Roma Queen (Roma Royals Duet Book 2)

by Callie Hart

  “Trapped in that church, surrounded by police and EMTs…that’s when I decided that I didn’t believe. That’s also when I realized I wanted to be a dispatcher. I hated the sight of blood back then, so there was no chance I was ever going to be an EMT or a doctor. And the cops were never going to take me because of the whole child arson thing. So I decided that being the person on the other end of that phone was important. A dispatcher’s the very first person to hear someone’s cry for help and to answer it as best they can. I figured if there was no god to answer that call…then I could certainly try. I went to college to please my parents, but the moment I was done, that was it. I bought a plane ticket out of New York, and I traveled as far as I could in the opposite direction. That’s how I found myself living in Spokane, taking 911 calls, and drinking apple juice with a group of people nearly twice my age.”

  Four

  ZARA

  I’ve never told anyone about the church before. Even thinking about what I saw that day usually sends me spiraling into a panic attack, so I generally do my best to avoid the memory altogether. Pasha asked, though, and I wanted to tell him the truth, even if it was unpleasant.

  “We’re gonna be there soon,” he says softly. “Grab that bag from the backseat. I got you a few things.”

  I’ve forgotten all about the Norm’s Outdoors bag. I’ve forgotten he even went inside the store until now. Pivoting, I grab the bag and pull it through to the front, dumping out the contents onto my lap. “Oh, wow. Ugly red socks. You shouldn’t have,” I say, whacking his arm with the socks in question. “Oh, and…now you’re really spoiling me. Thermal underwear. Are you trying to tell me you have some secret fetish and you’re really into long johns? ’Cause I have to say, these are not super attractive.” They’re really not. Thick, beige, ribbed material that looks pretty shapeless—I’ve never seen anything less sexy.

  Pasha’s grin is boyish and mocking at the same time. “Wanna know what’s even uglier than thermal underwear?”

  “Please. Enlighten me.”

  “Frostbite. We’re gonna be out here overnight. Maybe even two or three nights, and our camp doesn’t have the benefit of vented heating. You are going to be thanking me for those hideous gifts in about two hours. I promise I’ll try not to actually use the specific words, ‘I told you so,’ but you’d probably better be prepared for some gloating. Now put them on.”

  I do not like the sound of this. For close to three hours, I’ve been absentmindedly staring out of the window, watching the world fly by, cold and stark, the trees dressed in shawls of silver frost, the edges of the road glittering with ice, and not once have I given any real thought to what’s going to happen when we arrive at our destination. Or what our destination will actually be like.

  Pasha’s been pretty clear about how his family live. I just haven’t paid much attention to the details up until now. It’s winter, and we are not headed for a Four Seasons Resort and Spa. I’ve been camping plenty of times, and I love roughing it in the outdoors, but…in this weather?

  I drop the thermals into my lap, arching an eyebrow at him. “Pasha?”

  “Yes?”

  “Are we going to spending the night in a tent? In the heart of a national park? In the middle of winter? In the State of Washington?”

  He bursts out laughing, loud and raucous, and for a second I’m relieved. It is laughable that I’d think something so ridiculous, after all. But then he says, “No. Not a tent. Not exactly. I’m betting Archie will bunk in with Gil and loan us his vardo for the night.”

  “And…what is a vardo, exactly?”

  Pasha’s pale green eye flash with mischief as he breaks the news to me. “A caravan. A gypsy caravan. Don’t worry. I think Archie’s set up his place with a wood burner or something. If not, we’ll just huddle together and share body heat.” He makes that option sound scandalous, and almost preferable to the possibility that there will be a wood burner.

  We pull off the small, winding road we’ve been driving up for the past thirty minutes, and we find ourselves in a dirt parking lot. Invisible from the road, I would never have guessed the cleared patch of land was here, or that there were already fifteen other vehicles here, either. Pasha parks the Mustang at the end of a row of trucks and trailers and kills the engine.

  “We have a walk ahead of us,” he says. “The Shedroof Divide. A three-hour hike to the camp. Not afraid of a little physical exertion, are you?”

