I smile at him as he carefully lifts his hands away from my new desk, and he leaves the pencils stuck in his hands as he lowers his eyes appropriately.
“You were right, Shera. I can use a lot of sharp, wooden pencils, and they are fun,” I say to her without looking away from Isiah. “This stuff is certainly sturdy stock. I’m impressed.”
Isiah tries to make fists, but I assume it must hurt too much since he stops…or he knows I’ll stab more pencils into any fists in my presence.
“Now, as to the beta issue, I think Shera has done wonderfully in my absence. I don’t really see the actual issue,” I say when I feel he’s been properly chastened.
Shera darts a worried look at Isiah, as he keeps his head lowered, nodding like he now agrees with me.
“I’m afraid this will have to be paused, though. I’m expecting to be found at any minute to have a conversation that is much overdue,” I go on.
Shera starts leading Isiah toward the door, but he stops and turns to face me as I lift a pencil to my lips, feeling the touch of the polished wood. The subtle cedar scent of it captures my attention.
A cedar pencil. Shera does go the extra mile.
“Is it wise to be seen with them in such amicable ways so soon after what they did to you?” Isiah asks, probably wording that very carefully to pack a punch without being disrespectful.
“Why would it be unwise?” I muse.
Shera glares at Isiah like she’s imploring him to simply walk away.
“With all due respect, Alpha, I think it’s unwise to even allow them to be here. The wolf and the Van Helsing just—”
“Just had their uptight asses handed to them in front of plenty of those vampires. By me,” I remind him, really enjoying how Shera is trying not to slap some sense into him in front of me.
Her hands fist at her sides as she continues to glare at him.
Two betas always butt heads. I tried warning her.
“Our objective is to maintain peace,” she says with a modicum of calm. “I think the four alphas of this region having a calm, collective gathering at Arion’s party is a good idea.”
“Four?” I ask her, a little annoyed. “Damien is supposed to be taking Violet home.”
“Violet is perfectly capable of driving herself. She danced like an idiot around monsters without a care in the world. I’d say she’s a big girl,” Shera states sharply, and a little pointedly.
“Do you want me to stab you with a pencil too?” I ask her, holding up my fun new weapon.
It’d break on a sternum, but it’d still hurt real good.
She gives me a dry look, and returns her attention to Isiah. “We’re leaving now.” She urges him toward the door, while turning to eye me, before mouthing, “Behave.”
The look she shoots me makes her favor my sister too much, and I shudder.
The second they’re out of the room, I let my smile fall, and I immediately call Violet’s number.
“Yes?” she asks with a small, odd sound that almost resembles a reluctant laugh, and my lips curve in a grin.
“Hello?” she asks, getting quiet.
I’m content to listen to the background noise, pausing when I hear the sound of a very masculine snore. Her father, I presume, since Shera said he showed up unannounced, to the best she could gather.
That means she’s home safely, but Damien is supposed to fucking be there to ensure she stays safe. They’re careless with her, and it drives me insane.
“I really don’t have room for another monster in my life, so I hope you’re just a normal guy,” she says to me, confusing me, until the line goes dead and I realize it’s not me she was talking to.
I pull back my phone and stare at it for a second.
That’s not okay.
Did I not make it clear about the part where she only gets us? Perhaps I should have gotten it in writing, but I know I made it clear she needed to work on the other three before me. Not some other fucking—
The door flies open, and I look up as Emit, Damien, and Vance stroll into the room.
“Did I or did I not tell you to take Violet home?” I ask Damien.
He gives me a bored look before taking a seat. “Easily forgotten I may be, but I still don’t think I should be left out of this conversation.”
“You and I have yet to have our conversation. Vance and Emit have already made their feelings quite clear,” I state through strain, desperately resisting the urge to go see what wanker has somehow landed himself in Violet’s home.
I give both, the silversmith and the wolf, a pointed look.
Vance glares at me.
“Beating Vance’s ass makes your vampires bolder. Careful, Arion. You’ll have all that beta drama you like to mock me for. We’ll see how easy it is for you to kill off your favorites when they push back,” Emit tells me, eyes on mine.
“My heart wasn’t in it,” Vance lies, glancing idly around the room like he’s not overly impressed with the modern improvements.
“Still a pompous prick, I see. Tell me, did you wear a blood shirt tonight or not? That’ll speak of your intentions,” I drawl.
His lips tug at one corner of his mouth as he pockets his hands.
“And as for my favorites, I push back much harder. They know it. Unlike yours,” I go on, eyes back on the weak wolf. “It’s a matter of time before you realize it, old friend.”
“Careful with that word. Let’s not confuse burying the past once again for forgiveness, and certainly not for friendship,” the predictable wolf says in a quiet, warning tone.
“What half-cocked plan was it to allow two packs of yours to come onto my land and attack me in my home?” I ask him, watching as he bristles. “If Violet hadn’t been there, there would have been no other out for me but to kill them. You put me in these positions, and you expect me to cower the way you do so often. Then you hate me when I act like the monster I am,” I add in just as quiet of a tone.
