Gypsy Moon (Page 30)

“That might have been the most pain I’ve felt while conscious in quite some time, and it was just a taste of what she experienced just now,” I state quietly, gingerly running my lips over her head, as just the tiniest bit of electrical currents tingle against my touch.

I’m aching all over from the lightning bolt wallop.

“We question her resiliency too often and too easily,” Vance says, drawing my attention to him, staring on at the remaining pieces of Fiona.

Damien snaps his leg into place as if to punctuate just how severe this all could have been.

“She has the most painful feeding curse of anyone,” Damien says so quietly I almost don’t hear him. “It was almost like watching the lightning from that night’s storm that awoke Bobo and the others from their deaths.”

“It makes a man feel stupid when the answers to the nagging questions have been glaringly obvious all along,” Vance says on a tired exhale.

“She’s soft when her guard is down. She’s damn near unbreakable when it’s up,” Damien adds, jaw grinding.

“I’d prefer to never witness that again, so a full weather report will be added to Shera’s daily tasks,” Arion chimes in, looking idly around the airplane. “On another note, so long as I learn to land a plane, I’ll already be an exceptionally better pilot than Vance.”

“Do you have any idea how damn fine of a job I just did?” Vance asks Arion with narrowed eyes.

Arion glances over at the smoking wreckage, quirking an eyebrow. “Not really, no,” the vampire quips in a very genuine tone.

“Fuck’s sake, Arion. It wasn’t me who crashed the plane; it was the—fuck it. Never mind,” Vance says, sighing in exasperation as he pulls out his phone. “I’ll have someone come take care of this and pick us up.”

I start walking, feeling the need to do something, as Violet remains unconscious in my arms, the rain growing colder and colder.

My footsteps pause when the rain turns to powder-soft snow, and gently trickles down on us.

Arion moves beside me, eyes intently on Violet, as his breath puffs out in a fog in front of his face.

A howl in the far distance, along with the familiar scent finally cutting through the smoke from the plane, quickly tells me what territory we’ve just crashed into.

Arion stares off in the direction of the howl, twirling a strand of Violet’s hair around his finger, as he keeps stride with me. In a wry tone, he says, “Now that we’re here, let the fun begin.”

CHAPTER 15

VIOLET

“You’re insane if you think I’m leaving her at the Morrigan Estate in these parts,” is the first thing I hear Arion arguing when I come to.

“She’ll stay in neutral territory—the Van Helsing Estate,” Vance states dismissively.

“That’d be a fine argument, anywhere but at the estate your father runs,” Damien chides in a dry tone, sounding very close, as fingers gingerly stroke through my hair.

“She’ll be perfectly safe,” Vance states like he’s defensive on the matter.

“And completely cut off from the rest of us,” Emit growls.

“Well, she’s sure as fuck not staying at the local House of Morpheous or House of Jessup,” Vance says, causing me to groan.

Everyone stops talking at once, and something crackling gathers my attention, seconds before a chill slithers over my skin.

“Easy, sweet gypsy,” Damien murmurs close to my ear as I lift up, slowly blinking my eyes open.

We’re sitting on a couch in the middle of what appears to be a collapsing cabin.

“All these houses are in another neutral ground, which is a ghost-fueled town, right?” I ask, my throat a little dry, but I still manage to not miss much of a beat.

“Yes,” Arion answers, sitting across from me and leisurely raking his eyes over my body, as I lean against Damien’s side.

“Are you okay?” Vance asks from behind me, drawing my attention over my shoulder to see him standing just behind the couch.

His hand runs down my cheek as I give him a quick nod, not wanting to discuss the whole lightning rod thing just yet. Jeez, I forgot how much that sucks.

“I’ll stay in the town hotel. Perfectly neutral,” I finish. Then I rush on to say, “I’m sorry about Fiona.”

