“Someone, anyone, start fucking talking,” I grind out.

Chapter 42

EMIT

I scrub a hand over my face, walking to the forest line to get some space and try to wrap my head around everything they’ve just said. Or tried to say.

None of it sounds…real.

“So you’re saying this thing is volatile, uncontrollable, manipulative, and takes root in the subconscious?” Vance asks, absorbing every word like he’s piecing together some puzzle.

“It’s also resourceful and clever. It’s never had a host as powerful as Violet,” Talbot tacks on.

“Theon was responsible for Jack,” Arion tells us, his head down. “That altar he made was no joke.”

We should have killed him sooner. We just knew Arion would retaliate, and now the vampire is showing contrition over it for the first true time.

It makes me almost hate him again.

“It’s hard to get Hyde back in the box. Since the first ceremony was never completed well enough to achieve immortality, the box stayed intact,” Talbot continues. “But since that first botched ceremony, anytime someone builds an altar, Hyde has the strength to break free, and it rushes into the first host with the most suppressed inner desires—not the one who has built the altar in hopes of receiving a powerful monster. Usually, it lands in a human, drives them mad, and takes over as the supreme ruler of the body, until it calls enough attention to itself for me to track it down.”

He gives Vance a tired look.

“All you did was make it harder and harder for me to trap it, every time you stepped in to play the fucking hero and kill it,” Talbot adds.

“I’ll stab you here and now if you’re somehow blaming me for this,” Vance assures him.

“This is boring and old news. But it is cute how it looks when the shoe’s on the other foot. I wish Violet could enjoy it,” Diva says, grinning, before she disappears.

“Why the hell is there a ghost everywhere tonight?” I demand.

“Aren’t you even listening?” Arion bites out, staring at me as though he wishes he could put his fist through my face.

“I still have no idea what the hell you’re even talking about, but I do know I’m seconds away from stabbing you if you don’t wrap it up and spell it out for me,” Vance says, stepping up beside me, as he glares at Talbot.

Two stab-threats in less than five minutes. Someone better hurry.

Talbot releases a heavy breath, as Arion stares down, saying nothing.

“Violet’s birthmother didn’t die the way Violet thinks she died,” Marta says very quietly, drawing our attention. “She was struck by lightning in her third month of pregnancy. She and Tom had a very real relationship, and he loved her very deeply. I lied and dishonored her name with that lie, because if anyone knew she’d been struck by lightning, they may have suspected the child to have Neopry blood. I panicked. Then I kept panicking and covering more and more truths, because Tom and Violet became my life.”

She shakes her head and runs both her hands through her hair, as she stares at a piece of the house crumbling.

“I thought I could pretend to be this woman he loved, because I’ve never been loved like that. For the first time in too long, I had the chance to have a family, so I took it. Then I buried my head in the sand and pretended everything would be okay,” Marta confesses. “And it was. At least until her thirteenth birthday when the life I’d forsaken came back to haunt me.”

“Why not feed her those damn green apples?” I ask, unable to help myself, as my own ire ratchets up. “No one would have ever smelled the Portocale blood, and she’d have been left alone.”

“She ate them all the damn time. However, she ate just as many oranges, so they cancelled each other out,” Marta states on autopilot, still numbly staring at nothing.

“Some fool unearthed the Book of Vales,” Talbot says. “An unnatural amount of blood magic had already been used to place Hyde back in its box time and time again. It was so powerful all on its own, that it managed to survive over a century in the ghost plane with no form. That book gave power to one altar after another, as it passed from greedy hand to greedy hand.”

“The sea swelled, and the gypsy moon was at its strongest,” Marta carries on. “I knew Tom had Neopry blood in his veins, but I had no idea it was from the original branch of the family—pre-immortality.”

“I had no idea I was speaking with the original Marta Portocale when I came to hunt Hyde down again. I sensed its presence in the world once more for the first time in ages. I didn’t know what to do when I found it in an innocent thirteen-year-old girl,” Talbot says, flicking his gaze to Marta.

“While I was still reeling and vulnerable, I shared some details with him, and in return, he told me all about Hyde and what the monster is capable of,” Marta supplies. “He told me the electrical storm must have charged her body, while she was still in the womb. He told me about the perfect storm of events that had led the monster to my child—the botched first ceremony, Hyde’s constant deaths at the hands of Van Helsing, the persistent and reckless use of blood-magic to return the monster to the box, and the unnatural storm—”

“Which was caused by us,” Bobo cuts in, giving her a grim look.

We’re all so stunned to hear him speak, that none of us really react at first, including Marta.

My body aches, feeling a restlessness stir within me, as well as the urge to find and protect my mate clawing at me from the inside.

“We couldn’t stay under anymore, but we couldn’t go back to the way it was. So we all used our hope to wish for something awful, sensing each other’s feelings clearly enough to be on the same wavelength,” Bobo goes on, wiping the rain or tears from his face.

The wind blows, and the rain ceases over our circle, while continuing to pour all around us. Talbot’s eyes hold dilated pupils, signaling this is likely his blood-magic doing.

“We wished for a hero who could defeat Idun and cause the wheel of power to start moving once again,” Bobo says, his voice cracking. “Deep down, we knew we were damning some soul, but…”

His voice trails off, and I exhale harshly in understanding.

“But, considering your innate sensitive nature and the way you’ve had to view the world, you stopped having hope there was any good left in people. You figured it was better to try things with a new devil, in hopes someone else would move to the bottom for a change,” Damien interjects.

He gives a slow, sad nod.

“So the universe, being the humbling enigma it is, sent you a genuine, fair-hearted girl you now feel guilty for condemning,” Vance surmises.

The universe makes no exceptions.

“She was supposed to be someone else, and she didn’t ask for this. It was forced on her,” Bobo states in soft agreement. “She’ll have to become something she never wanted to be, and that’s our fault. She didn’t want Idun to be her problem. She just wants to build—not destroy.”

Bobo points to himself, as if signaling she’s just like him. His eyes water harder.

“I couldn’t do it. So I damned her to do it for me,” he adds, lips trembling, as he turns and begins to silently sob.