“You used Violet as an out?” Damien scoffs, rolling his eyes. “You’re toying with her for one reason, and you used the situation to your advantage.”
“Violet is the sweet gypsy I can get at any time. She’s young, easily charmed, and incredibly lonely. I mean, Vance got her into bed.”
They all narrow their eyes on me, and I smirk.
“Oh, you can all stalk her, but I can’t?” I ask in a droll tone that has Damien cracking his neck to the side.
“Her ghost friend Anna was dying, and she used Violet’s body for one last day of feeling human,” Vance tells me like he’s talking down to me.
“Anna died?” I ask, heaving out a groan.
Damien studies me for a second before nodding.
“Wasn’t that her only friend?” I ask on a tired sigh.
It’s not as though they’ll guess my impossible secret.
“She’s taken up with Emit’s omegas while she pauses the pain. It’s something she does—pauses her emotions. Apparently she was raised not to mourn, fear, be angry, or have any powerful emotion for too long or it could get her killed,” Vance says, clucking his tongue as he looks down and picks a piece of lint off his sleeve.
“Yes, but what robot can actually do that?” Emit asks.
Vance shrugs, never looking up as he tweaks each button on his sleeve, and then he begins taking off his jacket, always finding ways to twitch when he suppresses the urge to hunt.
Some things never change.
“She does it subconsciously. She reacts to each situation by listening and questioning when she can. She fights as a last resort, to the best of what I can tell. She’s not very good at killing things, and she never really talks about things once they’re over.”
“The girl has emotions. I’ve seen them,” I point out.
“We’re supposed to be discussing you not crossing any lines that put me in difficult situations,” Emit says, seeming to bat away our distracting tangent.
“Do your job as alpha, or get the Van Helsing to step up for you, so that
I never feel the need to have to.”
Vance and Emit both glare at me, as Damien leans up, putting his elbows on his knees.
“Mine were under control and weren’t turning anyone,” Damien tells me coldly. “The law stood in place if they stepped out of line, and you knew it. You made this personal because Emit and I had no choice but to kill Theon—”
“You did have a choice. That lad had stood by me when all of you turned your backs, and you still chose to stab a stake through his heart,” I say as a chill flits into the room, seriousness taking over.
My monster lingers near the surface, but I don’t show it. It’s like wrestling for control after decades of such unrest.
“You gave him too much slack, and he knew far too much,” Vance says in a steady tone, moving through the room when his restlessness begins to stir. “I spared him over and over, and you failed to do your part, because you refused to see the betrayal he posed.”
“No worse than any betrayals you lot have committed towards me over the long centuries,” I state coldly. “Yet here I am, not killing you either. Betrayals are judged based on loyalties. At the end of the day, he broke the law, and you killed him. Just as I killed your rabid beasts for living outside the parameters of the law,” I say, looking pointedly at Emit before swinging my gaze to Damien, “Same for your leeches. Then I was punished for the same crime you two had already committed. Does the law only apply to vampires?”
“One beta was all we killed for a very sacred law, after multiple warnings,” Damien says, holding up his index finger. “Hundreds of our people were brutally slain without warning.”
This devolves into several tangent arguments, and all of us pointing out the other’s hypocrisies. I lift my phone and call Violet, listening to her answer and demand, once again, to know who’s calling, as a male’s snore drones on in the background. I hang up immediately.
My gaze cuts to Damien, while there’s a short pause in the argument that will never end, and I glare at him.
“Violet is at her house with another man because you left her unattended,” I inform him, pretending not to know about her father.
Mostly because I’m tired of this argument and I want to talk about Violet now.
He bats a dismissive hand. “Her father is in town.”
“Are you positive it was only her father snoring in the background?” I ask, stirring the pot. “I called earlier and she mentioned someone else was there. I don’t feel lucky enough to assume it was another female.”
He tenses, and Emit starts talking.
“I need assurances you’ll stick to your own territory and keep your nose out of wolf—”
“She doesn’t know any other men outside of us. At least not in town,” Damien says like he’s arguing with my suspicions.
“She told the bloke he’d best not be a monster, or something to that effect,” I carry on, talking over the Van Helsing and the wolf.
That has Damien and Vance bristling in their seats.
“Who was she talking to? Was that also her father?” I ask, feeling more and more anxious about this, and I then shoot a pointed look to Damien. “You should have stayed with her.”
The wolf shakes his head like he’s been derailed. “Assurances, Arion,” Emit states, trying to steer me back on topic. “I need you to assure me—”
“There is the ex, but why would he randomly show up at her house? But she was so secretive with him that she didn’t even mention her gypsy roots. I find it unlikely she’d be mentioning monsters around him,” Vance adds, pulling up his phone like he’s reading the information that he gathers about her and keeps on that device.
I won’t lie; I learned more about her when I was reading the notes they took than I did when she was spilling her whole life story to me on her bed.
“Couldn’t be the ex. He doesn’t even know where she’s living now,” Damien says dismissively. “I’ve checked him out.”
“I’m going to regret this, but what ex are we talking about?” Emit asks on a reluctant huff.