Vance’s eyebrows bounce up in surprise. “Violet, it’s not your—”

“Lightning from miles away will find me if I’m not properly quarantined, so don’t say it’s not my fault. I can’t afford to replace your jet, but—”

“Bloody hell, she’s being serious,” Arion cuts in, sounding so damn amused.

Vance’s lips struggle to keep from turning up at the edges.

“I have others,” Vance tells me as he strokes my cheek again. “You can pay me in apples.”

“You named the plane. It was clearly special,” I point out, since they all act like it’s no big deal I just caused us to crash by simply being an ideal conductor.

What if one of them had died for twenty-eight years?

“He names all his vessels. Old habits die hard. You named your steed, so you named your ship,” Damien states very dismissively, casually dragging me onto his lap and holding me to him as he breathes me in.

I essentially lie against him, letting him hold me, since it feels like he needs the reassurance that my pain is gone. A full body breath seems to leave him, all his relief pouring out with it.

“Who’s Fiona?” Arion asks, causing me to glance up at Vance.

Vance looks like he’s about to punch Arion, who’s grinning.

Ohhh…

“Really?” Vance asks Arion a little pointedly.

Arion grins over at me, getting my attention, as he raps his fingers on the arm of the chair. “Vance named all his ships after women who’d made him bother to remember their names.”

I give Vance a lazy look, as he palms his face and mutters some threat of violence under his breath.

“Where are we?” I ask as I look around the one-room cabin that isn’t getting very warm, despite the burning fireplace.

“At the base of Neopry Mountain, debating where you’ll be staying. We’d all finalized these plans in our heads…but not with each other,” Damien answers dryly.

Another chill slithers up my spine.

“Are you searching for Idun?” I ask, causing Arion to snort.

“Hardly,” he tells me with a roll of his eyes. “The last place she’d be is the first place we’d look. She came here first, though. We’re here to see if she left any clues when she was here. She hasn’t been up for too terribly long, so there might be a trail for Vance to pick up on, with any luck.”

“With her weakened state, she’d very likely be somewhat sloppy,” Vance explains like he’s already argued this multiple times. “She’s been under for over a thousand fucking years.”

Emit cuts in, talking over them. “Violet’s been through a plane crash tonight. Let’s get her sorted in a hotel room and return to investigate the Castle de Blanc—”

“Wait, that’s the last Neopry family home, right?” I ask in interruption, finally catching up to everything going on around me. “We’re at the base of the mountain that goes to it?”

“Yes,” Vance says with a wave of his hand. “It’s a good starting point to get an idea of what her next step was. The sooner we catch up, the better, and—”

“Idun is your problem. I just want to see the castle,” I tell him, wincing from the lingering tenderness left behind from hundreds of thousands of volts of electricity that has certainly powered up my heart a few painful notches.

“Violet, you’ve had a trying night—”

“It’s quickly becoming my norm,” I say in interruption to Vance. “And that actually was pretty normal for me, aside from the plane crash. But all the lightning sort of took my mind off the plane crash,” I babble on. “Regardless, I want to see the castle.”

“For fuck’s sake, Violet. You were struck by lightning, survived a plane crash, had hardly anything left to change into after all that, and that’s after learning about something as crucial as your mother possibly being an immortal. Why is it so important to see Idun’s home right now, after what you’ve endured?” Vance argues, a little loudly.

“It’s part of her own family history, dick,” Emit points out, as I grimace for Vance.

I see the immediate fuck-my-stupid-mouth look in the Van Helsing’s eyes, and actually feel almost sorry for him.

“I know it’s easy to forget, but I’ve spent most of my life searching for answers. Now I’m sitting under an entire pile of answers to questions I haven’t even started asking yet,” I explain softly.

Vance clears his throat, looking away as he nods.

“Of course.” One more throat clearing, and he parrots those words again. “Of course.”

“Well,” Arion says as he stands. “There are two ways we can ascend.”

Someone has changed my clothes, likely because mine were burned away from my body. It’s a bad day when you can’t remember the details of a plane crash because you were too distracted by the back-to-back strikes of lightning.