I had any idea I was a complete freak of nature, even by monster standards.”

Her nervous ramble cuts off, and the vampire dances in place like this is only getting all the more exciting.

“You tried to claim me too then, right?” Arion asks, his grin so wide that it looks painful.

Violet blows out a frustrated breath.

“Apparently, my monster got impatient with how long it was taking me to trust you and tried to take matters into her own hands. It wasn’t the first time she’d forced her way to the front, nor was it the first time she wove intricate tales of bullshit to manipulate me and play me like a pawn. But like most all of those times, I kicked her out of the driver’s seat. I’m stronger.”

“For now,” Talbot mutters from his place on the ground. “Wait until Hyde sits at the top of the food chain, amasses a greater ambition, and grows strong enough to overthrow you.”

“You said she wouldn’t be able to overtake Hyde tonight, and she’s standing right here. Fully in control,” Arion is quick to argue.

“And what happens when Hyde gets so good you’ll never know the difference between Violet and the monster?” Talbot fires back, still lying down and covering his face.

“We’ll know,” Emit interjects, slowly moving toward Violet, as he cups her cheek. “Someone could imitate her heart, but there’s no way they could do it genuinely and consistently. Certainly not a soulless monster.”

He shoots a pointed look toward Arion, as if he’s showing us all his evidence to back up that bold statement.

“Lovely chat we’re all having, but can we get back to the reality of our current situation?” I interject, slicing my hand through the air.

I swear, the three of them are ready to move on at a moment’s notice from life-altering madness. I, however, am still digesting the fact Violet not only got close enough to hurt Idun, but she somehow managed to leave her in dismembered pieces. Earlier tonight, I watched Violet’s body be fully shredded, something that should have taken her years to heal from.

Not mere moments.

And I really want to talk a lot more about…the fact she’s already claimed me.

A lot more.

I’d rather do that last part privately, though.