  “No, of course not! I work out. I’m not afraid of breaking a sweat. I love hiking. But…how the fuck did the camp get set up with vardos if we have to go on foot from here?”

  Pasha opens up the driver’s side door, climbs out and twists his body into a stretch that lifts his t-shirt, treating me to a brief glimpse of his toned stomach. He bends down, bracing himself against the side of the car so he can look down at me, still sitting in the passenger seat. “Most of the caravans and trailers are left here year-round. No one even knows they’re here, and those that do know don’t fuck with them. Everything else is hauled here by hand before the weather changes. My cousins will have made the trip up here a month ago and brought supplies to last six weeks, if not ten. Maybe twelve, depending on where Shelta’s planning on heading next.”

  That makes sense, I suppose.

  It isn’t even midday yet, and the sun is weak and insubstantial in the sky overhead, a low orb of pale white light, shrouded in clouds. The cold knifes through me as I get out of the car, muttering under my breath. Pasha makes himself busy, wordlessly pulling things from the trunk and repacking them into two backpacks as I slip out of my clothes, shivering hard enough to give a survivor of the Titanic, just pulled out of the Atlantic, a run for their money.

  It takes ten seconds to tug the thermal vest on over my bra, but I can feel Pasha’s eyes on me for every single one of them, and his attention numbs me to the elements. For those ten seconds, I no longer feel the cold. I only feel flames licking at my skin, and the sensation is dizzying. Is it wrong that I want his hands on me as well as his eyes? Sarah’s being held captive, Corey Petrov is dead, we’re being blackmailed by a murderer, and yet I can’t seem to focus on what’s important right now. Reaching the Rivin camp should be at the forethought of my mind, if only because of the fact that I’m going to have to face Shelta, but instead of worrying about the sour-faced old bitch of a fortune teller, all I can think about is her son.

  Selfish.

  I am being so fucking selfish, but I’ll be damned if I can stop it from happening.

  I quickly remove my jeans and sit on the passenger seat of the Mustang, battling with the hideous thermal tights, when Pasha slams the trunk closed and dumps a bag by the rear wheel of the car. His eyes lock with mine, then travel down…

  He locks up when he catches sight of my bare legs, his eyes devouring me from ankle to thigh and back down again. Next thing I know, he’s leaning against the Mustang beside me, his nostrils flared, his hands shoved deep into his pockets.

  “Fuck, Firefly. You really need to get those things on.”

  “I am trying, y’know. They’re so fucking shapeless, I can’t tell which is the front and which is the back.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  I laugh. “Yeah, it does. When you have an ass it does.”

  He makes a deep, wonderfully tortured sound. “Don’t talk about your ass.”

  “Why?”

  “You’re making it worse. I’m trying so hard not to strip you naked, bend you over and fuck you stupid over the hood of this car right now. Those ridiculous legs. I want them wrapped around my fucking head while I eat your pussy.”

  Having an exceptional imagination is both a blessing and a curse. My brain immediately supplies me with all of the relevant data—what it would feel like to be completely naked in these temperatures; how Pasha’s tongue would feel on me; how incredible it would be to have him naked against me, too; what my name would sound like on his lips if I made him come. Suddenly, my cheeks are flushed, my hands sh
aking, my heart rioting in my chest. God only knows why I’m feeling shy right now, but I can’t even bring myself to raise my eyes to him as I stick my feet inside the tights and roll them up my calves.

  “Wouldn’t wanna traumatize any passing hikers,” I say. Standing, I pull the tights all the way up my body, covering myself. When I finally have the nerve to look up, Pasha’s sucking on his bottom lip, his arms folded across his body. My eyes catch on the ink at his wrists, poking out from underneath his jacket sleeves. I can see the tattoos that chain his neck, too. With his leather jacket, the scruffy, ripped jeans, and his piercing intensity of his eyes, he cuts a damn intimidating figure.

  I step back into my jeans, fastening the button, and I grab my sweatshirt, getting dressed as quickly as possible. When I pick up one of my shoes, about to jam my foot back into it, Pasha catches hold of my wrist and gently takes the sneaker from me. Very slowly, he crouches down in front of me and slides the sneaker onto my foot. His fingers move with deft precision, fastening the laces, as a slow, amused smile spreads across his face.

