But she doesn’t laugh, doesn’t smile.
“You’ll subdue me if anything goes wrong,” she says, handing me three things. “This one is a powder, in case you can’t get close to me, it will knock me out. Enough time to take the necklace off and take me to Iris. This one is oral. If I’m with it enough, I can down this and it will do the same. But if things go really bad,” she says, pulling out the smallest little dart. “Hit me with this.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t put the necklace on.”
“I’m tired of not knowing the truth,” she says.
“And you think a necklace will give you this truth?”
“In her letter, she saidthe moon necklace will always protect you.I’ve got to hold on to that.”
“Is there something you’re not telling me?” I ask her, and she doesn’t look at me, so I grab her chin. Her soft skin feels like silk against mine. “Violet?”
She looks like she wants to say something, but tightens her lips.
“I just…I just need to know the truth, Silas. Promise me you’ll make sure I’m okay. I know we don’t always get along, that you’re still mad at me and we’re trying to figure out how to get ourselves out of this mess, but I know you’d never hurt me.So just promise me, that whatever happens when I put on this necklace, you’ll make sure nothing bad happens.”
Her mind is made up, I can read it in the seriousness of her face. She’s putting this necklace on no matter what I say. I mean, the thing looks harmless. Her mother gave it to her. Not that she knew who she was giving it to, or maybe some small part of her did. There was something intrinsic in the way she knew Violet needed this necklace, and she gave it to me to give to her.
“I’m going to be really pissed if I have to shoot you with this, Violet.”
She smiles and takes a deep breath. Her fingers shake as she grabs the chain, unclasping the mechanism before putting it around her neck and clasping it. The blanket falls, showing that she’s wearing a purple nightgown.
Fucking nightgowns.
“I like the nightgowns,”Thorin says, unhelpfully.
The glowing stone rests right above her breasts, and nothing happens. We both take a sigh in relief, and she picks it up between her two fingers and sighs.
“What did you think was going to happen?”
“I don’t know, some major magical power trip that leads to me destroying the world,” Violet says, and I can’t tell if she’s serious or not.
“Let’s go inside and talk about what I learned from Jonas.”
“Okay,” she says and we both stand.
We glance up at the disappearing moon and Violet stills for a moment before she collapses against the cold hard ground. Her nails dig into the dirt as I crouch next to her.
“Violet?” I say her name with panic as her body trembles.
It’s like she’s being possessed for a moment until a scream so intense rips out of her and her head arches to the night sky.
A scream I remember all too well.
Her bent over body trembles more as I watch the telltale signs of a first shift. Her nightgown rips down the back, exposing her spine that now ripples and repositions to that of a wolf.
What was once her unblemished skin now turns to fur. She cries out in pain again, but before the sound can finish, it’s cut off with a howl of frustration.
I blink twice as the small wolf in front of me cowers.
She’s smaller than some of the adolescent wolves in the pack, but completely unique in her coloring.
Her face is stark white, glowing bright blue eyes framing her face. The white is spotted with black on her neck, until the rest of her form is completely black, minus her two front paws.
The wolf whines and gets down close to the ground in fear and panic.
“It’s okay,” I say, going to stroke her head, but she backs away in fear. “Violet, it’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”
