ROMA KING: Book 1 in the Roma Royals Duet

by Hart, Callie

  “Banished for three years. From your own people?”

  Her confusion only seems to make her more fucking beautiful—highly inconvenient for me, and not at all helping with the situation developing in my pants. “Usually, banishment only lasts a couple of months, though. Weeks, if you get down on your hands and knees and beg.”

  “You must have done something really bad to warrant being cast out for three years, then.”

  An image flashes into my head: blood. The gleaming edge of a fiercely sharp knife. Wide, furious eyes, as the steel sank through flesh and hit bone. “You have no idea.”

  “You were at the fair the other night, though.”

  “My banishment ended five weeks ago. I went there to see Shelta. To tell her I was denying my claim to the Roma throne. She didn’t take the news well.”

  “And then The Empress showed up, at my hand, and now I’m paying the price for your mother’s bad mood.” She doesn’t seem impressed. “If you’re in line for the throne, then Shelta answers to you, right?”

  I already know where she’s heading with this. “Yes. And I will find her tomorrow and tell her to call off the dogs. She isn’t going to like it, though.”

  Anger rises in Zara’s cheeks, coloring them a delicious crimson. “I don’t give a fuck if she likes it. I want my job back. And I want to know what she’s done with Sarah, too.”

  “Sarah?”

  “Oh…” Her lips part. She grips the edge of the table, as if she’s just realized she’s made a terrible mistake. “My friend. I think she went out last night. She hasn’t come back.”

  So, there it is. The reason why she was nearly in tears on the phone. “And what can I do about that? My influence, limited as it is, only extends as far as Roma matters.”

  My little firefly seems a little lost for a second, looking around the kitchen as if she might be able to relocate her train of thought in the drying rack over my right shoulder. “Fuck. I was going to broach this a little differently, but…” She falters. I would leave her to figure out what she’s trying to say on her own, but her eyes are shining all of a sudden, wet with tears, and I’ll fucking die before I allow a single one of them to fall.

  So I do something really fucking dumb.

  I reach across the table, and I take hold of her hand. So small in mine, far more delicate and fragile… She freezes, sucking in a sharp breath, but she doesn’t try to pull away. Yet. “Spit it out, Firefly,” I growl. “If there’s something I can do…”

  When she sucks her bottom lip into her mouth, I have to forcefully restrain myself from climbing over the table and sucking it into my mouth. Her shoulders slump as she says, “Sarah. My friend. She’s like you. Roma. But more than that, she’s…related to you. That’s what she said, anyway. That she’s your mother’s sister. Making her your…aunt.”

  The blood has drained out of my face. I know it has, because I can feel it pooling in the pit of my stomach. “Aunt? That’s not possible. I don’t have an aunt.”

  “She said there was some sort of falling out. She and Shelta—”

  “Her sister died five years before I was born. And her name was Kezia, not Sarah.”

  Zara tucks her hair behind her ears, then covers the lower half of her face with her hands. She peers at me over the top of her fingertips, and the tears that have been building, the ones I would hold back at any cost, fall like miniature crystals from her eyelashes. “I have this terrible feeling,” she whispers. “I think something’s happened to her. And it’s no coincidence that the fair just arrived here and you’ve shown up, and—”

  “If Kezia was still alive, I’d know about it.” But something is stirring inside me. Something dark and nasty and foreign. My mother holds a grudge like no one else. She is always the last to forgive. Never the one to forget. If Shelta did fall out with her sister, and Kezia left the clan…would she have denied her existence all of this time? Would she have lied and said she was dead? I wouldn’t put it past her.

  “Sarah has no reason to make it up. I didn’t tell her anything about the fair. She already knew its name. She was terrified when she realized who was down that stairwell in Rochester Park. She already knew Shelta’s name, too. Have you ever seen a picture of her?” Zara asks. “Maybe if I showed you a photo, you’d be able to recognize her?”

  I manage a curt nod. I have seen a photograph of my long dead aunt; I pulled it from a pile of papers that was burning in a brazier outside one of our settlements when I was ten or something. My memory of the picture is hazy at best, but it should suffice. I’ll take a look at this woman posing as Kezia, and I’ll be able to clear this up pretty damn easily.