  “Are you frightened of me all of a sudden, Ms. Llewellyn?”

  I swallow. “No. Why would I be frightened of you?”

  He looks around, taking in the vast expanse of forest and the bowing sky, and I notice the small hole in his earlobe. “We’re out here all alone,” he says. “There’s no one for miles. If you screamed…no one but the mountain lions would hear you, Firefly. We’ve been pulled together one way or another, our lives colliding in a very explosive way, but…” He turns back to face me, eyes smoldering as he holds his hand out for my other shoe. I give it to him. “Strikes me, you could have just looked up and seen a dangerous man you don’t know very well looming over you, and that could have been a little worrying.”

  He’s teasing me in part, that much is clear, but there’s an edge of curiosity to his words, too. He’s trying to figure me out. See if I’m about to up and bolt from him into the wild woods, never to be seen again.

  If I’m honest, when he puts it like that, the situation I find myself in right now does seem a little hazardous. Any sane woman would probably be feeling a little worried right now, realizing how far removed from the world she is, with only a huge stranger, three times her size for company. If I found myself in this position with any other man, I think I would feel the same way.

  Pasha isn’t any other man, though. He might look like he’s part of a motorcycle club. He might curse more than your average sailor, and his extensive tattoos might give him a threatening edge, but I’m not afraid of him. Not in the ways that I should be. I’ve been lost and directionless for a long time now, so sure I was supposed to be in Spokane but unsure why, and all the time he was there, living only a few short miles away from me, breathing in the same air, driving down the same streets, watching the sun rise and set over the same city skyline.

  Now that I’ve found him, Pasha feels like coming home.

  I reach out and pin his earlobe between my thumb and my index finger, squeezing gently. “You wear an earring?” I ask, canting my head to one side.

  He ducks his head, groaning a little under his breath. His hand lightly covers mine. “Urgh. Used to.”

  “Like a pirate?”

  His smile transforms his face. Makes him look free, like he’s just some ordinary twenty-seven-year old guy hanging out with some girl he likes. Fuck, he’s so unreasonably hot. I just can’t make sense of his existence. “Like an asshole,” he says, laughing quietly. “Should have known better.”

  I seize the moment. Sitting forward, I nuzzle into the crook of his neck and I fasten my teeth around his earlobe, biting down just enough to make him suck in a surprised breath. When I release the pressure and I suck instead of bite, Pasha’s fingers dig into my thigh, and his hot breath skims over my bare neck as he exhales hard.

  “Fuck,” he whispers. “You sure you gave up starting fires?”

  The smell of wood smoke floods my senses, making it difficult to think straight. I release his earlobe and smile as I whisper back to him. “I’m not afraid to be out here with you. Not even a little bit.”

  He leans back, wearing a ruinous smirk that would have even the smartest woman dropping to her knees. “So what are you afraid of?”

  I’m feeling pretty smug as I get up, and for once, for a short, brief moment in time, I am the one who’s looming over him. “When it comes to you, your highness, I’m not afraid of anything. I am absolutely fearless.”

  The beautiful man with the thick black hair and the hypnotizing green eyes stares up at me, slowly shaking his head as he fastens my other shoelace. “Well, shit. I don’t know if I should be proud of you, or really worried for you, Firefly.”

  I’ve never thought to ask Pasha how many members of his family make up the Rivin clan, but as we hike through the forest, Pasha following a seemingly invisible pathway through the trees, up over hill crests, traversing a scree slope, and then following a fast-moving stretch of river, I feel compelled to find out. When I voice the question, Pasha’s response is a little surprising.

  “I don’t know.”

  It only seems to be getting colder; he pulled a beanie out of his pack about half a mile into the hike and now the ends of his hair are poking out from underneath the faded red wool, curling at the ends. I keep thinking he can’t get any more attractive, but then he produces something as normal and every day as a hat, for fuck’s sake, and I can’t stop staring at him. His leather jacket, he left back in the Mustang. Its replacement, some sort of black down vest, leaves his tattooed arms below the sleeves of his t-shirt bare against the cold.

