Us.

Me and my monster.

I’m still not okay with my monster.

“For the record, I really do hate you,” I tell her, giving her a dry look.

“For the record, they still think you’re sweet,” she adds.

“It’s because I’m nice. They can’t see the difference,” I say.

“Oh! I forgot something,” she says, her eyes widening as her very alarming grin grows.

She disappears from sight. In the next instant, there’s a memory—that’s not mine—that plays inside my head.

I know my eyes go round when I remember electrifying, slightly demolishing, and destroying my knock-off competition’s store…using Emit’s body to do the bulk of the dirty work.

Poor…Emit.

Covering my mouth, I gape into the mirror.

“Anna, that’s going too fucking far! I said no collateral damage, and you could have hurt him!”

There’s an echo of laughter, and I crack my neck to the side. This is going to be a very long eternity.

I officially have more cosmic baggage than all four of my very ancient boyfriends combined. I hope they’re ready for that, since they rushed into claiming me and all.

Besides poor Vance, who I don’t even know how to talk to right now.

“Trick me again, Anna, and I’ll start trusting you less and less,” I assure my scary, crazy, sly, diabolical, and mildly delusional monster.

“Aye, aye, Captain,” comes her voice, even though she remains unseen.

Eventually, I’ll get the hang of controlling all of this. Until then, I’m still apparently just along for the ride, but at least it’s not flying downhill at an outrageous skid anymore.

I’m in the slow lane.

Finally.

I hope.

I really frigging hope.

Chapter 54

VIOLET

“You look perfect,” Leiza says, smiling over at me. “Even if you did forever wed the scariest vampire to have ever lived.”

Her voice wavers with some apprehension, just before she gulps very loudly. Her smile looks more and more forced with each passing second.

Lemon, however, looks so relieved.

“Honestly, I think it means we’ll see him less. He’ll have no reason to intimidate us into helping him out. Not to mention, his vampire beta is getting better about talking him up. I think he saw that as some sort of draw to getting to know us,” Lemon confesses, paling a little. “There’s no need in him getting to know us. We’ll talk him up if he really needs it that badly.”

“We feel comfortable saying this, because you swore we could be honest, and we trust you,” Mary rushes to say, peering over her shoulder.

“Shera had this entire room insulated, because she didn’t want everyone hearing me have sex with four alphas. Mostly because she’s not having sex and doesn’t want to be reminded what she’s missing out on,” I assure them, gesturing around my empty room. “She had it done after Caroline broke my walls.”

My hair gets pulled a little harder than necessary, as Shera continues to add curls. I grin at her in the mirror, but she pointedly ignores me.

“You have to be pressed all the way against the door to even hear small pieces of a normal toned conversation,” Ingrid cuts in, almost distractedly, while she eats her yogurt and focuses her attention on it. “Even then you don’t really know who’s talking or what’s actually being talked about.”

I stare at her for a very long moment, wondering if I just heard her correctly.

Mary, Tiara, Lemon, and Leiza all cut a surprised and slightly horrified look in her direction.

As if she just realized what she’s said, her head pops up, and she darts a look at me.

“Not that I’ve ever tried to eavesdrop on you,” Ingrid hurriedly adds.

Rolling my eyes, I return my attention to the mirror.

Now that she’s finished using the curling iron on the bottom of my hair, she begins pulling the top half from the rollers, the shaky hands of my stylist tickling my scalp.

“There will eventually be individual ceremonies for all these matings,” Mary points out. “Emit’s should be in the woods behind—”

“There will be one ceremony,” I interject, watching them all look at me with blank expressions through the mirror. “It’ll be in the woods, at midnight, and on a night where the moon isn’t an issue. I’ll wear a black dress and veil, have green shoes, and you guys can decide on the rest of what I wear.”

They only look a little bit happy with that.

“It’ll be brief, and it’ll be tame. Once the Monster Mansion cake is cut, I want to dance all night long.”

Shera continues to give me a blank look. Mary smiles somewhat shyly and looks away. Lemon grins very openly, as she sips her drink. Tiara looks at me like I’m an idiot.

“She’s so cute,” Lemons says, grinning around her cup.

“Cute? I’m working toward sexy, since it’s my wedding day,” I grumble, eyeing myself in the mirror.

Lemon snorts, and Mary laughs along with her. I feel like they’re mocking me, but I have no idea what I’ve done.

“I bet they do every single thing on the damn list,” Shera mutters so low I almost don’t hear.

She gets a little aggressive with my hair for a brief moment, as if punishing me, but it quickly lessens.

Even though I was skeptical of her vision, I watch as she finishes weaving the different curls together, and slowly smile. She’s actually good at this.

“At least the vampire beta has some worth,” Tiara says, digging Ingrid out of her hole by diverting the conversation.

Shera glares into the mirror at me, as if saying it’s all my fault she’s stuck in a room full of omega she-wolves, who constantly talk about her instead of to her, while she finishes the last curl in my hair.

“This vampire beta is so beyond top notch that you’re all lucky to be in my presence,” Shera says very tightly, eyeing my hair with a lot of scrutiny, before she sprays it. “But this feels reckless to do so suddenly. I mean, the alphas just put Idun down last night. I know I can see her on Idun TV, and we all heard Vance say they could handle her again if need be, but I have some trust issues with that.”

I nod as though I get it, but clearly, I say nothing else.

Either we managed to escape most everyone’s sight while Anna was dressed as someone other than me, or…Arion was thorough in suppressing people’s memories.

“I’d rather not think about Idun at all,” Ingrid whispers very quietly, looking around as though the boogeyman may pop up if she speaks too loudly.

“Honestly, I sort of thought you’d be secretly powerful and be able to put Idun down. I know it’s silly, but there’s always been this draw toward you that calls to our basest omega instincts,” Leiza says to me, studying me as though she can’t believe she was wrong.

Shera snorts, and I shrug a shoulder.

“My mother never let me be a badass,” I remind them. “Even if she had let me, I still wouldn’t be much of a match for Idun. Especially not on my own.”

Shera rolls her eyes.

“I’m not sure why I ever thought differently. Maybe it’s because you put my ass to the ground the one time I stepped between you and Arion,” Shera confesses with some clear reluctance, eyes more focused on my hair.