  I wait while Zara picks up her phone and scrolls through her photos. She turns the screen around and offers it to me, showing me the image she’s selected. Zara’s smiling face distracts me for a moment. Her grin is so broad, it knocks the wind out of me for a second. During my brief encounters with her, I’ve never seen her look so happy and carefree. Just annoyed, or kind of worried. To see her smiling like that, her eyes crinkled at each corner, fucking destroys me. It makes me regret that I will never be the cause of such an astonishing smile.

  The woman standing next to her in the picture is older. Older by a long chalk. Her hair is blonde, but the color looks like it came out of a bottle. Her smile is just as wide as Zara’s, and her arm is snaked around my little firefly’s waist in a way that shows they’re close. I look at the zebra print dress, and the almond shaped eyes, and the heavy mascara, and… what the fuck is that? I frown, taking the phone out of Zara’s hand, studying the screen a little closer. There’s a chain around the woman’s neck. A chain so similar to the one around my mother’s neck, that I…

  It can’t be.

  My mother never removes the crescent moon pendant around her neck. Not for anyone or anything. The one around this woman’s throat is remarkably similar, and yet it’s different. Instead of a moon, the charm dangling from the fine gold chain is a blazing sun. The style of the pendant, though. The actual chain. It looks like a corresponding piece, as if it were crafted by the same hand.

  I give the phone back to Zara, a filthy feeling settling over me.

  “Well?” she asks. She’s as anxious as I am perplexed. “What do you think?”

  I stare at her, hating that she’s crying. Hating that so much of my life has already seeped into hers. “I think,” I say, taking a deep breath. “That I need a fucking drink.”

  21

  ZARA

  THE HUNTER AND THE RABBIT

  We check Sarah’s apartment one more time before we leave.

  She isn’t there.

  When we step outside, the rain has mercifully stopped, and the skies are clear, but it’s frigidly cold. The night air stings as I draw it down into my lungs. Pasha still hasn’t said anything more about the picture I showed him. He hasn’t said anything at all. He remains silent as the grave while we walk the four blocks over to a bar on Jefferson. I decided it wasn’t smart to go to Hitchin’s even though it’s much closer; if Garrett or Waylon saw us in there, drinking together, they would have started hurling punches and asked questions later. A new place, filled with unfamiliar faces, seemed appropriate. When we arrive outside the bar—The Electric Owl—Pasha halts, glaring up at the neon signage, his face unreadable.

  “What is it?”

  “Owls are prikaza. Bad luck,” he says. “They’re an omen of death.”

  “Oh. Well—”

  Pasha rips the door open, the action an angry one, and he waves me inside.

  “We can go somewhere else if you want,” I say.

  He shakes his head. “The Rivins decided to stop letting superstition rule their lives a while back. And besides. It’s not a real owl.”

  Inside, the bar is flooded with dim, electric blue lighting, and there are little mechanical owls all over the place, perched on top of the beer taps, on the glass shelves, and roosting on top of the metal rail that runs the whole way around the large room. Pas
ha doesn’t react. Doesn’t mention the cute little fuckers even once as he heads toward the back and picks out a booth. I slide in opposite him, wrestling my arms out of my coat.

  “Aren’t you cold?” I ask. He’s much drier now than he was when he first showed up at my apartment, but there’s no way his leather jacket has dried out. Without giving it much apparent thought, he removes the jacket and tosses it down onto the bench beside him. I nearly gasp when I see the huge, vivid purple bruise on his arm, just below the sleeve of his t-shirt. “What the hell did you do to yourself?”

  He follows my gaze, looking down at his arm. “Someone clipped me.” He stops there, as if that’s explanation enough.

  “Clipped you how? In a car? That’s one serious bruise.”

  He treats me with a salacious smirk. “You sound concerned, Firefly. I have plenty more bruises, if you want to see them.”

  The waitress saves me from having to stutter and stammer out a frustrated response. She arrives at the table with a small tablet in her hand. “What can I get you?”

