Gypsy Freak (All The Pretty Monsters #2)(24)

“He could have killed me,” he interrupts.

I stop speaking abruptly, and a prickle goes up my spine.

“Sure, we both know if you really wanted to, you might could kick my ass. You don’t have the ability to care quite that much to exert the real effort it would take,” he goes on, looking away. “But Arion let me know real damn fast how easy it would be for him. Had Damien not shown up with Violet tonight, he might have offered you the same warning.”

I scrub a hand over my jaw.

“Putting him underground won’t do a bit of damn good. You’ll have to kill him if he gives you no option,” I say quietly.

He levels me with a cold look. “And when he comes back?”

“If you kill him the right way, he won’t come back. I know your secrets, Van Helsing.”

His voice lowers as he leans over. “Even if I was willing to go through with that, I can’t truly kill him. No Van Helsing can kill—”

“Loraine. Damien’s cousin—”

“Has spent the last century living under the radar with the young beta vampire she fell in love with. She wanted out of the alpha circle, and I needed something to give Damien hope before he went dark and stayed there. When I killed her the second time, she was still reborn, just as we knew she would be. We’re immortal, Emit. Get the fuck over it. By now, you all should have accepted your fate.”

I blow out a frustrated breath, sinking back as my fight leaves me in a painful, defeating fit.

“I was really hoping that would one day be an option for me too,” I state quietly.

“I’m sure you all were, to hell with me and what happens to me when I’m on my own with the monsters you’ve all left rampant,” he states sourly, looking back toward the way Violet went. “I should check on her. She tends to slip out when we argue or fight.”

“What do we do about her date with Arion? He’ll come for the wolves who attacked with me if she backs out. We can trap him and put him in that other coffin—”

“All of my coffins were stolen months ago,” he interrupts, causing me to groan.

“Why wouldn’t you have mentioned that sooner?”

“Because it’s my shit that was stolen, not yours,” he says with that thick condescension that has me growling again.

“Now is really not the time to talk to me like I’m an imbecile.”

“Now is really not the time to attack Arion in his home, which is precisely why I didn’t tell you he’d risen. I expected him to keep a lower profile, given the clear tension there’d be between him and all your people.”

“What am I supposed to do? My betas—”

“Are your fucking betas!” he shouts as he jumps to his feet, glaring at me. “Deal with them accordingly. They work for you. Not the other way around.”

“Where the hell are you going?”

“To collect Violet,” he snaps.

“She’s staying here until I’ve had a chance to talk to her about her date—”

“She’s going. He certainly won’t hurt her. If anything, she’s his favorite person right now because she represents freedom,” he says, his eyes bouncing to mine as he lowers his voice again. “And she can hopefully find out what he plans to do to your mutts before we have a repeat of ancient history so soon.”

“I’m not sure I trust something like this in the hands of a very young Portocale gypsy who has no idea what’s going on—”

The loud laughter has us pausing, and he frowns over at me.

“What makes your omegas laugh like that?”

I get a little worried… “Never anything good.”

We stop just at the beginning of the next hallway, because at the very end is the double doors that open up to the Omega wing. The large room where the small pack sleeps is where they all are, including Ingrid, who always disappears around new people.

Vance looks over at me, and I shrug, since two omegas are braiding Violet’s hairs with little flowers, and Violet is talking animatedly, and vaguely, about her journey to tonight’s excursion, apparently.

Vance struggles with restraining a grin beside me when she talks a little too loudly about how she ended up wearing his sheet. I roll my eyes.

“I expected her to be curled in a corner and crying or something,” he muses. “Very impressive rebound from tonight.”

“They think she’s going to be my damn girlfriend or some shit, because they’re being way too nice to her.”

His grin falls away. “She’s wearing my scent all over her, and they think she’s going to be yours?”

This time, I’m the one to battle a grin. “They have faith in their alpha, unlike some people I know.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, Violet saw them pawing at you, and she’s made friends. Which clearly means she doesn’t feel threatened, since she has no interest in you whatsoever. I think their faith is misplaced.”

“I’m getting ready to bruise up the other side of your face.”

“Violet enjoyed herself, despite the bruising,” he chirps.

I snort derisively. “Only because my size intimidates her. I heard what that ghost said. Something about me crushing her, though I had no idea why she was talking about it at the time. I bet it took you like two seconds to embarrass yourself. Clearly she wasn’t overly enchanted, since she came to Arion’s with Damien’s jacket on.”