“Violet,” I say again as the metal snaps and my arms fly forward.
I grab both sides of her face the second I’m free, even as my elbows slap the silver panels of the coffin, sizzling over the vast space. “Focus on me.”
I’ll figure out how the fucking hell she broke them that easily later.
“Don’t move,” she says in that same shaky tone. “Don’t move. And don’t speak. Don’t let me see you,” she whispers like she’s pleading with me as her heartbeat continues to drop.
She pulls all sorts of little vials out, putting them in one of my hands and closing my fingers around it. “Don’t let me see you,” she repeats. “Throw all of that at me if I do, and then run.”
She yanks out of my grip, and works her body around to be facing the other way. I watch, too dumbfounded to process what’s going on, as her heart continues to click down like it’s a timer.
I hear the last three beats spaced farther and farther apart as she slams into the top over and over, her back staying to me.
When no fourth beat plays, I hold my breath and go perfectly still, because she pushes up so hard that I hear things breaking above us. Cement suddenly crumbles in in partially settled pieces, and then a splatter of liquid rains down behind it, spilling into the casket like rough, cold slush.
I hear a small, short, broken cry of effort as Violet pushes up harder, and the whole casket lid buckles as it flies off at her end. The force propels it so hard that it bends it back and stabs into the ground beside us, just barely staying over my face.
More cement pours in, and I realize she’s also freed my ankles from their restraints at some point.
She’s already gone. One second she’s there, and the next she’s not.
With a lot of maneuvering, I pull myself up, hearing the sounds of someone screaming just as the cement stops pouring, and something massive and heavy groans as it slams into something else.
I think that was the cement truck…
A series of cracks ring in sequence before a loud crash creates background noise for the shouts, screams, and whirring motions above.
“What the fucking—” The shouted words are cut off, and an incoherent roar of shouts start right after that.
I hear more screaming, the bloodcurdling kind, before something wet splatters in the distance. A whisper of air whirs, as those same telling bloodcurdling screams erupt from one place to another, the last screams coming so fast that it’s impossible for them all to be dying at once.
The cement laps at my waist as I hold myself against the wall of the hole, remembering her warning.
The desperation in her tone as she told me not to move. Not to let her see me. The panic and fear in her eyes as her pupils turned to pinpricks…
The stopping of her heart just before she lost all control...
I hold the breath that tries to release, as a cold, sickening chill of realization hits. The thought of suffocating hallucinations cross my mind again, as the screams patter on, because there’s absolutely no way I’m right.
It only lasts a matter of a few minutes before all the screams cut out. The loud crashing of things above me continues, and the silent killer leaves only a whirring of wind in her impossibly fast wake.
It isn’t until it’s gone utterly silent that I risk releasing my breath.
That’s when I hear the soft sobbing from above, and I close my eyes, shaking my head slowly, exhaling much harder than I did when I learned she was a Portocale.
Without giving myself time to process, I jump up, grab the edge, and heave myself over it.
I end up hovering over the edge when I simply freeze, staring at everything around me in stunned silence.
“Why were there so many?” I hear Violet whispering, but I don’t move my head.
I can’t.
There’s too much I can’t look away from.
Wolves in fur and wolves in flesh…they’re all torn apart. On estimation, I’d say there are at least twenty…all ripped apart with sheer brute force.
Blood is splattered on every single surface, painting the barn’s insides red.
Everything is painted red.
A perfectly detached eyeball rolls to a stop just in front of me, as if to punctuate the entire scene.
“There were just so many, and I couldn’t. I can’t,” Violet is stammering in her shaky voice, straining out the last words through another sob.
Slowly, I heave myself the rest of the way up, quickly pulling my cement-covered shirt over my head and dropping it aside.
“Why were we in the ground? Why is my throat slit? Are the omegas okay?” she prattles on, sounding scattered and not really present.
Two severed heads lie at my feet as I strip out of my jeans. My gaze moves up to where two separate, mangled bodies dangle from the rafters above.
My line of view shifts to find several other bodies or body parts up there, bumping the body count up closer to the number I caught at a quick glimpse when I first woke.
“I didn’t mean to. They were burying me. Why were they burying us?” Violet goes on through her broken whimpers, and my eyes finally land on her.
She’s sitting and staring at her bloody fingertips as she rubs them together, her body trembling as she sits with her knees pulled to her chest.
She’s drenched in blood and cement. It looks like she’s taken a swim in one of Arion’s fountains and fell into a construction site at the same time.
Her eyes are vacant and barely dilated, as her heartbeat slowly but steadily climbs.
“Shhh,” I say softly as I go to scoop her up.
Her arms limply come around my neck, as though she’s functioning on autopilot.
“No one’s supposed to know,” she rambles on, her head shaking as her pupils stall their growth. “Mom said more people would hunt me. But there are monsters everywhere. Not just me.”
“Not just you,” I tell her as I kiss the top of her head, trying to wrap my own head around the amount of damage she’s done, while mentally assessing each wolf’s face.