  “Whiskey. And a shot of tequila.”

  “I’ll have an apple juice please.”

  The waitress doesn’t look impressed. She stalks off to get our drinks, and Pasha leans back in his chair, letting his head rest against the back of the booth. His neck is exposed, and I find myself covertly checking out the strong muscles of his chest and his shoulders. With the blue light washing over him, he looks like some sort of futuristic god. I realize, with no small amount of irony, that he’s no god. He is just a king.

  When the waitress returns, she sends an appreciative glance in Pasha’s direction. Not that he notices. He picks up his glass of whiskey and pushes the tequila toward me, sending the shot glass sliding across the table.

  “I’m not a big drinker.”

  He arches his right eyebrow. “Why not? Don’t wanna be hungover for the job you don’t currently go to?”

  Asshole.

  “If you don’t want it, that’s fine, Firefly. I’ll happily knock it back. But after the day you’ve had…”

  He’s right. I have had a hellish day. I’ve actually had a hellish couple of weeks. I pick up the shot and I dump it into the apple juice that’s sitting in front of me, hoping it will mask the taste. Technically, I should make a point of not drinking anything at all. I don’t like being coerced into anything, least of all loosening the tight grip I hold on my mental faculties, but honestly, I’m hoping the tequila might take the edge off.

  I don’t know what to make of this man.

  He’s unknowable in the most infuriating way. Quiet and reserved, sarcastic and arrogant, yet with a touch of self-deprecating humor that’s completely at odds with his outward presentation to the world.

  He takes a swig of his whiskey, his eyes finding mine in the half light. “You’re looking at me like I was just served up to you on a plate and you’re wondering what I taste like,” he states.

  “I am not wondering what you taste like.”

  He smiles, and my breath catches in my throat. “If you were, I’d understand. I’ve been wondering about you, myself.”

  “What?”

  “Constantly. That question’s been keeping me up the past four nights. Plaguing me. Robbing me of sleep. Truth be told…I’ve been wondering for much longer than that.”

  He’s only had one mouthful of whiskey. One. There’s no way he’s drunk already. Which means he legitimately doesn’t have a problem with saying things like this, just because he fucking feels like it. While it must be nice to be that free, I don’t necessarily appreciate him being that free with me. I’m unused to such frank flirting; I don’t even have a clue how to respond.

  Pasha gives me a slow, knowing smile. “A hunter chases his quarry into a forest. The rabbit darts this way. She darts that way. There are many places to hide in the forest, but the fear running through her veins demands that she keep on running. The hunter doesn’t run after her, though. He simply follows her chaotic tracks through the leaf litter until he finds her. She’s exhausted, lying there, vulnerable and panting, and all he has to do is reach down…and scoop her up.”

  I take a sip from my drink, refusing to be cowed by the tumultuous energy that’s flashing in the bottomless sea of green in his eyes. “Do you think I’m helpless, Pasha? Is that what you’re saying?” My voice is even and calm, though my heart’s thundering like a runaway train. I’ve been hit on by plenty of men before. Very attractive, handsome men, a lot less full of themselves than the one in the distractingly tight black t-shirt sitting opposite me. I’ve never felt the way I do right now, though. Wound tight, at odds with myself, so enveloped in the sight, the smell and the sound of them. It’s been a point of pride, in fact, that I’ve never turned into a simpering mess of nerves and hormones before, but with Pasha…

  “No. I just think you’re wasting your time, looking for somewhere to hide,” he says.

  I lean across the table and I raise my hand, slapping him so hard across the face that my skin burns with the contact. At least, that’s what I do in my head. In reality, I remain seated, straining to keep my reactions in check. “I’m not a meek little rabbit, Pasha. I’m stronger than I look.”

  “Rabbits have been known to break their own bones when they’re caught in a trap. Sometimes, they even tear their hind legs right off trying to free themselves. I’d say that takes a shitload of strength, wouldn’t you?”

  “I’m not running from you. And I’m not going to allow myself to get hurt, just so I don’t get stuck in one of your traps.”

