These are the same creepers who want me to fuck all the deviants to break the Portocale curse and feed all the vampire alphas for the same reason.

“I have severe boundaries in place between you and I. You crossed them. Then you manipulated me into—”

“Vance just walked in,” Anna says, talking over me. “And he’s heading this way.”

Great. Just as I’ve accidentally summoned a multitude of new creepy spirits.

“Everyone tried telling me not to talk to the dead. I should have listened,” I state, glaring over at Anna.

She smiles. “You miss me when I’m gone.”

“I’ve been doing so much sort of right that I forgot what a colossal fuck-up I am,” I state entirely to myself. “This is an excellent reminder.”

In the next instant, I twirl my finger, and salt sprays from the pantry, covering the room. Ghosts are immediately ejected, and I whirl around to pretend I’m not an idiot, who has just made yet another problem a bigger problem.

Vance walks in, nearly missing a step when he catches me already staring in his direction like I was waiting on him. I don’t know how to play things cool.

He glances around, and frowns.

“Why are their salt grains slinking under your pantry door?”

“Not important. Did you need something?” I ask in deflection, shifting to obstruct his line of view somewhat.

He cuts his gaze back to me, emotion lying in their depths once the distraction is gone.

“I know you don’t understand how much my dignity means to me, but if you want me on my knees in apology for the five months—”

“I don’t want you on your knees, Vance. I want to give you a hard time about it, because I don’t want it to happen again. But I’ve recently come to understand one very important thing. Those five months you spent watching Idun kept Idun from fucking with me. I’d have never gotten this place finished so quickly if the four of you had tried to help instead of giving her exactly what she wanted. Those laws would have never been passed. Nothing would have gone this smoothly if you’d been involved. I’m glad you were stupid. That’s right. I said it,” I confess on a long sigh.

He blinks as if he’s surprised.

“I feel both insulted and complimented,” he says, bristling as he straightens his tie.

“That’s because it was an insulting compliment. You can’t complain about those, since they’re almost the only sort of compliment you dole out on the regular.”

“We’re back to you treating me as I treat you, then?” he asks with a nearly-there smirk.

I hate it when he looks playful. Vance in playful mode is damn near tempting, and my vagina is still on cool-down mode.

“So all’s finally forgiven now that you’ve had time to weigh your thoughts?” he muses.

“I may have reacted rashly with the dramatic breakup. Blame it on bad advice. Or good advice. To be honest, I’m not sure. You guys are definitely around more, regardless,” I tell him, earning a small grin from the Van Helsing. “I’m grateful to have had this part go smoothly. All’s forgiven.”

He exhales a harsh breath, almost sagging in disbelief.

“You really do zag just to cause a man to trip over his premeditated path, don’t you?” he asks, sounding slightly irritated, as he pinches the bridge of his nose. “I came in here ready to argue my case, and now I’m left with pointless adrenaline.”

I’m not sure why it always seems to piss him off when I agree with him about something.

“Use that pointless adrenaline to explain to me why you ever loved Idun if all the terrible stories about her are true,” I suggest, only mildly curious about his past life decisions.

He gives me a bland look, but surprisingly comes to hop on the counter next to my pot, that has turned to black, pointless goo.

“Do I want to know what you were doing here?” he asks, shooting me a curious look.

“Not as much as I want an answer to my question,” I assure him.

His lips twitch with the beginnings of a grin he manages to suppress, and a weighted expression comes to take the place of the almost playfulness.

“War. War. Beyond the Double Dutch doors,” he says, saying the words—not singing them.

“War got Idun her sacrifice. We were created in war. Men are more honorable as soldiers. Women are more fierce and patient. Our instincts are at their strongest, and we’re at our finest in war,” he tells me, laughing humorlessly under his breath.

“That’s the way a twenty-eight-year-old gypsy, who has struggled for every ounce of dignity he desperately wanted to keep, when soldiers from some king’s army felt as though they could strip me of it. Take our women. Take our money. Take our pride. Take the damn clothes off our backs and be brutal,” he says, clearing his throat. “I took my vengeance out on various human soldiers who had it coming. It was all too easy, and I was unstoppable against them after a few years of honing my new skills.”

“But that wasn’t enough,” I state in realization. “Humans were too easy. You wanted to create your own society and do it better.”

He gives me a tired look. “It’s amazing to look back and see how naïve it all really was. How sincerely the power went to our heads. We created life we had no business creating, presenting ourselves as the cure for man’s illnesses when he’s too young to be turning into a spirit. Now we realize we’re the infection, and understand our roles in keeping the infection from spreading too fast or vast. Our dream of immortality soured by the balance we created by our own authority. The road to hell is paved with the best of intentions.”

He scrubs a hand over his face, blowing out another breath.

“We wanted to create our own society. We did. Our betas weren’t what we expected, and they rebelled. In the beginning, we certainly tried harder to please them all,” he tells me, eyes flicking to mine. “But one’s emotions rule them from time to time, and they incite riots, prejudices, and problems. Peace is a remarkably hard thing to obtain among humans. I’m not sure what possessed us to think we’d achieve such as monsters, who selfishly interrupted the universe’s plot because we thought we could write the story better.”

“But war gives everyone something to unite about, so you warred,” I guess.

“And it worked. For a while,” he says, his gaze growing distant. “It worked damn well. Idun crafted a design where I was the monster slayer, and the Van Helsings were after all the monsters. I was the bad guy to monsters and hero to humans. It was the perfect way to maintain order, secrecy, and provide proper fear in the hearts of the reckless.”

“It was a better system than wandering aimlessly with a world full of new creations you hadn’t planned far enough ahead for,” I say, hoping I’m not crossing a line and pissing him off with such an accusation.

He seems unbothered by it, as he nods very slowly.

“Regardless of the moral reprehensibility of it, it worked,” he says again. “Until it didn’t work anymore.”

“Why does my mother blame the four of you for Idun being so strong? How is she second-born and so strong?”

“Many answers fit that question, Violet,” he says with zero emotion. “Idun couldn’t handle me being the one everyone feared, especially since fear is the truth about what she feeds on.”