He turns and starts walking back in the other direction.

“I’ll be spending some time here. Contest me all you want,” he says without turning around. “But I’ll be gaining an audience with Violet to find out if she’s the good-hearted monster she claims to be.”

He turns around, almost amused for a minute. The amusement fades to bitterness once more.

“If she is, she surely won’t mind taking the torch from Caroline. Idun can’t live without someone to belittle, hate, and utterly destroy both inside and out. It’s what she lives for. It’s only fair that it’s your turn to watch. Especially since you no longer have a curse to keep you humble enough to remember your self-imposed purpose.”

With that, he turns and disappears down the adjacent hallway, while I turn to Emit.

“Find the bloody library. Clearly I don’t know my way around, and I’ve got to hurry up and go humble a bitch who has ruled even from her centuries-old grave,” I grind out.

Anna pops up.

“It’s not that big of an emergency. Tell me more about this humbling you’re going to deliver. Seems important,” Anna says, sounding far too intrigued not to seem suspicious.

“Where the hell is the library?” I demand.

“All these Portocales are popping up dead. This secret cult is really just shifters and some mortals who aspired to be shifters, all for the sake of the Forsaken—also known as Idun—who’ve they’ve led too many to believe is an all-powerful deity. They’ve made her legendary in the underground parts of this world no one ever really talks about,” she points out, still being terribly suspicious and detailed.

“There’s speculation—wall whispers from some of the ones in the know—that the Portocales weren’t strong enough to curse Idun. There’s more speculation that Idun has rules she expects her betas to break any time she’s absent. They built cults just to kill as many Portocales as possible and make your lives pure hell as often as they could,” Anna continues, stating the obvious for no reason at all.

She levels me with a look.

“Arion’s people are all vicious and cold, but somewhat darkly charming. Or straight up frigid. Vampires are a type, and there aren’t many exceptions.”

“Why the actual fuck are you on about this?” I ask, finally acknowledging her.

“Because a thought just occurred to me,” she says, frowning as she vanishes.

“Where the bloody hell is the library?!” I shout, honestly struck by how massive this place truly is.

“I genuinely can’t catch a single scent. This place changes too much. I don’t think I like it,” Emit says, hands on his hips like his posing is going to help at all right now.

“Damien!” Violet calls, giving me some sort of direction.

I race into a room…and suddenly I’m flying. Or sailing. Or…why is the world tilting? The room blurs by me as I tip backwards, and it takes too long to realize I’ve been bested by a skateboard.

The unforgiving, thick marble jars my entire body when I hit the ground. Damn that woman for her reinforced flooring meant to withstand a herd of elephants, apparently.

Groaning, I blink around the blurriness, as Emit curses and scuffles with something somewhere else in the room.

“Fucking get up and help me!” he growls, while I struggle to push myself up.

I glare at the marble floor that doesn’t have so much as one scratch on it. Is she trying to make falling harder on people?

My eyes dart across the toy-littered floor, full of many other skateboards, balls, and various other objects meant to trip a man up, as though this room is designed to kill you with fun things.

Emit is drowning in a foam pit, his head bursting over the top for a few seconds, long enough to curse me, before disappearing under the foam again.

I scratch my head, deciding I’ll just fall in and look as ridiculous as he does, and then we’ll both look stupid.

Instead, I leave him behind, wondering if he’ll ever be taken very seriously if he keeps making a fool of himself.

I startle and damn near jump a foot in the air, when four female ghosts abruptly appear and stare at me from the end of the hall. One is wearing an old-school mechanic’s outfit with her hair and make-up done like a fifties pin-up girl.

In fact, they all look like pin-up girls. There’s also a flight attendant, a pilot, and a welder. I’m not sure those specific jobs require such sexy takes on the outfits.

Shaking my head out of the distraction, I keep walking toward them, annoyed that I once again made eye contact. Violet’s a bad influence when it comes to ghosts.

The mechanic with a tag that reads, “Diva,” steps into my path, but I pass through her with nary a blink.

“I take it personally that you just ignored me! I’m totally hot!” she oddly calls after me.

Violet collects some of the most lively/delusional ghosts on the market.

Turning into the room, I find Violet on her knees in front of Vance, who is sleeping.

My grin curves up at one corner of my mouth, as I really look her over. Her hair is still in some disarray, and her clothes are unchanged. She looks just as thoroughly sated as she did when I left, minus the look of sexy determination on her face.

If I wasn’t filled to the brim with power right now, I’d take advantage of her. She’s absolutely—

“Damien, he’s under the curse. The Portocale curse,” she tells me, as though I haven’t already deduced as much.

“This was the emergency?” I guess, distracted by the heavy rise and fall of her chest.

She cuts her gaze toward me, and I steel myself, wondering what those troubled eyes could be warning me about. Her lips start moving, the seriousness in her expression ratcheting up some tension.

What have I done?

How have I fucked up?

“Damien, I need your help,” she tells me, confusing me.

I’ve been standing here in dread, worrying I’ve gone and fucked up once more, and she needs help?

“Okaaay,” I say, dragging the word out, and then clear my throat.

The nervous energy I’ve collected from that moment of melodramatic dread is now racing through me with nowhere to go.

However, her next words give that nervous energy an outlet. Fuck’s sake, this girl…

Chapter 13

ARION

“If I hadn’t been there, you’d have never gotten out of that pit—”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Emit interrupts on a deep growl, his ears red and his canines bared.

I resist the urge to grin, but then get distracted by the sound of Damien’s loud, hysterical, damned baffling laughter.

Just as we start to dash in that direction, a ghost pops up in front of us, pin-curls held back by a bright orange headband of some sort, and a devious grin.

“I’m Diva,” she says, before batting her lashes at me.

Ghosts are brazen around Violet. And far too alert.

I walk through her, and Emit follows, muttering something about not making eye contact.

“I said I’m Diva, bitch! Stop ignoring me!” she calls to our backs.

Idly, I notice quite a few new ghosts lurking. Most of them are women. Some of them are girly women. Some are a bit less feminine. Some are right in the middle of the masculine/feminine line.