I run my eyes over the firm muscles that lead down to that really firm ass.
“It’ll end quickly when the violence comes into play,” he adds.
I’m still very distracted by the big, not-so-bad wolf.
“So you were frozen like this? This wasn’t an immortal thing? Getting ripped and perfect and all that?” I ask just to clarify.
He turns and looks over his shoulder at me, smirking.
“To be fair, times required a certain level of fitness to stay on the road and constantly ready to fight. Strapping hunters kept people fed and kept people alive.” He glances at the cabin and back at me. “Just in case things do get bad, squeeze out all that toothpaste. It’ll confuse them, since to them, your blood smells just the same. They’ll not know any different, and you can hide.”
I lift the gun. “I have protection,” I remind him.
“You don’t look like much of a marksmen,” he adds, once more struggling not to grin.
I roll my eyes and lift the gun. “Actually, I’m rather handy with—”
As if the universe wants to humble me a bit, the gun drops from my hand, and Emit’s eyes widen just as it hits the ground and fires.
There’s a high pitch scream in the air, signaling I’ve just gone and killed something. My gaze darts around until it lands on the rapidly deflating tire I’ve shot…
“On second thought, I’ll hide,” I tell him, as he jogs around in all his naked, perfect glory, and stares down at my victim.
“Was that a fucking gunshot?” Vance shouts from the railing.
I swing my gaze up to find him in a black tactical outfit, as he glares down at me. He’s definitely going to think I’m too stupid to live now.
“We’ve decided I’m squeezing toothpaste and following Ingrid’s lead if shit goes down,” I say up to him, smiling like I’m not an idiot. “Meaning I’m going to hide in the walls or something,” I add to clarify, when he doesn’t make any expression.
He glares at Emit, who is groaning and shaking his head.
“She’s coming,” Vance says like he’s mocking Emit as he takes an easy hop up and balances on the railing like it’s no big feat. “You’re too dramatic, Vance. She’s a Portocale—they have survival training.”
He drops from the railing, as he presumably finishes his mocking, landing with eerie stealth. On impact, he bends perfectly at the knees and immediately springs into an easy, fast-paced walk toward the woods.
“Lock the doors and hide at any sound,” Emit tells me pointedly, like he hasn’t seen what I’m capable of.
It makes me really leery of what unregistered wolves must be capable of if the beta-throat-slitting-monster-bash hasn’t convinced him that I’m worse than wolves.
I give a firm nod, and turn to head toward the house.
I hear the quick crackling of something, turning to see as Emit’s wolf form twists in the air so that he can land on his feet.
My breath is taken away, since this is the second time I’ve been this close to him like this. However, it’s the first time I haven’t been distracted by a crazed vampire I raised from the grave.
The dark wolf is magnificent…almost majestic this time.
He’s just large enough to be suspicious if seen by the human eye, but small enough to remain within the confines of believable wolf size—the perfect predator in a world where he shouldn’t exist.
With one hard lunge, he pushes off the ground and disappears into the shadows of the woods. Those woods have gotten a lot darker now that the sun is mostly down. They’ll never see him coming, because he effortlessly blends in.
I am curious about how they avoid detection by scent though.
I’ll put a pin in it.
Still refusing to think about Idun being the ribbon girl I claimed to be, I head inside with both my bags, and take a look around. It’s not really fair that this woman I’ve never met gets to steal the one identity I’ve been able to give myself.
I’m not sure I’m ready to give it up just yet.
She shouldn’t get it just because she had it first. It sounds like she ruined what could have been a good story. I mean, I understand they’re monsters and the four of them can all be assholes, but it seems like she was a bit of a raging monster bitch.
I lock the door behind me, idly wondering if Anna was right all along.
I’m not the leading role.
I’m just a side character in the longest running tale that nobody really wants to talk about.
