Gypsy Freak (Page 37)
My head is so fucked right now.
Even though I don’t trust him or even really like him at this point, it’s like I’m drawn to him, and my mind flits to the few glorious weeks he was just Ace.
He groans a little as he starts pushing me down on the desk, and I hate him even more when my legs wind around his waist. I hate him and want him, and everything about him is maddeningly confusing.
I feel both used and desired, and I’m not sure which one I truly am.
“If I could make you immortal, this would all be so much easier,” Arion goes on like those are words of assurance in monster speak, kissing his way down my throat as he starts unbuttoning the front of my shirt.
I don’t even fight him, losing all the anger as his lips continue to work magic against my throat, and I hold on instead of just falling apart.
“So no, Violet, I’m not waiting for your death or conspiring to kill you,” he whispers. “You’re quite literally the only thing giving me hope. Because I’ll bury them all before I go underground again,” he adds, causing my emotions to slip into turmoil again, giving me the whiplash he always does. “And I really don’t want to fucking put them through that.”
I’m not really sure how it happens. Fear and sex are too closely linked when he’s in the room, and he’s the only one who really does this to me. I’m not sure if he kisses me, or if I stupidly kiss him. All I know is that the second our lips touch, it’s like a live wire all over again.
The pulses of energy are almost explosive as I grind against him, and he makes an impatient sound before I hear the remaining buttons on my shirt pop away and rattle in various places around the room.
“How dangerous is your bra right now?” he asks between kissing me and undoing my jeans.
“Extremely,” I answer, hearing him groan as he keeps his weight off my front.
The door flops open, and we both freeze. His eyes hold mine before I jerk my head away, hating how intensely confused I stay in his presence. Then I really tense when I see Shera giving me a terribly angry look, while her red hair rests in disarray on her head. She’s pale, has some dark circles under her eyes, and I think her lip is split.
“You look like shit,” Arion tells her like he’s confused, making no move to step away from me.
“Your girlfriend found you, I see. Just checking to make sure she didn’t get lost, since I got detained and couldn’t come warn you,” she says while glaring at me. After a few seconds of seething silence, she returns her attention to him. “Glad the happy couple is on track.”
She slams the door when she walks back out, and Arion gives me a questioning look as he pushes off me, eyes lingering on my chest as he smirks.
“Feel free to stop by any time, Violet,” he tells me as I quickly pull my shirt shut.
I take the jacket he offers me, shrugging into it, while I idly wonder why I don’t feel dirty. He should make me feel dirty. I was just with Damien, you know, before he turned into an icicle the way Vance did.
All I can think about is the fact Arion’s stopping this instead of me, and it lacks the wrongness this moment should have.
I hop off the desk, and he calls to my back, “You punch me and kiss me, and you’ve yet to tell me what brought all this on. I need to know you truly don’t believe I’m using you to raise Idun.”
I pause in front of the door and turn to look behind me. “Am I under your protection?” I ask.
“Of course you are. Your house is outside of vampire territory; however, it is in town limits and vampires abide by my rule no matter where they are. You’re also under Van Helsing protection. Morrigan protection as well. I’m sure if anyone remembered, they’d also know it’s under Morpheous protection, but Damien doesn’t regularly entertain to give his name enough memory.”
“And that means something? It’s not something to be taken lightly?” I ask, staying on topic.
His expression turns serious. “It’s not something that will ever be taken lightly. Protection is rare. You have it in spades.”
“I just needed to know the omegas are safe,” I say as I exit, slamming the door behind me as I try to cope with the headache Arion always induces with his confusing, complex existence.
Or maybe it’s my confusing, complex existence that causes the headaches. At this point, I’d rather blame sex, since it’s the easy out.
The throbbing in my hand reminds me why punching a vampire in the future might be a horrible idea, and I focus on that instead.
Chapter 23
ARION
I lock the door behind Violet, and I cut my eyes across the room as Damien drops his illusion.