“Jerome,” Damien, Vance, and I all state in annoyed unison.
“I find it rather intriguing how she’s most drawn to the three who stalk her the hardest,” I add observationally. “I’m worried she has no interest in Emit at all.”
“Are you seriously back to your ludicrous, bullshit plan?” Emit snaps.
“Didn’t seem so ludicrous when you two were watching from the balcony, hoping she’d say yes.”
I smirk when Vance and Emit both narrow their eyes at me.
“Did you hear the guy?” Damien asks me, moving closer to the desk. “The one supposedly with her now.”
“No,” I say, annoyingly distracted now that I’ve gone and started overthinking this.
I thought I had all possible issues sorted.
Things are going too smoothly for something like this to happen about.
“Give us a second,” Emit says, causing my attention to snap back to him, as Vance and Damien walk just outside the door.
I’m sure they’re listening to every word, and Vance is preparing to step in, so I’m not sure what the point in them leaving is.
“I mean it, Arion. My wolves. Stay. Away,” Emit tells me very seriously.
“I mean it when I say you need to worry about your betas. It’s funny how you paid so much more attention to mine.”
He cracks his knuckles like a true barbarian.
“Still won’t cut your hair?” I ask him on tired breath.
“Still won’t shut your mouth?” he fires back.
“I guess some things never change. Too bad so many others do.”
“I’m not walking down whatever road of manipulative mind-fuckery you have planned, Arion. I just want this clear before I walk away and meet with my betas tomorrow.”
I lean forward, giving him the seriousness he craves. “If your wolves attack me on my land ever again, this promise will be null-and-void. I’ve more than paid for a crime that makes all of you hypocrites.”
He exhales harshly.
“I leave here with the knowledge my wolves are safe so long as they don’t attack you first,” he says as though he’s clarifying.
“You leave with my word,” I agree.
“Don’t break it, or it’ll mean nothing to me in the future,” he warns. “I see one vampire paying too much attention to one wolf gathering, and I will stop you this time. No matter the cost.”
“No matter the cost,” I echo, steepling my hands before me. “I remember that being the reason we’re having this discussion today.”
He stands, glaring at me.
“We’re done,” he calls to the door.
Neither Vance nor Damien come in.
Emit gives me a confused look that I share, and I stand as he opens the door.
“They’re…not here,” he says as he steps out, sniffing the air. “Or even in the house. I’d be forced to endure Vance’s cologne over the worse vampire scents if they were.”
I hesitate for a second before a grin curves the edges of my lips. “They’ve gone to see if Violet has a beau in her bed.”
He groans, running a hand through that unkempt hair of his.
“You’ve got to let that go. She’s a Portocale gypsy Vance already crossed a line with—”
“Vancetto Van Helsing just left you and I alone in a room a few short days after my rising, even though the full moon is so close, because that Portocale gypsy might have a boy in her bed. Damien Morpheous is walking around with a heartbeat that steadily grows daily, and knowingly came to a party his brother had already crashed because of that Portocale gypsy,” I tell him, seeing him roll his eyes, even as he hates me for being right, I’m sure.
“You’re about to be both metaphorically and figuratively left behind, werewolf,” I tell him before slipping out of the house so quickly not a soul notices me pass by.
If they ever want to put me underground again, good luck catching me.
Just as I make it to Viol
et’s house, I see Damien and Vance stepping out of their vehicles. I grin when they glare over at me.
“I’ve never much liked being left out,” I say with a shrug, before I quickly scale the side of the house.
My grin is gone when I look in and see Violet yawning as some ghost passes his hand through her middle, leaning over her entirely too close.
“Just a ghost,” Damien says quietly from the window across from me like he’s relieved.
Vance turns and starts to leave, but I drop to the ground. “This girl can’t be trusted around ghosts. She’s proven that with the whole Anna situation,” I tack on, just because I really don’t want them on the trail of my juicy secret.
However, there is real panic going on inside me right now. She has a thing for the dead. It’s the living she struggles with.
“She can’t have sex with a ghost,” Damien says dismissively, walking by me.
“No, but she can easily fall for one. She’s young, gullible, and you two dally more than any men,” I tell them.
“I can’t believe you’re trying to have this discussion right now, and I can’t believe I’m looking through her window after I told her I’d stop,” Vance says, stalking off.
“He’s not really dallying, since he cheated his way into bed with her,” Damien retorts, a snort of derision punctuating the remark.
Vance turns and stabs a finger in the air. “And like you pointed out, I crossed a big fucking line. Being around her is much too tempting.”
He looks as surprised as we do that he just confessed that to the two of us.
“Being around her is the only way to actually get her to care enough about breaking the Portocale curse we have,” I say, stating the obvious.
“Her tree isn’t even in the right family of Portocale gypsies, but she can thread, so maybe her tree is wrong,” Damien says, tapping his chin.
“It is wrong,” comes Emit’s winded response as he walks toward us, completely naked. “Marta wasn’t even in the right line of Portocale gypsies, but you could smell the Portocale blood in her veins. It can’t be faked. Not to us. So the tree is wrong.”
Gypsy Freak Page 13
