I scrub a hand over my face, when Zuela crows, bellowing his laughter toward the heavens.
“I can’t…I can’t take anymore,” he wheezes.
“Now I just feel like I’m making all of you a laughing stock. Sort of rude of the host, since I came out here to be polite and even smiled while he insulted me,” Violet points out like Zuela is a reasonable human being.
“Oh, St. Mary and Joseph, the girl thinks me rude,” Zuela has to say on an even thinner wheeze, as he slaps his knees and continues with another bout of violent laughter.
I glare at Marta for raising her to be this naïve, but a ghost of a smile toys with one edge of that crazy bitch’s lips, as she looks back at Violet. I glance behind me too, but Violet’s back is to me…as she struggles to walk in the ridiculous pink dress, stumbling a little toward the door.
Zuela’s laughter is only reenergized by the slight stumble, and Marta doesn’t look the least bit insulted. In fact, she’s almost struggling to keep a straight face.
Damien’s phone rings, and he answers, as Zuela’s laughter turns into full-blown hysterics.
“Who’s laughing?” is the first thing Arion asks.
“I’ll tell you about it later,” Damien says unsurely, taking a step back from Zuela, eyes assessing the madman we’ve never heard laugh quite this much. “Have you found her?”
Honestly, I think this is the first time I’ve heard Zuela laugh since he was mortal. Even back then it was done in very sparing, minimal doses.
“No, but we found a nest of shapeshifters, who had a very large ring of humans waiting to be turned, so Idun’s fortunately been more worried about building an army than stalking us, it seems. I’ll tell you about it later. Where’s Violet? The omegas aren’t answering my calls, and you worthless fucks haven’t replaced my future bride’s phone yet.”
Future bride?
“The bloody fucking psychotic vampire alpha too?” Zuela says on a wheeze so thin I can barely hear the strained words, his face turning bright red, as he just continues cackling. “H-how is this possible?”
He collapses to his knees and starts slapping the ground, his entire body rocking, as he genuinely struggles for breath.
“Really…who is that?” Arion asks more seriously.
“Zuela dropped by to find out if Violet was a threat, and now he knows she’s not, so he’s simply reveling in the disturbing reality I find myself in,” Marta states dryly, not sounding nearly as offended as she predictably should.
“I thought we fucking agreed not to let my father around Violet,” Vance says like he’s frustrated, as something wet splatters somewhere in the background.
“My son?” Zuela asks, choking on the laugh he can’t hold back, even as true horror and nightmarish terror strikes his features. “My son is with a bloody Portocale Simpleton?” he goes on, still struggling with the laughter, even though he seems like he’s forced to laugh in spite of his repulsion.
“Nooooo!” he says, still laughing.
He’s less concerned with the fact there’s such a monster even in existence than he is with the fact his first-born is with such a creature. Typical, arrogant, prideful Van Helsing.
“That’s not funny,” he says even as the momentum of the laughter just continues. “Not at all. Not fucking at all,” he carries on, the volume of his cackling only lifting. “I can’t. I can’t,” he says as he finally walks away, laughing with an angry face, as though he’s frozen in this somewhat mortifying state of hysteria, I’m sure.
It really isn’t funny anymore to him…but…Marta’s smile has spread to take up her whole face, because the bastard just can’t seem to shut it off.
“Thanks for that,” I say, knowing Vance will hear.
I almost hear Vance’s smirk.
“If you haven’t found Idun, why are you calling?” Marta asks on an irritated sigh, the amusement gone.
“To check on Violet. Would you please tell me how she fucking is?” Arion asks loudly. “Demetria is somewhere in the neighborhood, according to one of the mouths attached to one of the heads we took off.”
“Just what we need. Idun’s unnaturally powerful gypsy freak beta, who has been impossibly hard to capture for the past thousand years, popping up right now. I was hoping someone had exterminated her,” Marta grinds out.
“Why is Marta Portocale listening to this conversation?” Arion asks with a somewhat chilling tone.
