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His words sting me, but I’m not sure why. I doubt they’ve even scratched the surface with Vin, but for some reason they hurt in my heart. Maybe because I wonder if they’re true. I sneak a peek at Vin to find him watching Andy with a familiar wry smile on his lips. He watches him for a long time before calmly and clearly telling him:

“Eat me.”

It’s a trigger for Andy. I know firsthand how much he hates judgment on their lifestyle, and somehow Vin must know it too.

The room erupts around me. Andy makes a lunge at Vin. Elijah goes to grab him. Ryan steps between them. Trent easily gets ahold of Andy from behind. Andy slips from his grasp only to be grabbed again, this time by both Elijah and Trent.

Vin never moves. The rest of the room bursts with people shouting for calm, grabbing at angry hands, but he and I both stand perfectly still inside the madness. With the entrance of the cannibals, this was already a powder keg waiting to blow and Vin just lit the match. This was a union that was destined to die violently, but what choice do we have? How many choices do we ever have? None. Or at best we get two and they’re never good. The sum of the life we live is the lesser of two evils. You dance with the Devil you know because he’ll leave you broken and bleeding, but at least you have a chance in hell at making it home to recover. It’s the unknown that will kill you, and even though I know that, even though I’ve lived it every single day for the last nine years, I’m still foolishly hoping that this time it will be different.

Maybe this time it will set me free.

“Are we going to have to separate you two?” I ask, shouting over the noise of aggression and rage, staring straight at Vin. He locks eyes with me, his face impassive. “Or can you play nicely?”

He smiles broad and easy. “I’m sugar-sweet, Kitten. You know that.”

“Can you tone it down a bit?”

“You want me to be less me?”

“I want you to shut your mouth a little more.”

His eyebrows raise in surprise. “You giving me orders now?”

“I’m giving you advice. If you can’t say something nice—”

“Say something painfully honest?”

“Shut your trap.”

He grins again. “That’s not how it goes.”

I gesture to Ryan, Trent, and Elijah forming a barrier between him and a still seething, though quieting, Andy. “Neither is this. If you can’t play nice, you need to get out of the sandbox. I’m getting past the fact that we’re all meals on wheels to them and if I can do it, anyone can. Even you.” I look around to the rest of the room. “All of you can. And you will or we’re boned. We may as well just go home now.”

Vin waves my words away. “I don’t care what they eat. Or who. Live and let live, I always say.”

I shake my head, feeling exhausted. “I really doubt you’ve ever said those words before.”

“Maybe not, but it’s true. The cannibalism thing, that’s never bothered me.”

“Then why are you pushing his buttons like this?” Ryan asks, turning to face Vin. I don’t care for his back being to Andy. The only thing keeping me sane is that Trent is there too.

“Because he’s a liar,” Vin says simply. “He’s betraying The Hive after how many years under their roof? At their table? In their beds?”

“So you don’t trust him. Fine,” I say, letting my exasperation show. “We all know it. Bottom line—can you work with him or not? Can you all get past your issues and work with them to get this thing done?”

Eyes hit the floor or shoot to the sky. People avoid looking at each other and I don’t know if it’s because they’re ashamed for hating someone they don’t know just because they… well, because they eat people and that’s jacked up, or if it’s because they don’t want to face the fact that they can’t get over it. I understand either way.

Vin looks Andy up and down slowly. I know why he’s doing it. He’s dragging the moment out to stress every last person in the room—everyone but him and probably Trent, because Trent doesn’t stress. I don’t like it one bit. I feel like Vin is trying to make Andy slip up so he has a reason. The same reason he had with Breanne.

“Yeah, I can work with him,” he says finally. But then his eyes swing to Alvarez. “But they don’t get the MOHAI. Not a chance.”

“Who would you suggest inherits it, then?” Alvarez asks, but he already knows.

Vin stares at him long and hard without answering.

I see Alvarez’s jaw clench once tightly, but then he nods. “It’s yours if you can get it back. Elijah, the same goes for you and your people. If you get us into the southern Pod like you promised, then it’s yours. Deal?”

Elijah nods, his eyes still on Vin. “Deal.”

“Great,” Alvarez says sarcastically. “Now can you all stop acting like children and get back to business? We still have a lot of work to do.”

***

Three hours later finds me eating my last meal in the forest. We’re having a late breakfast, then it’s off to war. I’m noticing that this overthrowing business is exhausting. I keep accidentally looking off in the direction of my loft, dreaming of my bed and my bathroom. After the tense meeting we just had with the cannibals, I’m even having thoughts about my bottle of vodka.

“It took you long enough to come back,” Lexy tells me bitingly.

The girl is ruining my meal. Ever since the stable girls showed up, she’s been attached like glue to Vin’s side. I recognize it for what it is—infatuation. No way Vin is leading her on. He barely tolerates her, which isn’t to say he isn’t sleeping with her, but he definitely isn’t putting pretty pictures in her head. She’s doing that all on her own.

“That’s what he said,” I grumble around a large bite of bread, gesturing to Vin.

“We were sure you’d left us to die.”

“Sorry to disappoint.”

“Don’t be. We wouldn’t have been sorry to see you go.”

I look up from my plate to eye her carefully. I do it for too long. She twitches under my stare, making me grin.

“‘We,’ huh? You’re a ‘we’ now?”

Vin looks up sharply. “What? No.”

“Vin,” Lexy protests.

“Are you sure?” I ask him.

“Yes,” he tells me angrily. He stares Lexy down. “And, no, we’re not a ‘we.’ We’re nothing.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t mean it, Lex,” I tell her consolingly. “Never give up hope.”

“Kitten,” Vin growls in warning.

Lexy shoots me an icy stare from across the table. It’s cute how hard she tries. “Be sure to watch your back out there, Kitten,” she spits sarcastically. “I’d hate to see you get hurt.”

I put up my finger in her face, getting serious. “Watch yourself. You’re toeing a dangerous line with me right now and I don’t want to have to remind you what happened to the last girl who threatened me. Forget Vin, I’ll put you to bed with Caroline. You get me?”

Lexy pales. She glances once at Vin, then Ryan and Trent. All of them keep their heads down, carefully pretending they have no idea what’s happening. Finally she stands slowly, turns, and leaves without a word.

“Well, that’s handy,” I mumble, picking up my bread.

“Kinda harsh,” Ryan comments.

I hate that I immediately feel a twinge of guilt just from those two words from him. “I did him a favor,” I say defensively. “That girl was one kiss away from collecting his hair. I don’t have time for that kind of crazy.”

“Amen to that,” Vin says heartily, raising his glass to me.

“Calm down, Romeo. You’re the idiot who keeps getting us into these situations.”

“‘Us’?” he asks with a sly grin. “Are we an ‘us’ now?”

“No,” Ryan replies darkly.

I roll my eyes. “Can we talk about something else?”

“I think there are almonds in this bread,” Trent states affably.

“What happened to your dad?” I ask Vin.