Gypsy Freak

by Cunning, Kristy

  It’s not like we can keep the bitch away forever. All the darkest secrets rise eventually.

  No matter how well or deeply they’re buried.

  That problem isn’t one we’ll have to deal with any time soon. For now, the only thing I’m focused on is Violet Portocale and the new era she represents.

  So far, she’s proving to be more than worth the effort.

  Despite the heavy snowfall, there’s a little pep in my step as I head to the address Shera gave me for a nest of unregistered vampires I get to eat.

  This has been one hell of a good week.

  END OF BOOK 2

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter10

  Chapter11

  Chapter12

  Chapter13

  Chapter14

  Chapter15

  Chapter16

  Chapter17

  Chapter18

  Chapter19

  Chapter20

  Chapter21

  Chapter22

  Chapter23

  Chapter24

  Chapter25

  Chapter26

  Chapter27

  Chapter28

  Chapter29

  Chapter30

  Gypsy Pride:

  (1A) Only maintained if a gypsy doesn’t stray too far from the Code.

  (1B) A gypsy with gypsy pride is known to draw in the gypsies who’ve lost their own.

  The song of a Gypsy’s Pride:

  The tea leaves warned of blood and death.

  Four gypsy first-borns breathed the last breath.

  War! War! Beyond the double-dutch doors!

  Sing, sweet gypsies, who will be mistaken no more.

  Six gypsy families all stood nigh.

  Five gypsy families for one sacrifice.

  Four gypsy families broken apart.

  Three gypsy families turned cold of heart.

  Two gypsy families couldn’t back down.

  One gypsy family went underground.

  Forever is such a long time to bleed.

  Worst are the gypsies brought to their knees.

  Sing, gypsies, sing of your lies.

  Never trust a gypsy with no gypsy pride.

  Sing, gypsies, sing of your truths.

  The apples have all rotted; the oranges just bruised.

  Violet’s put-a-pin in it notes:

  House of Van Helsing –

  The unrelenting hunters; the order among chaos when the unnatural bleeds into the natural world. They always find what they hunt…no matter how long it takes. The silversmiths who forge their own weapons and get off on the violence, yet find a piece of them desperately soft when one fragile is broken before them. The monsters with a cool but steady heart.

  House of Morrigan—

  The temperamental wolves; the passionate, pack-minded beasts that only go for blood when their’s has been shed. But with passion comes a deeper personal attachment, temptation and corruption, and often struggle the hardest for order amongst the betrayals, scandals, lies, and secrets. Their hearts break easier than they mend, and they’ll fight to the death to keep it from breaking too often.

  House of Morpheous—

  The forgotten sexual deviants and former illusionists, whose only mention in history is that of their bastard, true first-born, Dorian Gray. He’s known primarily for his painting that could cause his immortal life to end if he ever looked upon it. Known secondarily for his acts of sexual menace and constant bouts of group sex, he sets the lowest standard as what an alpha looks like for this lot. But…most are only mildly better…

  House of Arion—

  The cruel. The cold. The devilishly unrepentant. The ones the most proud of being monsters. The vampires are the ones with little to no soul left inside them. The closer to alpha you are…the less you have. One can only assume the alphas lacked one at all. It feels like I’m forgetting something…

  The Portocale Council—

  No one really wants to talk about that. Which only makes me more and more cautiously curious.

  The cult of the Forsaken—

  This is bigger than Mom made it out to sound. Even the Van Helsings can’t find them. I haven’t been taking them seriously enough, even though I knew better.

  Mom—

  I’m going to have to keep the pin in this one. I’m not ready to try piecing this together yet, because it doesn’t look pretty. I want to have faith that I’m still missing key pieces that will shift everything around and change what I’m seeing into something better.

  Martin—

  A gypsy that may or may not be important, whose house I staked four vampires in.

  My oranges…are supposed to be bitter, but they’re sweet. For whatever reason, that seems to be a big deal.

  I can’t help but wonder if my apples mean something too…

  Author’s note:

  I’m sorry about the cliff-hangers. There’s genuinely no other way to do this, but at least this one was a little gentler than the last. I think.

  Thank you so damn much for reading about the speed-limit warrior monster and her quad. The ribbon girl was a favorite dark story of mine when I was younger. I was always fascinated with the slightly disturbing, yet somehow romantic, stories.

  All the black-and-white monster movies always made me fighting mad, because…usually I felt sorry for the monsters by the end. I wanted to give them a different story. You can laugh at me for that sounding so cheesy, but it’s true.

  Romania is a small obsession about mine, though I don’t know as much about it as I wish I did.

  Romani (gypsy) culture has always drawn me in.

  The struggles they’ve faced. The fights they fought. The very little recognition they’ve had for all they’ve gone through. The ability to adapt, and sometimes even thrive, for the sake of survival in unforgiving, harsh, and brutal times.

  There’s a lot more to come. The next book, Gypsy Origins, will be approximately three weeks away as well.

  Word of mouth, recommendations, and written reviews are the number one way my books reach others, so I have more gratitude than you know for both. (Even the one-sentence reviews help immensely, as far as helping a book gain visibility.)

  If you’re wondering why I haven’t already told you the backstory instead of making you wait until the third book, it’ll make sense by the time you read it. There’s usually a purpose for things. One of those purposes is to make you want to hear the backstory. Another reason is because this story wrote itself and it didn’t happen organically until then.

  More questions will be answered. More questions will be posed. It’s honestly one of my favorite stories I’ve ever written, simply because of all the fun things that are still to come.

  Anyway, I’ll stop rambling. I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope you follow the series to the end with me.

  As always, I really do love the hell out of y’all—my book family. <3

  Thank you for following me into another world again.

  xx,

  Kristy Cunning (C.M.)

  To keep up with releases, I have options!

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  Sorry I’m so complicated, but this is the only way I can write all the things that want to be written and help people keep it sorted. I don’t want someone stumbling into a book that is too different from what they expect and feeling much too far outside their comfort zone. :)

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  <3