“Because she’s going to tell us more about Violet if we include her in on conversations such as these,” Damien states with a shove-it-up-your-ass grin in Marta’s direction.
Marta outright laughs, before walking in the opposite direction from the house, apparently heading back to her makeshift home now that she’s seen enough.
Damien continues talking to Arion like he expected no less, though they both lower their voices to near whispers, as I jog down to Marta.
“You’re leaving Violet on her own right now?” I ask like I don’t believe it.
“I’ll just agitate them if they see me while Nadine is still vulnerable,” she says dismissively.
“But Violet is—”
“Violet just left Zuela Van Helsing in a fit of giggles because of how ridiculous he found her to be. She’s perfectly safe for the time being. He won’t hurt anyone who has snagged his eldest, much stronger son’s attention, especially while Idun is free. Certainly not my daughter, who he now knows has more protection than any other omega. Congratulations, you’ve all made enduring this disgusting situation slightly more bearable. For this moment, at least.”
She keeps walking as I stop, and I stare after her for a second. She’s still taking this too easily, and it hasn’t settled well with me. I keep waiting on the inevitable fall-out, and the suspense is killing me.
“Why did you let her grow up without telling her anything about who she is? Even if just to let her know she wasn’t completely alone? We all have nests, packs, covens, dens…among other things. There’s a reason for that. Gypsies drift together, Marta. It’s in our blood.”
She exhales harshly, her steps slowing, as she turns around to face me.
I expect a self-righteous tirade that tells me nothing, but she gives me a tight smile, as she opens her bag and starts walking back toward me.
“When Violet was born, she was born without a heartbeat,” she tells me quietly, while she pulls out some sort of magazine. “I knew immediately what she was just by her mannerisms. At least, I did once I’d researched Tom’s tree. It took me a solid year to find ties, but I found them. A bastard son of a bastard’s son started a new thread of Neoprys straight from the original line. Though, clearly not from any of the immortal branches.”
“But how did she end up immortal if—”
“The perfect storm happened,” she carries on, grimacing. “Tom Carmine and the other Marta Portocale were in the throes of passion, because he was the first man she grabbed at a bar on a bad night. Drugs had been unkind to her heart, and it went out just as they…”
She lets the words trail off, rolling her eyes and clearing her throat.
“I gypsy-hopped into her body and absorbed all her memories, just as the final beat sent an ER machine into a buzzing frenzy I’ll never forget. On paper, it seemed to be a miracle that my heart started beating all on its own. Poor Tom was traumatized. It was his first one-night-stand. He thought he’d been the luckiest guy ever, even though he was just her random pick of the evening. He was waiting with roses and Get Well balloons when I came out.”
Her jaw grinds like she doesn’t want to share this, and I have no idea why she is.
“The honest truth?” she asks.
“If you’re capable of it,” I counter.
“I’ve gotten good at giving honest answers,” she states with a shrug. “The other Marta had conceived before I took over,” she carries on, her look immediately softening. “It came as a shock, to say the least, when I discovered I had a child inside of me. She had no heartbeat inside a womb that st
arted dying and deteriorating the moment I took over, but she continued to grow. I had to find some very outrageous, somewhat alarmingly open-minded physicians. After she was born, her heart began to beat slowly, as she became aware of her surroundings.”
She clears her throat and tugs at her collar.
“Understandably, I was baffled by the whole ordeal, but felt too blessed to look a gift horse in the eye too closely. I was a mother again,” she says, her voice lowering to a rasp that forces her to clear her throat again before continuing.
“I took over Marta’s life—the parts I wanted, anyway. While I studied her, assessing who and what she was—along with what she was capable of—I lived as that version of Marta Portocale, and prepared my daughter for her future, without ruining her entire childhood with the daunting reality that awaited her.”
Her eyes find mine and turn darker as she hands me the magazine. I take it, but warily keep my eyes on her.