  I stop, hands on my hips, smoke pluming on my breath as I watch him continue up the steep slope ahead of us. “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

  He stops, too. “Before I left, we hadn’t done a head count in a while. People have kids. People die.” He shrugs. “The number of people living in the camp at any one time’s kind of fluid. It’s probably somewhere between forty and fifty, though.”

  I squint at him, shaking my head. “How the hell did forty or fifty people do this hike without leaving a path or some kind of way marker?”

  “They didn’t. They all went in the bus.”

  What…the…fuck.

  He did not just say what I think he did. He did not just say the word bus. Pasha’s left eyebrow arches rather dramatically. “You look like you’re about to bash my skull in with a rock.”

  I close my eyes. “You’re saying…there’s a bus?”

  “Not a bus bus. A shuttle. It can take about fifteen people at a time. Patrin does a few runs to ferry everyone over.”

  “And Patrin couldn’t have come to get us?”

  Pasha grins. He looks up at the sky, eyes narrowed as he follows the path of a distant bird across the horizon. “Check your cell, Firefly.”

  Slowly, I take my cell out of my back pocket. Admittedly, I’m a little horrified when I look down at the screen and see that I have no reception. Not a single bar.

  “I could have texted him before we left Spokane. Let him know we were coming. He wouldn’t have received it, though. Cell phones are nothing more than expensive paperweights out here.” His gaze meets mine and winks. “Sure you’re not even a little bit afraid now?” he teases.

  Like a child, I stick my tongue out at him. “No. I’m not.” I refuse to be. I will not allow myself to be. I have to keep my shit together. I also know I have nothing to fear from Pasha. Well…scratch that. I have plenty to fear from Pasha. He is easily capable of destroying my heart and me right along with it. He could ruin me for all other men (already has, if I’m being honest) and then he could walk away. He could crack me open like a nut like he was trying to in the car, take whatever good he finds inside, and leave nothing but a hollowed out, empty husk behind. I’m trusting that he won’t, but this is all within his power.

  He’s incapable of hurting me, though. Physically. He could never cause me bodily pain or allow anyone else to do so. He swore that h
e’d protect me, and I know beyond all reason that he won’t break that promise. Yes, I’m nervous as all hell as we get closer and closer to the Rivin camp, but I know he’s going to keep me safe.

  “So fierce. So determined,” Pasha says under his breath.

  “Sorry to disappoint. I’m sure you like your women a little more meek and docile.”

  “Far from it. Women who concede to everyone around them are the most boring creatures alive. Women who don’t have two brain cells to rub together are worse. Give me fire any day. Give me a raging argument if you disagree with me. Be braver than me. Be fucking smarter than me. I’ll only love you more for it.”

  We follow a much broader river up through rising terrain until we crest a hill and reach a roaring, tumbling waterfall. The pillar of water is magnificent, deafening, and the fine mist that permeates the air clings to my hair and beads on Pasha’s beanie like morning dew. He offers to carry me across the water when he tells me we need to cross the surging current, but I shake my head. The water only comes up to the middle of my shins, and besides…I’m not going to let him think I’m worried about getting a little wet.

  Once we’re across, we trudge down a deep ravine, my sneakers soaked, river water squelching up between my toes, and find ourselves at the genesis of a broad, flat plateau, skirted by Spruce trees. In the far distance, the Rivin camp is visible, nestled into an elbow of the river. Before I even lay eyes on the brightly painted wagons and the ramshackle trailers, I can smell the smoke from their camp fires, though. I can hear the raucous, giddy laughter of children.

  A wariness tugs at me. I know how Roma people view outsiders now. Gadje are frowned upon. Their business might keep the Midnight Fair afloat, putting food on the table for Pasha’s family, but their presence is heavily resented. A necessary evil. If it were up to Shelta and the rest of the clan, they wouldn’t have to deal with the gadje at all. To have a gadje turn up in their camp? I already know how well that shit is going to go down.