Page 22 of Violet

“You can’t just close the library, Nole, and I’m fine!” I shoot Violet a wide-eyed look in an obvious cry for help, but she’s too busy reading Chapter 1 of Love Blooms to notice. That or she’s purposely ignoring me, which is the least I deserve.

It takes me another five minutes to convince Nole that no, I don’t need him to call for a doctor, or come over, or send one of his brothers to check up on me. Which is a relief, since I do not want to end up with purple hair or all my clothes floating in the fountain down the street. Not that I won’t give as good as I get, when it comes to pranks.

When I finally hang up, Violet looks like she’s ready to strangle me. She slams the book shut, narrows her eyes, and purses her lips. “I cannot believe you, Violet Adelyn Kopieren! If you don’t explain what you said about mates this instant, I swear I’ll never forgive you.”

So I do. I explain everything.

I start with how hot Nole looked this morning in his brother’s shrunken suit and how much hotter he looked in his gym clothes. I explain how I almost lost control when he got back from Willow’s shop, though the feeling was most definitely one-sided.

Then I backtrack and tell her about Liam. I describe Betty’s grandson, with his bulging muscles and huge troll build, and finish off with how he’d called me his mate.

“And you didn’t feel the mating bond?” Violet asks.

I shrug. “I know I was in your body, but I’m still a chameleon. We just don’t feel mating bonds the way shifters do. We don’t even have mates, unless we’re mated to a supe who does.”

“So the troll might not be your mate after all?” Violet asks.

“Maybe...” But then I think back to the way my heart raced. To how hot I found Liam. To the way I reacted the moment he walked through that door. “There was definitely something there. With him and Cash.”

“Cash?” Violet frowns. “He tried to pay you?”

“No.” I snort and tell her about Colin Stanton-Howe the skunk-suit sporting blood-mage.

“And really you called him a wampitch?” Violet snorts.

“And Betty called him a blitch.” I grin. “But then he said I was beautiful and asked me out to lunch. He didn’t even care about my age.”

“Your age?” Violet rolls her eyes. “If anything, he’ll start to care when he finds out you’re practically a kid.”

“I’m not practically a kid!” I whine, totally sounding like one.

Violet and I look at each other for a moment, and then we both burst out laughing.

“I just don’t know what to do,” I finally tell her. “I almost shifted around Cash and around Nole.”

“But not around Liam? Even though he’s your mate and Nole isn’t?”

“I might have shifted if Liam had come closer. Or if he’d acted less horrified when he saw me.”

“That boy didn’t expect to be mated to a gran, huh?” Violet snorts.

Instead of laughing, I feel my heart constrict. Because her words are a reminder that Liam and I, or Cash and I, or even Nole and I—if he was even interested—can never be.

“Maybe you should just tell your mates the truth,” Violet finally says.

“Both of them?”

Violet shrugs.

“You know I can’t do that!”

“Why not? You told me.”

“But that’s different! I trust you. I don’t know if I can trust them.”

“You won’t know unless you give them a chance.”

I shake my head. “What if they turn on me, like my mother and Gwinnie did?”