I see three absent in total I need to find before anyone breathes a word about this.
I carry Violet to the broken, shattered doors of the barn.
“They shouldn’t have buried me. I didn’t do anything to them,” she goes on, hiccupping around another sob, like she’s fighting to get her breathing under control. “I can’t panic. I shouldn’t panic. They panicked me. It was too late. I can’t turn back once it’s started. It was just too late.”
“Shh,” I say again, exhaling harshly as I put her down.
Her arms fall away from my neck, and she wraps them around her legs, as she starts rocking on the ground.
I look back at the carnage still left behind.
She tore them all apart in under five minutes, and for the first time, I notice the pink ribbon lacing through her neck, the skin there already pulling together in a healing process.
She can’t…die.
She can’t panic.
And none of this can be happening.
Worried Arion will be torturing wolves to find her, I start searching dismembered torsos for phones, finally finding one in a shirt pocket that isn’t too badly damaged.
I dial Vance first, and he answers immediately.
“Yes?” he answers with an edge to his tone.
My gaze flicks to Violet as she whispers over and over, “Mom said tell no one. No one. No one.”
Walking away in case he hears her, I say, “It’s me.”
“Emit,” he says on a harsh exhale.
“That’s Emit?” I hear Arion ask with an eerily calm tone. “Tell him I’m going to kill one wolf for every hour Violet is missing, starting with the two who took her, and work my way down to any wolf who smells even the faintest—”
“Violet’s with me,” I tell Vance, even though Arion is the one running his mouth.
“The omegas said she was hurt—”
“She’s fine,” I say as I glance over my should
er to find Violet staring vacantly out at the woods in front of her, still rocking.
Her pupils are still too small as she rubs her fingers together. “She’s slightly traumatized, but physically fine,” I add tightly.
I hear something akin to a small scuffle, before I Damien’s voice comes over the phone. “Where are you?” he asks very coldly.
I glance around, noting that I’m definitely not in my woods. “That remains to be determined. Put me back on with Vance.”
He curses as Vance’s voice comes back on the line.
“I know you take issue with hurting your wolves, but tonight that changes unless there’s a damn good reason Violet was—”
“A very small portion of my wolves were involved in the mutiny tonight, and Violet was just a token they used. They wanted to restart the wars, and force you to fight within the parameters of the law of heavy exposure.”
“That’s the most half-cocked mutinous plan yet,” Vance growls.
My eyes flick over to Violet, seeing the blood-soaked satin lacing through her neck.
“Yeah. Luckily they fucked up every part of it,” I lie, knowing there’d definitely be hell to pay had she died.
The wars would have started.
Arion doesn’t play nice when things are taken from him.
It’s clear he’s developed a small attachment to Violet.
For the first time, I see the power this little gypsy already has, and an uneasy feeling fills me. Mostly because this gypsy has no clue what she even is, and she’s certainly unaware of the power she’s unintentionally garnered over the three of them.
“But Arion is right, which is hard for me to say. We’re being too lax with her, thinking our name strikes more fear than it does in this era,” I go on, keeping this casual.
“Your wolves don’t know how to properly fear, and I’ve been underground for a fucking century, which debunks a lot of my motherfucking fear factor!” Arion snaps, his calm edge now gone.
“I have three missing,” I say, sniffing the air, smelling their trail. “I’m assuming they’re headed back to town.”
Ian is the only one who will talk, and I already have his trail scented toward the east, moving away from town. He’s running. He knows he’s fucked, and he’s terrified, because I can smell his fear from here.
“Who?” Vance asks on a growl. “I just need a name or face to hunt.”
“You don’t get to touch them,” I caution.
“Now’s not the time for—”
“They’re still my wolves,” I say on a low growl. “No one touches them until I say so.”
Vance exhales harshly. “The punishment better be fitting of the crime,” is all he says before Damien is back on the line.
“Call when you have Violet close to home,” he says like he’s the only one left with any faux calmness.
“Send my omegas to my house. You’ll probably have to look really hard if they were attacked along with her.”
“You really think now is the time for—”
“I had to let the wolf take full control tonight. It was the only way to get us out, because they tried burying us alive. She would have suffocated,” I start, knowing Violet will be stalked and hunted by wolves who feel she’s a threat if I don’t get my packs sorted first.
“Did you hurt Violet?” Vance asks quickly, back on the line.
“By some miracle, no,” I answer quietly, my eyes back on the girl who left an entire room in bloody ruins in less than five minutes. “I’ll call you back when I know where I am. The first two wolves won’t be hard to find. I’m sure there’s fresh blood on them, but remember to keep them alive. Happy hunting, Van Helsing.”
I have no idea how they’re going to react to this new information, so I decide it’s best to keep it to myself. For now. At least until I’ve convinced myself of what’s going on before I start convincing them.
Looking back at the carnage, it’s possible my wolf—fully unleashed—could do just as much damage…if it had more time than she did.
“Anna was wrong. Buffy would so not kick your ass,” I hear a girl saying, and I glance over to see the triplet ghosts and one male.
