Gypsy Moon (All The Pretty Monsters #4)(20)

With his hands on his hips and the glare in his eyes, I almost feel like Damien is the one chastising me right now, and it’s fucking with my head.

“I was about to deliver a very sincere apology, sort of, for the wrong thing, it seems. Now I just feel like a jackass. And it’s your fault,” I explain.

He snatches Vance’s best scotch right off the top shelf, and waves it in the air over his head.

“We’re drinking on Vance’s silver dollar tonight,” he grumbles as he walks out. “Just to piss him off.”

Vance gets the girl all to himself, and we get his liquor.

“I don’t think he’ll miss the fucking scotch,” I say on a frustrated exhale.





CHAPTER 6





VIOLET


Vance is lowering a bow as a deer falls, taking the shot so quickly that I missed him even loading his arrow.

Arion drops down from a tree, but he looks…a lot different. In fact, they both look really different. A lot more hair and beards, for one. The clothing choice is confusing me as well.

There’s a large gathering of people off to the side, as Vance quickly heaves the deer over his shoulders and carries it toward the silent grouping.

“All clear,” Arion calls out, and whistles emerge, as people quickly start setting things up.

“Fresh kill on the menu doesn’t seem like a bad way to start the day,” Arion says with a broad grin, as Vance preens with cocky assurance, tossing down the massive deer just outside the forest.

Their clothing is…very Victorian era—on the cheap side.

“I crafted five swords this week. Pure, unrelenting silver,” Vance tells Arion.

“That’s a lot of progress,” Arion says as he eyes the blood on the deer.

“You want the heart?” Vance asks him as he stabs his blade into the chest.

I almost vomit.

What the hell is going—

“The hearts aren’t working so well anymore,” Arion says idly, as he steps to the side, eyes lifting to a woman who is massaging the side of her throat.

He’s not staring at her cleavage or the hint of midriff she’s showing off with her less-than-conservative skirt and partial shirt.

It doesn’t matter what she’s wearing, really, since Arion is staring very directly at her throat.

“The hearts will have to do,” Vance says like he’s warning him; however…it feels like a loosely translated foreign film where the words don’t match up with the movement of the lips.

“I’m a growing boy, Vancetto. I think it’s time we acknowledge that, or we stop bringing along the humans who keep joining our pedaling market,” Arion tells him. “Or I get my home back and have a reason to settle for the blood of dead animal hearts.”

Arion reaches up, massaging his gums like they’re hurting. I’m still trying to figure out what the hell is going on, when a flock of people come in on foot, following a man with a torch.

I tense, worried this is where the pitchforks-and-torches metaphor began. Suddenly, the people quickly scatter, searching through the outdoor vendor stands I’m finally noticing. It’s definitely not a bad thing that people are pouring in, because there’s excitement instead of fear.

It’s like the view just keeps widening, spreading around me, pouring in new, more confusing sights.

Everything from clothing, to weapons, to weird and slightly beautiful food selections.

Potions, charms, and trinkets are hanging at the edges of every stand, as if this is a gypsy flea market or something.

In a language like I’ve never heard, one woman seems to be timidly arguing with another, distracting me.

She’s tall, wafer-thin, and her jaw is fierce. I would so make friends with her, because she looks like she could be a formidable enemy if you’re not friends with her.

I have no idea what they’re saying, because the language is foreign. But from the exchange, I’d say the small, plumper girl behind the temporary table is conning the woman into believing a love potion works.

And she’s winning. I think the tall woman is buying enough to start her own harem.

As if I have a right to judge at this point.

My eyes dart back over, and I see Arion grudgingly taking the heart from Vance, as they stay partially hidden in a small recess behind a grouping of rocks at the bottom of a mountainside. I’m frozen to this spot, like I’m seeing it all and confused by just as much, idly noticing the grinning tall girl as she lumbers by me, heading into a covered wagon off to the side.

“Caroline,” a man calls, and she pokes her head back out.

The rest of his words are said in a language I can’t understand, and his voice is raw and jagged, scratching up the notes as he speaks.

My gaze shifts again, just in time to hear the thundering of horses. Screams erupt, and Arion leaps flat-footed from the ground, bounding over the short partition of the natural rock wall, and landing on the other side in a crouch.

Vance swings his arm out, sword raised, as a man stops the raid with a flat hand in the air.

I can’t understand what he shouts at Vance, but I don’t miss the rusty sword he stabs into the ground at Vance’s feet. Vance frowns in obvious confusion, and words form again, not matching the movement of his lips.

“What is this?” Vance asks him.