Gypsy Freak (All The Pretty Monsters #2)(60)

“Damien?” Lemon asks, genuinely sounding confused.

“Dorian’s brother,” Leiza says by way of explanation. “You haven’t seen him in a while.”

“I can’t be responsible for your safety,” I cut in, a little panic rising in me. “I’m not—”

“You’re not responsible for our safety. We are. We dissect the most appropriate and welcoming homes, and then we move in and survive longer than any other betas in history. If Fay had listened to Alpha, the way she should have, she’d be alive right now. Every omega knows to trust your true immortal alpha above all others who walk this earth. Otherwise, like I said, omegas die first,” Leiza says like that explains everything.

“And you’re a gypsy with a lot of gusto in your magic, so that could be helpful,” Mary adds as she turns to go to the kitchen. “I even overheard that you killed four vampires all by yourself.”

“That was really a lot of luck,” I assure them, stumbling my way behind them as the smell of something incredibly good sweeps in. “And I’m not protected by four alphas. Right now, I think those four alphas just enjoy playing games with me. Damien may be the only alpha who actually sort of likes being around me, and no one remembers his authority unless he’s glowing at a party. It’s hard to threaten people with his name,” I go on.

“Van Helsing slept with you. He hasn’t had a woman in centuries,” Lemon chides.

“And they all watch you,” Leiza cuts in before I can rebut that statement with any form of an argument. “They’re not even subtle about it. Emit sneaks off to watch you all the time and lies about it later.”

“This conversation is just too weird to have right now,” I say as I sit down at my table. I’m glad they never really think to mention Damien.

I really don’t want to talk about him right now. I’d like to punch him, but I don’t think violence against an immortal capable of pulling steel bars apart through a glass covered stone wall is smart.

I never even registered the small shards of glass raining down on us as those walls tried to crumble, because I only got a few scrapes…and there was a lot of other more distracting things going on at the time.

Like a sequence of mind-numbing orgasms that…quite frankly, I’m angry at him for ruining the after-glow of.

The point is, punching him would be stupid.

“The biggest thing you have is Arion,” Tiara adds as she joins us. “Having Arion makes us the safest we can be, since he and his people are the threat.”

There’s another immortal I’d like to punch in the face. She’s easily charmed. You can fuck her if you really try. Those aren’t the exact words, but it’s definitely the sort of chauvinist bullshit he had leaking from his mouth when he didn’t know I was listening.

I hate the fact that I still don’t hate him appropriately, and it makes that punch seem more inviting and stupid.

“Emit doesn’t think vampires did this,” I say quietly.

They all pause and look over at me.

“And I don’t have Arion. I’m a stupid little girl he wants to use as a temporary bandage to their group.”

Lemon lowers herself to the chair in front of me, a serious expression on her face.

“He wants the four of them to be an alpha unit again?”

“Again?” I ask. “What’s an alpha unit?”

“They were the only ones ever capable of truly being united. Those were…rough days,” Leiza answers. “I was the only one around for the early days of it. It wasn’t rough because they were a unit, though. It was because of Idun.”

“Idun?” I parrot, bristling a little for reasons unbeknownst to me.

“The skin walker they all loved,” Tiara answers in a hushed whisper.

“She could shapeshift into any form, was from the most lethal gypsy freak family to ever live, and she tricked them all into loving what they thought was four different women or something. Those parts are fuzzy on details, because that was the really early days and long before my time,” Leiza continues in the same conspiratorial whisper. “After immortality, they were all true monsters when she was at the helm of things. It wasn’t until things got truly out of hand that they started backing off, one by one, recognizing their power and capacity for damage. It was the first time they’d shown even a flicker of humanity in almost a century.”

“Vance went first,” Tiara says. “I was turned just after he’d detached himself from their unit and started waging war against them for the lines they crossed. He took over the Van Helsing family during that time, started training an elite group of mortals for his Van Helsing knights, and things began to change, somewhat, for the better.”

“Emit detached next,” Leiza adds. “She crossed a line on him when she touched his wolves—forcing him to carry out his law by consequence. But that’s another story I won’t go off on a tangent about. The thing is, he’d had to sacrifice his pack once, all because he loved her enough to kill something he loved just a little less…in the name of seeking vengeance on her behalf. He reminds himself of that very often, because that woman held so much power over all of them.”

“The Morpheous one…shit, I forget his name. Anyway, he was third. She’d constantly hurt him, cursed him, and continuously left him in ruins, and he clung to her because she’d made it to where she was all he could ever have again,” Tiara tells me, causing my stomach to twist in knots when she says that aloud.