Gypsy Moon (All The Pretty Monsters #4)(25)

“It was something new we learned about our curses. Idun’s family were the only ones who couldn’t die, even for a little while,” he finishes, staring at me. “I forgave her, because she didn’t know the first time she cut my head off. As though that was somehow a legitimate excuse. The second time she did it during a tantrum, I realized she may as well have been a cruel child with too much power.”

Putting my fork down, I try to decide what to do or say about that.

“Hating Idun is different than hating Damien. It’s different from hating Arion. It’s different from hating Emit.” He clears his throat, settling back in his seat.

I still don’t really know what to say to any of that.

I don’t particularly enjoy the distant, darkened look in his eyes.

“Can I ask about the temporary parents? Who are they and what happens to them after you hit your immortality age?” I ask, wanting away from the topic of Idun.

He doesn’t look surprised about that question, but his lips twitch in amusement once again.

“It depends on how open-minded they are. Two of Emit’s best, most loyal betas are a set of parents he carried back with him after one life. He turned them, and they do more than any other betas to get the wolves under control.”

“Does he ever see them?”

He shakes his head. “It was important that no one ever link them to him, because they would become targets for some of the many mutinies he faces.” He quickly adds, “Sometimes, the parents just get left behind, thinking their child is dead or simply gone. It depends on the circumstances.”

He taps the ornate, dark, wooden table we’re sitting at, drawing my attention to it.

“This dining set actually belonged to one family who cared for me. I offered them immortality after they furnished my ‘first’ home with things the family had been collecting for me. They were good, kind people,” he says with a small smile. “We live those twenty-eight years like men instead of monsters.”

“Were you twenty-eight when you turned?” I guess.

“Aye,” he says with an absent nod, eyes slightly vacant. “I was the first to die, and I thought I’d been turned mortal again. I also had a steady home, food on the table every single night that I hadn’t had to kill, skin, and skewer myself. I had my own bedroom—a childhood dream made real.”

We sit quietly for a minute, since I once again don’t really know what to say. Silence always seems appropriate when they get lost in thought.

He blinks out of his trance, glancing back over at me.

“If you’re finished, there’s a collection of new toothbrushes under the counter in the bathroom you used last night,” he says abruptly, a playful smirk back on his lips, as he gestures toward the bathroom behind me. “And there’s something I need to show you after that.”

I don’t know if I have more questions or answers at this point, but I still get up and quickly head to the bathroom, trying not to smile at the fact he has a pile of packaged toothbrushes neatly tucked in a bin under the counter.

The bin is even labeled. In fact, he has a label on every single thing under this cabinet.

My smile wavers when my mind drifts back to the tale of Arion’s first feeding.

It was never a dream.

I get a little uneasy to learn my heartbeat dropped low enough in my sleep for me to find a death window. But this wasn’t the death spot. There were snow-capped mountains that look nothing like any of the mountains I’ve seen around here.

Somehow I opened a death window while I was asleep without a death spot, and that’s slightly alarming. Maybe it’s because I’ve been letting my heartbeat drop too much lately. I should probably stop that for a while and take a few paper cuts instead of playing with my monster’s dangerous edge just to be more resilient.

Just as I finish up and walk out, I find Vance leaning against the wall, once again raking his eyes over me, as a lazy grin turns up at one corner of his lips.

That smile slightly falters.

“I’m not sure if we’re corralling you or not, Violet, if I’m being honest,” he tells me like he’s now had time to give it some thought.

“I stopped giving thought to my actions when you made your memorable first impression,” he goes on…almost too seriously.

I awkwardly twiddle my thumbs.

“I don’t know why Damien, Arion, and Emit all seem to want you just as much as I do. I do know why I want you, and among a great many reasons…is the almost adorable fact you wanted to protect me from omega werewolves,” he goes on, less serious and more amused.

I give him a glare. “Those are actually betas, unless they were fighting amongst themselves. That’s what an omega does. They only fight someone when they’re stuck in a literal corner with nowhere to run.”

I really wish my rants wouldn’t amuse him so much. “The fact remains that you really thought you should protect me and chose to do that. You’re quite the opposite of Idun, Violet. You get upset and want an apology. You’re not unreasonable. It’s refreshingly—”

“If you say simple, it’s going to ruin this really sweet moment you’ve uncharacteristically been building up to,” I decide to interrupt, since it’s hella intense in here right now.

Usually he only looks at me like this when things are a lot more intimate.