I snarl at them, stepping closer, needing them to forget what they saw as I clutch the phone in my hand.
They all take a wary step back from her.
“If anyone learns of this, you’ll all be tortured piles of salt by the time I’m finished with you. Understand?”
The guy smirks like he’s won a prize before he disappears. The triplets give a quick nod and also vanish.
Violet is still unresponsive, talking on autopilot, muttering things her mother told her to never do.
I lean over and lift her up from the ground.
Her arms limply and reflexively move to my neck again, and her wet, blood-matted hair drops to my shoulder.
“The omegas will get you cleaned up,” I say softly. “And then you’re staying with me.”
I start carrying her into the woods, following the scent of the one runner I worry will speak. The other two will die in silence and fear.
“Then you can tell me how you’re even possible, when I can’t mistake the scent of Portocale blood,” I say to the paradox who goes completely limp in my arms.
Chapter 26
DAMIEN
“How is she?” Arion asks over the phone, as I lie on my bed next to her, taking in every feature as she sleeps.
“She’s still sleeping,” I say as I stare down at the halo of dark hair swirled on my pillow. “The omegas finished cleaning her up, and we’re all at my house. Emit says he’s collecting her when he returns.”
Her neck has a small red mark on it, like she was strangled or something, but the mark is fading really fast for such a fragile girl. Her fragility has become a joke at this point.
“She may not ever be right again if she saw this happening with her own eyes,” Arion states very quietly.
“That bad?” I muse, hating him more than ever right now.
“I’m finding it hard to believe Emit stepped up and did this—it smells like something I’d leave behind. And I can only get so close because Vance is making me stay downwind of the wolves he has assembling. I can’t help but wonder if it looks anything like the picture the stench of blood is painting.”
My phone chimes, and I look down. I’m too old to be disturbed by anything, but I’m also wiser. If I’m right, this is only the beginning of what is sure to be a brand new, horrible era of Idun.
I almost snarl at the girl I once obsessed over.
“How did you manage to do this?” I ask quietly as I stare down at the enigma.
She’s too good of an actress if this has all been a play. Idun’s not a patient woman, so it figures she slipped and tried to get me first, expecting one mind-blowing night of pure, unadulterated, exhausting pleasure would get me right on board like the good puppy she always wanted me to be.
It’d be considered crafty, if I was still young and stupid. It’s nothing more than insulting when I’m not.
Arion says nothing for several long minutes, and I half wonder if he’s even still on the line.
“Shera is on her way to take over,” he notifies me.
“I’m not leaving,” I counter, moving over on the bed when Violet makes a soft whimper.
Unconsciously, she moves into my touch when I push her still damp hair out of her face. They spent a lot of time cleaning off the blood and cement. I’m going to be here to ask her questions when she wakes and find out exactly what’s going on.
“The missing wolves have been rounded up, and I’m not privy to their current location. Emit just keeps bloody staring at the doors that conceal crime scene like he’s either feeling guilt or just thinking. Out of the two, which sounds more like Emit?” he asks very quietly.
“His wolves have gotten vicious,” I say like I’m playing along with him. “One could blame you for this.”
I leave that vague remark in there. Emit was triggered by dear s
weet Violet. Shocker. Now he’s tearing apart wolves like never before.
“Or you could blame him for letting them get so out of—”
“Would you two shut the fuck up?” Emit snaps.
Violet—as I decide to continue calling her before cementing my decision—mutters something I miss, as she turns over in the bed and begins to snore softly.
Lemon pops her head inside the room, opening the door up just a crack.
“There’s a vampire bitch here. I’d kick her ass, but my instincts make me a runner, not a fighter,” she states very seriously.
“Where are we meeting?” I ask Arion, even though I don’t want to be pulled away at this moment. “They won’t stick me underground,” I add as I grab the gun loaded with silver bullets from my bedside.
Lemon whimpers and scurries off when she sniffs the silver in the air.
“We’re in agreement?” Arion asks in an almost muted tone.
“Why wouldn’t we be?” I ask as I hang up.
Lemon frowns when I dump the loaded clip and put in an empty one.
“It’s just for show,” I tell her with a wink as I glance back down at Violet. “It’s a gamble, but I’m guessing I’m not wrong about this.”
“About what?” she asks as I walk by her.
“History always finds a way to repeat itself, even when she’s fucking buried and as dead as she can be,” I say so quietly I know she can’t hear the words.
Chapter 27
VIOLET
I hear a door shutting, and my eyes fly open.
Ingrid pops out from under a table across the room, pushing half her hair out of her face as she slowly approaches me with a drink in her hand.
I give her a weak smile. “I don’t think drinking is a good idea.”
She nods as she starts drinking the drink. “This is for me,” she informs me, causing me to try to laugh, but I end up whimpering in pain instead.
It always feels like I’ve been hit with—
“Emit,” I whisper as I close my eyes tightly. I killed his wolves. Right in front of him.
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