He doesn’t really give anything away with his expressionless face. I go over the conversation in my head, but Violet unknowingly held to her word in the presence of another, and said nothing too detailed to give away my secret.
Damien and I both swing our gazes to the beta I have penciled to the wall now that he’s released the illusion. And by penciled to the wall, I mean I’ve stabbed two-hundred-and-forty-three slightly long pencils into key places on his body to pin him there. He’s on his tiptoes, and if he steps down, they’ll all snap and we’ll have to start all over again.
“They still need a few more inches of length for this process to be less tedious. It wouldn’t hurt them to be a little stronger, too. Still superior craftsman ship, though,” I say as I lift up the pencils that haven’t spilled off the desk.
I almost lost my mind when I got my hands on the maddening little gypsy.
Damien goes to take a seat, eyes distant like he’s lost in thought, as he runs a hand over his jaw. I focus my attention on Anthony, who has sweated quite a bit. I’m glad Violet has no true sense of smell—she couldn’t have missed his stench.
“Anthony, I’m sorry you had to see all that,” I go on.
“S-s….okay,” he whimpers, trying to remain perfectly still because it hurts less than moving around on those pencils.
He held himself up so well while I went to pay Emit a quick visit and collected Damien for his…abilities with the fairer sex when getting one to talk.
“Not really, no. It’s not,” Damien chimes in, never glancing at us as he remains lost in thought, but also effectively here with us as well.
Eh. I was going to kill him anyhow. I’ve seen quite a lot no one knows I’ve seen, after all. It’s fun to make them paranoid now that I start cleaning house with information no one knows how I’ve acquired.
“I wish I could say I’m sorry about this part,” I tell him with a cruel smile.
His eyes widen seconds after I’ve jammed the stack of pencils deep inside his chest.
“I’m giving Shera a raise if she finds me longer pencils of the same quality,” I decide when Anthony’s wheezes exhaust at last and he tenses as he tries to remain upright until his last breath.
Going limp, he collapses to the ground, sending a wave of snapping pencil sounds into the room.
“They have the perfect snap to them, if you know what I mean,” I add as I turn and start wiping my hands on the towel.
“Do you wish to call Emit, or should I?” Damien asks very quietly, even though he shoots me a look that makes me think he’s playing along with something.
I know that look, because he usually plays along to see if he can determine my angle.
“It’d be best to hear it from you, I’m sure. I doubt he’d appreciate me telling him his harem of wolves are saying too many things to Violet,” I answer idly, lifting the leg of Anthony and dragging him across the room.
But I pause near the door, my spine prickling.
“Omegas rarely talk,” Damien points out as I drop Anthony’s leg and quickly move to my phone.
“Unless they feel really threatened and need a stronger alpha to attach themselves to.”
“Violet is no alpha,” he states through a derisive snort…even though there’s a detachment to his tone.
“She doesn’t have to be an alpha when she has four alphas protecting her, and she fished for that information specifically.”
“That whole show could have gone differently if she didn’t need you, but you’re the vampire alpha; you’re needed the most to protect those other omegas if this is vampire related,” he says in that same tone he uses when he’s playing along.
I pretend not to notice, since I don’t know what he’s thinking and he usually lets his guard down enough for me to figure it out if I play along with him playing along.
Emit answers his call before I add another layer of complexity to my thoughts.
“This had better be more productive than our last encounter, or I’m hanging up. I’m not doing friendly chitchat—”
“What if those recently deceased omegas knew too much? What if only one needed to die because the others said too much to that one, but they didn’t want anyone knowing which one that is?” I ask in interruption as I flip Damien off, since I have no idea why he’s being such a bloody cunt the day after he popped an ages-old cork.
He should be in a much more amicable mood. Maybe he did it wrong.
Emit goes quiet for a second, and Damien sits up as his brow furrows, since clearly we weren’t thinking the same things at all.