Gypsy Freak (Page 19)
“You’re here with me. You’ve been seen with me. In my home. Trust me when I say no one here would dare touch you now. Hence the reason you’re my date for the evening.”
I frown, and then I glance around at everyone. He seems to get the fact I’m about to broach private information, and he starts guiding me toward a more secluded corner far away from prying eyes and ears. It’s a table for two, like he knew this was coming.
There are two glasses of champagne, and two covered dishes flanking a single lit candle in the center of the table.
A few rose petals decorate the table, and I can’t help but smile a little. It’s weird that the first semi-romantic thing anyone has ever done for me is coming from a psychotic vampire who initially gave me dead bodies as roses.
“I assumed this evening was part of your elaborate chapter-after-the-epilogue plan,” I say as he reaches over and uncovers both our dishes.
I have no idea what kind of soup smells so good, but suddenly this night sucks a little less.
I can’t even remember the last time I’ve eaten.
He’s lucky I don’t mind people watching me eat, because he does exactly that when I whimper around the first bite of soup. It’s some sort of lobster heaven, and my stomach releases a really embarrassing growl like it’s demanding more.
“This is amazing,” I say after swallowing another bite, as he continues to simply watch me like he’s entertained. “Do vampires eat real food or do they just watch others eat and live vicariously through their bites the way Damien lives vicariously through someone else having sex?”
His eyes brighten like I’ve asked the right question somehow, when I was just trying to be a deflective smartass. I fail at the simplest of tasks.
“I eat,” he says by way of answering, his lips turning up at the corners in an enigmatic grin. “Damien really watched you have sex? You said that with a bite of attitude,” he goes on.
I swallow the next spoonful of soup a little harder before answering.
“Instead of talking about Damien, why don’t we talk about the fact you threatened to kill a bunch of wolves if I didn’t come on this date.”
“Actually, I offered to spare a bunch of wolves in return for your presence this evening,” he says with a smirk. “Those wolves attacked me in my home. It is within my right to exterminate them all when they’re on my property with malicious intent.”
I just sit still and stare at him for a second, unsure how to really counter that. Just when I’ve prepared my new argument, he continues speaking.
“You’re still upset that I used you, and you’re going to continue holding that against me until I explain what the purpose of rising two years early was,” he says as he puts down his spoon, never taking a bite of this amazing soup that I resume eating while he talks.
“I admit I was a little rash with just doling out those death sentences all those years ago—”
“Why did you do it?” I ask him seriously.
He almost looks surprised to hear me ask that, but smiles as he answers me. “Monsters started off as a curse,” he says with a shrug. “Then we learned we could infect others, and we were…just crazy enough at that point to do it. To change the world. To raise an empire.”
He laughs under his breath, though I’m not sure what is so funny about that. Maybe it’s evil laughter? There’s no dramatic dom dom dom like Anna would provide in the background to steer me toward the appropriate conclusion in a time like this.
I really did grow entirely too reliant on her ghostly cues and tension breakers.
“We were young and naïve, not realizing just how terrible of a plan that was. But freshly turned monsters think differently from seasoned ones.”
When my spoon tries scraping at the last little bit of soup, he swaps our bowls very quickly, the transition so fast and smooth that I miss it. I blink, then decide to eat his full bowl of soup as well, since it’s really good.
He folds his hands in front of him, his eyes dipping to my lips as he picks his story back up.
“Wars started when the Van Helsings decided to cull the flocks of their own accord. You wouldn’t think a small amount of people could make such an impact on such a monstrous number of monsters. You’d be wrong,” he says, smirking. “Certain bloodlines are forbidden to use for turnings. It’s a law now that the wars have ended.”
“Why certain blood lines?” I ask between bites.
“Certain humans can’t eat peanuts. Certain ones can’t eat tomatoes. Same is true for certain ones who can’t be turned without suffering infectious consequences.”
He puts his spoon on the table, and starts drawing an imaginary circle with it.
