Gypsy Moon (All The Pretty Monsters #4)(65)

At least I’m not wearing the underwear this time.

Hell, I’m not wearing anything but a bra, a coat, and boots. I’m not sure my life situations have improved, at present.

I triple check to make sure no one is getting a money shot.

Speaking of triple…

The triplets show up briefly, eye my coat and Arion, and disappear before the slow doors of the elevator close at last.

Linda smiles brightly at Arion.

“If you’d like, I could have some champagne sent up,” she offers as Arion continues to twirl a lock of my hair around his finger, eyes dipping to the little bit of flesh showing on my chest.

“I want her fully sober tonight,” Arion says, leaving those words out there like he’s prepared to break his promise.

I narrow my eyes on him, but he just grins without ever meeting my stare.

Poor Linda loudly clears her throat, signaling she’s uncomfortable, and I start guiding Arion off the elevator the second the doors ding for our floor.

He gracefully follows my stumbling steps, and rights me before I can fall.

I jerk my coat shut, and he keeps his hands placed on decent areas on my body, as I follow the numbers that count down toward our room.

“The technology of this era is simply astounding,” Arion says as he stares at the keycard in his hand. “I remember the day we celebrated the invention of the wheel,” he adds as I take the card from him and then pause, my brow furrowing, as I open my mouth and close it. He adds, “We rolled each other around all day, and life drastically improved.”

When he grins, I feel like a complete, gullible dumbass.

“Not that old, love. Even scary vampires can jest,” he quips like the cheeky asshole he is.

Rolling my eyes, I push the door to the room open, hearing the slowest elevator ever as it dings shut. Arion moves in behind me, as I sort of gape around at the massive living room area.

I look around a few more times, catching sight of a very large bedroom off to the side.

Immediately, I’m a little uncomfortable, because this is way too fancy for a girl who lost her clothes in a dog fight, for Pete’s sake. I’m too much of a hot mess for fancy things.

“I feel unworthy,” I confess.

“It’s hardly that nice. You’re welcome to order food if you’re hungry, love,” Arion says from behind me, pushing my hair aside.

I actively force myself not to angle my head and expose my throat to him, since there’s apparently some merit to this omega crap. If that’s what I am.

“What am I?” I ask curiously as I stare at the ornate carvings on the round dining table off to the side.

“I thought we’d already determined that, love,” he murmurs against the top of my head, as his hands slide down my shoulders, then to my elbows, and back up again.

“I’m the impossible daughter of a woman with a dead womb—”

“According to Tom,” he cuts in. “I worry we’ve gotten your hopes up too much for something that feels less and less likely, the more I think about it.”

His doubt doesn’t give me doubt. I felt my mother’s death. However, it never made sense why it never really felt like she was truly gone, or why her spirit didn’t find me.

She was busy coming back to me.

I don’t say that aloud.

“You’re a Neopry monster—a little on the small side, considering most are over six feet tall, and you’re a gypsy freak in the non-offensive sort of way,” he adds like he’s summing it up and wrapping it with a pretty bow.

“So these are the kind of answers I’ll be getting. The ones answered by Arion, because Ace is truly gone,” I say quietly.

“I’m not really sure what else you want me to say on that matter, Violet,” he tells me as he releases me and goes to casually pull his jacket off, tossing it aside.

He grins as he glances over his shoulder. “Can I take your coat for you?”

I guess I should have expected this.

“I’ll wait until I have something else to—”

He pulls his shirt over his head, revealing the shorter sleeved one underneath, before tossing the top shirt to me.

It’s when he does sweet things that I go back to singing Weak in my head.

His phone goes off again, and he tosses it to the table, still staring over at me, as I fold his shirt in my lap.

“I think I’ll shower off the flight first.”

“The lightning doesn’t burn you,” he says almost randomly.

“Conduits don’t always burn,” I state as if on autopilot.

He nods, eyes sharp, like he’s the one assessing me.

“I should go scavenge the wreckage for any remaining clothes of yours. For the most part, the plane stayed intact, but it did lose its wings and part of its tail,” he goes on way too conversationally, given the topic, while he props against the table, still watching me. “For a girl scared of planes, trains, and automobiles, you don’t seem too rattled by the crash.”

“Thousands of volts of electricity coursing through my body and causing every muscle to contort in agony is a marvelous distraction,” I dryly inform him, giving him a pointed look. “Is this your way of trying to sample my blood again to see if I’m who I say I am?”

His smirk could mean a number of things, so I don’t read into it.