“Not too terribly long ago, her head came off, and I knew what it meant when she woke up with it sewn back on. She was officially immortal. It only made sense. Because immediately after, her obsession with old, black-and-white monster films tripled. She started visiting ‘haunted’ towns and watching independently made monster films in parks, cemeteries, and anywhere else they’d have public screenings.”
I glance down at the magazine that has all sorts of stars on a map, and one is in the middle of Shadow Hills.
“It was on her travel possibilities. Imagine my horror,” she tells me on a humorless laugh. “She went to various other towns without my knowledge. She even landed in the middle of Everly Falls for a Dracula marathon screening.”
My eyebrows go up, and she nods.
“Yes, Dorian’s home. My heart stopped when I heard that, but she fortunately decided against it, because it was too far away. She didn’t want to fly. Her obsession and fixation on finding out what her monster was capable of became a very big goal of hers…before and after her head came off. I told her to never let that happen. She finally got to change her bloody name as a result.”
That last part makes no sense to me, but it’s the least important of all she’s said.
All of these towns that are marked are towns with immortals. Even though she didn’t know, she still knew where she belonged.
“I went there for the exact same all-night werewolf movie marathon,” Damien states idly, pointing at one star that has been marked as “visited,” as he shoves by me. “Visited my miserable younger brother who didn’t come out of his room the entire time.”
Marta and I both glare at him, as he continues to point to the town like we don’t know which younger brother he’s referring to.
Amos Morpehous.
“I wonder if I just didn’t notice her scent then,” he adds like he’s confused. “I should have.”
Marta bristles, and my eyes narrow more on her, as she shrugs like she’s not concerned.
“She never got to bond with any of Tom’s family, because I knew it’d hurt her to know they’d one day be irrelevant. She hasn’t made meaningful attachments, because Violet knows she can only keep so many things. It’s hard work to carry everything around. You have to be certain it’s worth it.”
I’m not sure if she’s trying to confuse us when she smiles like she’s recalling fond memories. Her smile steadily falls, as her gaze comes out of lala land and goes flat.
“She’s too good for all of you combined. She doesn’t understand the weight of so many centuries of baggage. She’s too young for now to fully comprehend what that means.”
She shrugs a careless shoulder as she turns and walks away once again, leaving me with the magazine like she’s been carrying it around for a moment like this.
Typical Marta—giving unimportant information wrapped in a dazzling package.
“She’s too good for all of us,” she adds so quietly I almost miss it. “She just doesn’t know it yet.”
The second she’s almost out of sight, Damien turns to face me, eyebrows furrowed.
“She’s not telling us something,” Damien states like he’s worried I’m too stupid to pick up on that.
“It’s Marta Portocale. When she tells you something small, it’s to distract you from something bigger,” I state flatly. “We’ve lived too long for her to change that much.”
I glance back at the house, and Damien makes another sound.
“Dorian and Emily are both overly interested in Violet,” I tell him quietly. “Just as Zuela was.”
“She’s unique. We’ve lived long enough to notice as much. Dorian circled her like prey, I pissed my circle around her to mark my territory, and he walked away. Haven’t been bothered by him since,” Damien states dismissively.
“You haven’t bothered to deal with him either,” I point out.
He arches an eyebrow at me. “Also a bit like the pot-to-the-kettle thing. Dorian’s not my problem if all your mutinies aren’t a big deal.”
“It’s too close to the full moon for you to be a prick,” I caution.
“Bullshit. The moon is ages away. You just don’t want Violet knowing you really yelled at her while of sound mind, and the moon is your overused scapegoat for all the things you do too aggressively.”
“You yelled at her too.”
“Of course I did,” he says with a roll of his eyes. “She was drawing the attention of Zuela fucking Van Helsing. Now he just thinks she’s a joke, and that’s her own doing. She wasn’t wearing that fucking dress before she came out here. How’d she know he likes cigars? Why did she know that?”
I spot Leiza from the upstairs window, as she darts her head down. I’d wager all my omegas know such things. Since when do my omegas get involved in politics of any kind?