“Bad blood equals a lot of deaths with vampire turnings. Bloodthirst is a nasty infection. While some learn to cope with the thirst without slaughtering hundreds of people every couple of months, most don’t. And often times they end up turning all those people they’ve drained because they’re so infectious. Boom.” The vampire pauses to give me jazz hands. “Hundreds of new vampires from one single vampire within a matter of months. See the problem?”
I nod slowly as the soup loses its appeal.
“With werewolves, it’s less dire, but still crucial. A bad-blood wolf gets enraged at the smallest frustration and can turn at any time. They also lose themselves completely to the wolf when in fur. They could easily infect an entire roomful of mortals if they turn in public.”
I nod like I understand, and he continues moving the spoon in a circle like he’s showing me the small impact just one bad-blood monster can have. It makes me wonder if I’m a bad-blood monster of some sort, even though I don’t infect people.
“Succubae and incubuses are different—”
“Damien’s creations,” I surmise.
“Morpheous family creations,” he corrects, winking at me. “There’s more than just Damien. The Morpheous family tree is even larger than the Van Helsings’ tree.”
I nod like that makes perfect sense.
“Bad-bloods for them either kill everyone they bed—unlike Damien, who only kills when he takes his pleasure—or they turn everyone they bed. Regardless, a lot of bodies draw a lot of attention. While we can’t die, all of our omegas and betas can, and all of the humans could decide we’re too much of a threat. They can’t fear us. Fear incites panic. Panic incites war. By the end of those wars, it would leave us to start from scratch all over again. It’s not easy to build our empires.”
“Why build empires of monsters if this all started as a curse? And Damien said he had to sacrifice things for immortality, so how is this all a curse?”
“Fair question,” he says with a shrug. “Sometimes you want things no matter the cost. Then you learn the cost and it’s too late to change your mind. Or maybe you’re just truly willing to pay the final price because you’ve already sacrificed so much. As far as the empires go, it’s a necessary evil. Once we disturbed the natural order of things, we created chaos. Wolves, vampires, and all the other monsters are now a part of the natural order the world needs. Some of the worst monsters have made the largest medical advancements for mankind. Not to mention the disease control.”
“Disease control?” I ask, really confused.
He just grins. “Pandemics once spread across every continent, leaving thousands dead in its wake in far less populated areas than the world has today. It’s nature’s way of…culling the herd, so to speak. Keeping population in check. Even with medical advancements, should those diseases return, it could mean eventual global extinction. Now, only the continents we can’t find hospitality in suffer those waves of deadly diseases. You see, we upset the natural balance, and nature considers us a disease. It expects us to cull the crop, but we try to do it without deadly infection so that our purpose doesn’t expire.”
“And no one would do that a hundred years ago,” I determine.
“No one would do it to the degree it needed to be done,” he counters, smiling darkly. “No one but the one who no longer thinks of himself as a human gypsy with just a curse. I know I’m a monster, Violet. I learned to like it, while most of the alphas still struggle to make peace with our dark and daunting past, even all these many centuries later.”
I down both glasses of champagne, deciding I’ve learned enough.
He seems to think so too, because he stands and offers me his hand. I accept it warily, and he bristles. “Your hands are cold, even to my touch,” he murmurs, quickly pulling both my hands between his and rubbing them. “Is the heat not high enough?”
“It is. My hands get cold when I get…scared. Which I’ve been all night.”
He grins as he pulls me to him again, and we’re dancing before I can object. Or rather, he’s dancing. I’m just stumbling along next to him.
He finally sighs and shakes his head, though I can tell he’s amused. “You aren’t even trying.”
“Because it’s even worse when I try,” I tell him as I stare down at his feet that I keep stepping on.
“You can say you hate dancing.”
“Actually, I love it. I’m just terrible at it and prefer to do it in private or in a place where absolutely no one knows me. Never in the town I live in amongst a lot of monsters.”