  He grins, teeth glowing in the UV light, and for a second he looks terrifying. “Who said I was trying to trap you? Are you fucking the guy you brought to the fair with you? The quiet one?” He asks the question like it’s nothing. Like he’s asking me what my plans are for the holidays.

  I bite the inside of my cheek, feeling a wave of heat prickle down my spine. “Garrett? Not that it’s any of your business, but Garrett’s my friend. I would never sleep with him.”

  “Why? Because he can’t whisper filthy, dangerous, delectable things in your ear while he’s burying his dick inside you?”

  “No! God!” I push my drink away, grabbing my purse. “This was a bad idea. I’m not sitting here, being spoken to like…”

  He doesn’t try and stop me from going. Doesn’t make a single move to apologize for his behavior. “Like?” he asks.

  “Like I’m some cheap date you can impress by acting like this. Over the top. Offensive. Rude.”

  This has him leaning forward, forearms resting on the table. “How have I offended you?”

  “You implied that you were wearing me down, stalking me like some kind of predator.”

  He smirks. “I told you a story about a rabbit.”

  “And you told me you’ve been losing sleep, imagining what I would taste like.”

  “The truth. I’m betting you’re like cotton candy and chocolate, with a little cayenne for good measure. A little heat to keep things interesting.”

  “See. None of that is appropriate! And strangers don’t ask strangers who they’re sharing a bed with, either.”

  “Jesus. Are you really so uptight that you can’t say, ‘who they’re fucking’?”

  “I’m about as far from uptight as humanly possible. Maybe your background means you just don’t know how to deal with normal people.”

  “My background?” He pouts, pressing his lips together, and I see the shadow play out across his features. He didn’t like that. He didn’t like that one bit. “I’m aware of what people think about us,” he says lightly. “Some of the stereotypes are probably true. But the Rivin vitsa is different. We’ve embraced many aspects of contemporary living. We educate our children. I went to a private school in Maine. I had a three-point-eight GPA. And I’ve had regular jobs before. I know plenty about gadje society, and let me tell you…none of you are ‘normal.’ Most of you are just so good at lying to yourselves and to everyone else around you that you actually
believe you conform to society’s expectations. That you’re not walking around, thinking about eating, drinking, and fucking like the base animals you are. Like we all are.” He downs his whiskey, slamming the glass down onto the polished wood.

  Wow. Apparently, I’m a massive asshole. I feel like one, anyway. I’ve judged him, and he didn’t technically deserve it. I set my purse back down and cross my arms over my chest. “All right. I made assumptions. I’m sorry for that. I’m just trying to figure out what you think this game you’re playing will accomplish.”

  Pasha’s eyes rove around the bar, skimming over one person, and then another. It’s hard to tell what he’s thinking. “I’m not playing any games. I’m attracted to you. Very attracted to you. And I don’t believe in hiding behind stupid, outdated courting niceties when you want to make a connection with someone. But I do see your point. It’s never going to happen.” He holds two fingers up to the waitress, requesting another round, and a heaviness settles over me. The weight of relief, I tell myself, but there’s something else within that weight, too. I’m too afraid to acknowledge the seed of disappointment and call it what it is, so I push it away, dismissing my own stupidity. Still, it irks me that he would make such a flippant, off-hand remark.

  “And why would that be? I’m not good enough for His Royal Highness, Pasha Rivin?”

  His eyes dart back to me, and I see something inside them. Looks a lot like anger. “I can’t get involved with a gadje. Not now. It would be marime.”

  Mah-ree-may.

  The word sounds foreign. I have no idea what it means. Pasha clearly knows this. “Unclean. Impure,” he says, clarifying. “Us Roma have a bit of an obsession for cleaning.”

  “Oh, well, shit. Thank you very much. Glad to hear that I’m spoiled goods.”

  The waitress drops off the drinks and leaves. Pasha sips his own, pushing the second shot of tequila my way. “Don’t take it personally. We also tragically embrace the Madonna/Whore complex. We want to get our dicks wet at every available opportunity, but the women we marry are supposed to be virginal. Quite the double standard.”