Chapter 8
VIOLET
I give the hot tub some side eye. It’s after two in the morning, and the temperatures are dropping, as the first flakes of snow form. That hot tub out there in that cold air would feel so good…
But I’m supposed to stay inside and chew my nails off, worrying what happens to them. Maybe they’re okay with dying and coming back, but I don’t want anyone else dying.
I’m sick of it.
My eyes move to that hot tub again, studying that top through the window, as I prop my feet up.
“What are the odds these wolves would just end up here if I go out in the tub?” I ask myself.
I decide very low.
I mean…I can’t die or turn into a werewolf. I’m already a monster, and I’m a Portocale. From what I’ve deduced thus far, it’s reasonable to assume I could pretend to die for a little while, and then they’d be gone until Emit and Vance could kill them. And that’s worst-case scenario.
Instead of fainting with a quiet heartbeat, I could just quietly lower my heartbeat and silently endure the pain, that way I’m sure to be stitched up before Vance returns.
Their hearing can’t be that exceptional, right?
Maybe the omegas were on to something, because this does feel like the closest to a vacation I’ve ever actually had. I tighten the strings on my bikini, snatch a towel from next to the deck door, and grab the gun loaded with silver bullets.
Hurriedly, I move to the hot tub and struggle until I get the top removed.
The warm water laps at my ankles, as I shiver against the growing cold. The overhang blocks the snow from hitting me, and the wind is blowing away from me instead of at me, so I’m shielded by the house in that regard.
A moan passes through my lips as I slip into the water better, dropping the gun and towel at the edge before I sink in to my shoulders.
It’s pretty at night when the woods are in the process of getting snowed on, and the moon is bright and large, just shy of a full moon.
I’m not sure how long I’m boiling before an, “Are you fucking kidding me?!” is snapped very loudly.
I jerk awake, realizing how close to sleep I just was, and find Vance glaring at me from the edge of the hot tub, breathing heavily, as though he’s run for miles to come yell at me.
“How was the hunt?” I decide to ask him on a painful swallow, trying to catch up to what’s going on right now.
“Interrupted by the strong, sweet scent of an annoying little gypsy,” he says very angrily.
Clearly, I’m in trouble.
He keeps his hands positioned on his hips, as the loud shaking of bushes has me jerking my gaze over to see Emit emerging, naked, as he walks toward us, giving me a very unimpressed look.
“His hunt was interrupted as well,” Vance tells me like this is most certainly a scolding.
“That could have been mentioned. I thought there was a range, since Emit couldn’t smell them. It’s only fair to assume they couldn’t possibly smell me if he couldn’t smell them.”
Vance blinks at me, and Emit cants his head, lips tugging up at one corner of his mouth in a slow grin.
Vance opens his mouth to say something, then closes it, then opens it again. Finally, he settles for a stern glare because he seems too frustrated with me to talk in a calm tone, and I’m thankful that he doesn’t seem to want to yell right now.
“You made this mess. You figure out a way to reason with her before she gets herself fucking killed,” he says in a chilling tone as he cuts his eyes to Emit. “I don’t want to close my eyes as it is. Two deaths at once might make it a worse hell. Make her take her this a little more seriously.”
He turns and stalks inside, slamming the door behind him to punctuate his really bad mood.
“And I thought it was because he was worried about me,” I say as I dunk my head under water, escaping from the humiliation for a second.
I don’t stay under long, and Emit’s eyes are burning against me when I finally manage to dry my eyes enough to open them. I immediately take in his very bare form, swallowing a little harder when he bites down on his bottom lip.
Self-control, Violet. Have some.
Life would be so much easier these days if I hated sex and didn’t have so many back to back life-altering things going on at once.
“If you’d done that sooner, the chemicals would have masked a lot more of your scent,” Emit tells me as he casually lowers his naked body into the water across from me.
As if that’s no big deal…
My eyes widen, because he’s so tall that he’s forced to stretch under me, and my ankles tap the sides of his legs. It’s the sort of thing that feels unexpectedly more intimate when you’re mostly naked and floating in water. Especially since he’s totally, one-hundred-percent, undoubtedly completely naked.