My skin is practically crawling, as I make a series of tics, and start adjusting my wrinkled suit. The wrinkles end up being too much, because they’ll have to be pressed in order to straighten them.

“Do you have a steamer or an iron around here?” I ask, as I begin undoing my trousers.

“Really?” he asks with pure incredulity, as though this is shocking.

My body aches with the heavy need to shower, shave, and brush my teeth.

“I’ve been stuck in my own damn silver with nothing to do but think and go mad from not being able to move. If she thinks she’s locking me away like that until I break, she’s really going to hate it when I shove a sword through her fucking throat and bury her head under the ocean,” I state, barely keeping my calm, as I sway on unsteady legs.

Emit forces me to a chair, just as Arion practically appears out of nowhere.

“What do you mean locking you away like that until you break?” the vampire asks in confusion, as though that’s his first and only question.

“There’s always been a piece of uncertainty in her that held her back in the past,” I remind them. “Whether she admitted it or not, she worried that wheel would turn, which is why she plays her exhausting and tedious games. She’d rather outsmart us, because it’s more fun than overpowering us, given the unnatural odds in her favor. And also, it’s so she can say she tried to play as fair as possible, in case things swing in someone else’s favor.”

My eyes level Arion’s.

“I picked out a ring for Violet—a fact which I’m sure Idun has somehow discovered. I’ve lost concern over how it looks for a woman to have any sort of power over me, at least where Violet’s concerned. Damien is a loyal, dedicated, and faithful lover to one woman and with no desire for another. The wolf is leading his pack with more due diligence and with more reasonable expectations. And here you are, lost to Idun, because you’re a man with a reputation for unwavering loyalty, and you’ve given it to Violet,” I say, directing the last part toward Arion. “Without us, she loses you. With us, she believes she’ll reclaim you. You’re the safest of us tonight. You should be with Violet.”

“That’s essentially what I said,” Damien says as he comes in.

Arion slants a glare toward the Morpheous, as Damien looks me over.

“You look like shit,” Damien tells me.

“You’re supposed to be—”

“Marta’s with Violet. If someone is going to keep her safe, it should be the woman who’s been doing a much better job of it than the lot of us,” Damien says tightly. “If we’re to even have any sort of hope of standing a chance against Idun’s wrath, it’ll take all four of us.”

There’s a long moment of pause where no one finds a reasonable way to argue, but there’s so much to digest that we can’t possibly even begin to let it start getting to us.

“Arion, for the record, your Monster Olympics was a stupid fucking idea,” Damien decides to say.

“You’ve already said that multiple times,” Arion mutters, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’m not used to being on the losing side, unless it’s pretend. Is there any way to keep my winning streak alive? I really think the bitch could withstand a missile attack. I swear she’s stronger than ever, just based off the palpable tension in the air.”

“Tell us about Pandora and anything she said to you,” Emit tells me.

I’m obviously apprehensive to do so, since this situation is already out of control. It’ll be just one more brick atop a shaky, poorly stacked pile above their heads.

Still, I rehash the conversation, seeing the dead look cross their eyes when they realize how long she’s been up.

“A thousand years flew by, and I still didn’t have the energy to go look for myself and see if she was up. In truth, I don’t think I wanted to know,” Damien confesses in a quiet tone, jaw clenching.

“Taste the air, Morpheous. It’s so thick with the tension she’s radiating that it’s stifling. None of us wanted to know, besides the vampire. And he was underground too,” I tell him, glancing over at Arion with new appreciation for how being awake and buried must have been for him.

“I got off topic because you tossers never let a man finish his train of thought if it last longer than your flippant attention span,” I grind out. “The point is, we’re finally doing all the things for Violet that Idun wanted us doing for her. We buried her, and then we moved on to another woman we all appreciated and wanted far more, and we did so as the men Idun always wanted us to be.”

“Sans me, who is the exact same. She just took it for granted, and Violet adores me for what I’ve endured. I’ve started playing it up and taking all the goodies Violet wants to offer to make up for the ways Idun hurt me,” Arion says with a grin.

The grin quickly falls.

“Now that bitch is going to take it all away, regardless of the centuries I did devote to her,” Arion says in a frigid tone.

My gaze drifts to Emit, who’s gone quiet for a while now, his chin tucked in his hand, as he stares at a spot on the wall.

“Why’s smoke rolling out of your ears, mongrel?” I ask, as two very bright, almost blinding, streaks of lightning crash outside.

Emit looks to me, a confused, almost lost look in his eyes.

“I’ve played it in my head hundreds of times. It doesn’t make sense for Violet to taunt Idun. Even on a power trip, her dominance is so fierce that it’s taking all my control to keep my wolf leashed. You three have been arguing almost nonstop, unable to think clearly or finish full thought processes.”

“And?” I ask, needing him to hurry on with it, because I need a shower before I die.

She’ll have to fucking kill me. I’m not going in the ground without any way of moving. I’ll go mad and come out a true monster—not some broken man she can bend to her will.

I’m Vancetto fucking Van Helsing. I hunt monsters; I don’t drop to my knees before them. I’m a fucking monster too.

“And Violet came out of nowhere,” Emit adds, his eyes darting away as though he’s just thought of something.

“Vance, come with me. I need in your archive room,” the wolf says suddenly as he stands.

“What could you possibly learn from the archives that we don’t already know?” I ask very seriously. “We need to devise a concrete plan to attempt to survive this night. This is just the first night, and it’s going to be done with the gloves off this time. We may not get the opportunity to put her under, because fewer alphas are going to side with us after that stunt Violet recklessly pulled.”

“Jack,” he says as though that makes all the sense in the world.

“Yes. We’ll spend the night looking through all the fourteen million Jacks I’ve come across this past eternity,” I state, sarcasm oozing from my tone. “I’m sure Idun won’t mind waiting to bury us alive in an attempt to conform us.”

“It’s the monster from your memories that attacked Violet inside your head,” he says, again not making much sense.

“I’ve known countless Jacks. And Violet’s not the issue—”