Gypsy Freak (All The Pretty Monsters #2)(30)
“Arion won’t harm you. If anything, he needs you to really like him for whatever angle it is he’s working on us,” he says as he looks away again.
Why do I feel bad about leaving him behind?
I liked it better when I just wanted to key his car to feel good.
He’s like Anna. Once they’re in your life, you just adapt to their creepy ways and start to find the weird charm in them. Damn him for making me miss her, and damn him for worming his way into the part of my mind that makes me worry about him.
“Are you going to be okay?” I ask when the knocking gets really obnoxious.
He groans.
“Only if you make her stop before I have to kill her and really piss Arion off.”
With that, I remember Damien is also a monster, and I turn and head off with the assurance he’s a big boy who can take care of himself, even when he looks sad, miserable, and a little lonely.
He’s the only one without anyone else ever in his house, and this house is just too big to be so empty.
I check my phone to see if Vance has said anything else to my lame text where I tried to start a conversation, and he sent a one-word response.
I’ve never had a one-night stand, but I think that’s what we did. I don’t want to make it weird, so I say nothing else as I open the door to a very annoyed Shera.
She looks over me once and rolls her eyes. “You smell like a damn wolf.”
Before I can comment, she’s suddenly hugging me. Hugging. Me.
She starts rubbing up and down and walking around me in a circle. I remain rigid.
“What’re you doing?” I ask her, swallowing thickly when she shakes her breasts against my back, still hugging me close.
“Getting rid of the wolf smell so that you don’t get attacked by vampires, who are still angry about last night’s little scuffle. I don’t need my life to be harder tonight. Arion is enough work. And my scent is a lot stronger than whatever little pups you were playing with today.”
“They’re really nice girls who dressed me up.”
“And rudely left their wolf scent all over you before you go to a vampire party,” she gripes as she steps back and sniffs me. She wrinkles her nose.
“It’ll do until Arion can put his even stronger scent on you.”
I’m starting to think everyone thinks I stink after I leave a house.
“What about Damien’s scent? He’s alpha too. Will it also offend?” I ask dryly.
“No one ever remembers his scent, so it’s a nonissue,” she says dismissively as she turns and walks out.
I glance back one last time to see Damien staring at me from the second floor window. He’s gone in the next blink, but I’m sure he’s still there. I also think he prefers for me not to know when he’s watching.
I guess all monsters have their issues. He lacks boundaries, and I can’t be allowed to panic. In the grand scheme of things, I still haven’t met anyone who scares me as much as I scare myself.
Chapter 14
VIOLET
I have no idea if vampires are opening the doors for me when I walk into the back entrance behind Shera. They could be any variety of monsters for all I know. It’s doubtful they’ll be any of the monsters I sort of know of, but you get the idea.
I’m nervous and fidgety and worried about wolf scent, since everyone keeps sniffing me when I walk by them. I stutter a step in my Converses that are hidden by the pooling fabric of the dress. A loud, obnoxious squeak sounds from the bottom of my shoe, hitting the tile just wrong to draw even more attention to me.
But my eyes are fixed on the large fountains that lead into this giant ballroom. The streams of red are shooting over us, the perfect momentum propelling the liquid without a single drop spraying to waste.
The streams cross over each other in a lacing pattern without ever actually touching, but giving the illusion they are when you walk under them…like I’m doing.
And, I’m almost positive those fountains are streaming blood to each other, and dribbling down into large, randomly-shaped pools that turn into a piece of the room. Bridges are here and there, giving dry passage over the streams on the ground.
The one thing I hate to see is blood, and I came to a vampire party without even considering it might be the theme to celebrate their freshly risen alpha, who has to still be really thirsty.
Sometimes I can’t tell if I’m really dumb or just too damn stupid to live. Then I remember I can’t die, so option number one it is.
A woman bumps into me, snarling on her way by, and turns and walks away like I’m scum on her shoe. So werewolf women are really nice, and vampire women are not so much.
Shera is suddenly at my side, tapping her foot impatiently. “If you miss his entrance, I’ll never hear the end of it. Don’t make me carry you. It’ll just look utterly ridiculous, and neither of us will feel pretty for the rest of the night.”
I nod like that’s acceptable, mostly because staring at her is keeping my mind off the blood fountains people are holding wine glasses under to fill them up. I just can’t. It gives new meaning to “open-bar.”
“I’m not adjusting this quickly,” I tell her as I start following her, staring at the back of her head when she turns around and speeds up.
“How unfortunate,” is her tart reply. “It’s only just beginning. You’ve barely gotten a toe wet,” she adds over her shoulder, actually smirking. “Sing, gypsies,” she says in a singsong voice.