“She listened to others who knew all about him, because omegas don’t fight unless they’re backed into a corner,” I answer distractedly. “Omegas woo alphas.”
Damien scrubs a hand over his face.
“She was ridiculous on purpose, which is why she never even really got defensive. She wanted the attention on her, just like Marta said,” I add, even though he’s deduced as much by now.
“She really needs to stop protecting us from fights with other alphas. She’s confusing war with alpha-ness stuff,” he grumbles.
Alpha-ness stuff?
I don’t even repeat the gibberish. I simply give him a questioning look.
“You know what I bloody mean, wolf,” he says, distractedly, as he peers through the window.
“Should I be concerned that there’s a tie hanging around her forehead and that she’s now wearing a tuxedo that’s too big for her?” Damien asks, drawing my attention to where Violet has moved on to dancing on a table with Tiara.
Tiara’s in a bridal gown that is a little small for her shoulders and not fully zipped.
Simpletons are chanting both of their names like they can’t figure out who to root for. I’m not sure what the fucking hell the goal of this ridiculousness is.
“Maybe we should have invited the Simpletons into all our alpha meetings after all. We might have avoided more wars if they’d sucked the tension right out of the air with this nonsense,” I finally say, shaking my head, as I pull out my phone.
“What are you doing?” he asks me.
“Proving to Arion that my wolves are closer to her than his beta, before I up my game.”
“He’s already surpassed you. You’re at the back of the pack,” he says as I smirk at the screen, zooming in on Violet’s smile. “Pun intended,” he adds as though he’s attempting to provoke me.
I keep the clip short, just to piss them off that they’re not here to see it, because I feel like being a dick. I don’t get to punch Zuela in the face or wreck any of his precious, handmade stained glass, so this is almost like a consolation prize of sorts.
“Until now, I had one foot in and one foot out. It kept me in as much trouble as Arion. Now I know what I need to do.”
“Oh tell me, wise wolf, what g
reat epiphany did you just have?” he asks in a flat, condescending tone.
My fist slams into his smug face before he even has time to register it, and he curses as he staggers back, cupping his nose.
“You fucking barbarian!” he shouts, gesturing between us, as he covers his bloodied nose with one hand and glares at me. “This is why we can’t hang out. You have violent fits like Vance and Arion to soothe your hostile insecurities. I give people fucking great orgasms. You bring pain.”
“I’d apologize, but Zuela left me riled, so that felt too good to be sorry about,” I say with an unapologetic shrug. “I’m sure I owed it to you since the last time I did it.”
He pauses like he’s thinking. “Nope. But I’ll get a free pass when I do deserve it,” he decides.
I gesture to him. “This is why we don’t hang out.”
CHAPTER 3
ARION
I flip back to the clip Emit just sent, as I sling green goop off my rusty heap of metal that was a masterful Van Helsing sword seconds ago. Vance, the bastard, knew the exact amount of swings I’d take. I don’t even get to save just one last strike for a later date.
“Your focus is too sharp, and I don’t like it,” I inform him.
“Thought my focus was a thing of beauty, Arion,” he states absently, as his knights finish helping all the freshly turned, and the unturned, out to start cleaning up the mess.
“Your job sucks. Why do we have to do it right now?” I ask him as I step over another green pile of sludge.
“Because civilians were caged, Arion. Remember being human for just a brief second, while I try and figure out why in the hell Violet wants to transport all the Simpletons to Shadow Hills.”
“Idun will put them underfoot, regardless, so we may as well bring them on over,” I note aloud.
“I’m not in a hurry to make things easier for Idun,” he reminds me.
“Push her on every little thing, and she just pushes back harder. Save your strength, Van Helsing. Play this game my way. Also, give Violet what she wants, because she won’t like how often we have to cater to Idun. It’s best to not rile the one we want over the one we want to carefully detach from,” I tell him as the last of the knights leave us alone with the final shapeshifter of the evening.
Gypsy Rising (All The Pretty Monsters Book 5) Page 5