Gypsy Moon (Page 52)

“Actually, I think I’m going to work on that really stout potion. We have all the materials, and—”

“For the rising?” Damien asks, confused, just before he exhales harshly like he’s just remembered they forgot to tell me they’re not doing it.

“I already explained,” Arion says to me with a tight expression, tugging my hand into his. “We can’t risk being weakened before the rules are in play. She’ll come out of hiding soon, love. Promise.”

A door upstairs slams really hard.

“I just want to have the potion ready. We have extra ingredients, right? Even the ones that are hard to come by? Mom said she had enough for a few batches just with her own supply,” I go on, deciding Mom’s stove and makeshift hidey-house will have to do.

The three of them exchange a glance. Emit’s lips tighten, as he leans against the wall. Vance makes a sound from upstairs that must be sort of loud if I can hear it, drawing everyone’s attention.

“Idun’s been to Shadow Hills, but she left over a month ago and hasn’t gone back,” he calls down on a pained breath before something thuds the ground.

Arion whirs by me, and Mom comes through the front door. Just as I reach the top of the stairs and spot the collapsed Van Helsing, Mom’s confused eyes land on Vance.

I immediately go to him, dropping to my knees, while he stays propped on all fours, swaying like he’s dizzy.

“You really managed to track her out of the hellacious loops she surely left behind? That quickly?” Mom asks almost disbelievingly.

“Does every-fucking-body know about the motherfucking loops?” Vance asks, almost sounding drunk, as he starts to lean too hard to the right.

A groan turns into a grunt, as he falls to his side, and I move next to him, grabbing his cheeks with both hands.

“We agreed there’d be no touching of any kind,” Mom snaps. “No more breaking the rules.”

“I and they agreed they wouldn’t touch me,” I remind her absently, as I keep my hands pressed to Vance’s cheeks, holding his head steady, while his eyes roll around in his head. “Is he okay?”

“He’s immortal, Violet,” Marta says like she’s frustrated. “He can’t die from being cursed or he’d be dead by now.”

“I bloody almost found her,” Vance groans, limply wiping his literal bloody nose.

I catch his sleeve and pull it back from his wrist before the blood gets on his one and only shirt he currently has, until he can find a store that sells high-end tailored suits around here.

I feel Mom’s eyes burning a hole in me like I’m the traitor she spent seven hours pushing out of her vagina that felt mortal, and all that other disgusting stuff she mentioned earlier.

I subtly flip her off, and she knows exactly why, as I tend to Vance’s nose.

“I smelled beta shifters, so she’s already found her den,” Vance goes on. “But I lost it after that.”

“Do you know if you were close to the den?” Arion asks him like it’s urgent.

Vance slowly shakes his head, eyes still rolling around in his head. He goes limp and passes out after that, and I stare down in so much confusion.

“It would have taken more focus than he’s capable of for him to break the loops Idun would have left him with,” Mom says like Vance is making it all up.

“Unless he really wants to find her,” Arion argues, even as I lamely try to ignore the content and context.

As they argue and plot against Idun, while also arguing about the best way to be more diabolical than the queen of all things sinister, I tend to Vance. My overwhelmed mind strays to a piece of my arguing-talk with Mom.

“What are you talking about?”

“The soul stone you used to come back. The stone that killed Anna. When did you put that on me?”

“Violet, that has been attached to you since you were small. I didn’t want spirits infecting your mind. You’re too trusting. People have to disappoint you before you raise your guards.”

I stopped talking about that immediately. Mom’s not telling me something, and it’s clear she’s still keeping secrets.

“I’m sorry, Violet. I’m sorry you lost what sounds like the only decent ghost that still shouldn’t have been able to interfere with the living.”

“Sounds like it.”

“I really am sorry you lost a friend. But it’s amazing she even lasted three months with as much exposure as you’re claiming. Even with me tapped into the power source, Anna should have had no more than a month, and she never should have had the power to possess you. Why did you let her possess you?”

“She wanted to drink bourbon and have sex.”

Mom was shady and fidgety during the entire thing, downplaying it too much. It’s what she does when she’s trying to hide something bigger with something smaller.

What’s bigger than attaching a soul-sucking stone to my body? What’s bigger than her keeping it a secret that her soul is immortal? What’s bigger than me falling for four of her worst enemies?

What’s bigger than Idun?

Now, more than ever, I’m paying a lot of attention to the things my mother doesn’t say.

Absently, my fingers twitch, while I idly wonder if any of my Anna-salt-balls survived the crash. The luggage is just lost or torn open, clothes ruined by the elements and minor explosions.

The put-a-pin-in-it emotional bulletin board is getting crowded already, and I just decluttered it before we went on this trip.

“Violet should come with us, because four fucking alphas is better than one, and Edmond Portocale can’t be trusted,” Emit says very calmly, eyes moving to my mother’s.

“Do you hear the prejudice, Violet?” Mom asks incredulously.

I give her a look, since she specifically told me to stay far away from her cousin-brother—she calls him both, and she gets upset when she says his name.

She already knows what they’re apparently implying, and she’s playing dumb. I don’t even know or care what else I don’t know right now. I can’t handle any more.

“We agreed,” I remind her.

She holds my gaze for a moment, deciding if this is really something I’m capable of asking her to do.

I make the motion of pinning something, and she cracks her neck to the side, visibly dropping the façade.

“Spare me your theatrical reveal of Edmond’s recent infractions. I’ll deal with him myself. For now, he does not learn of Violet. On that we can agree,” she bites out a little angrily.

Everyone looks like they’re now expecting her to shoot them with some more arrows. Arion looks as though he’s deflated, because he was clearly excited about revealing this monstrous secret to my mother.

I still don’t care or want to know.

After tucking a small throw pillow under Vance’s head, I go to the cabinet where Mom said her stash is, and start collecting the rare materials she seems to have a lot of.

Then I find the paper with the instructions and get to work chopping and doing, while they likely just glare at each other and deliver silent threats with their eyes.

I have the liquids mixing and almost coming to a boil, ready for the more…dangerous ingredients, by the time they finally break the silence.

“You know about Edmond and what he did?” Damien finally asks her.

“Of course I know. I—”

“This could get a little hairy,” I tell them in interruption.

Seriously, I don’t want to know this secret. I’ve got too much other shit going on.

I grimace at the very questionable intestines that belong to some fabled creature that surely can’t exist under the radar if all that fit inside it. “If you’re a respawner instead of an unkillable being, get out of the kitchen and at least a mile from the house.”

Mom assured me there’s a five mile seclusion radius.

Damien starts speaking to me, almost as though he’s too tired to deal with my tinkering right now. “Violet, that potion has to be fresh. There’s no need in—”

“You said there’s no time for them because you have to find Idun, but you’re all spending your time arguing about how to find Idun.”

“Idun takes more mind than action at first,” Emit explains. “She’s calculated and cunning—”

“Idun’s our problem, not hers,” Mom cuts in, looking at them like they’ve lost their minds.

For once, I agree with her; Idun’s not my problem.

“You really think Idun isn’t also Violet’s problem when she’s the omega underfoot?” Emit growls.

Arion predictably gets in on the Idun chatter. “Idun won’t be a problem, for fuck’s sake, if I can just—”

There’s a loud, bubbling, sizzling noise that cracks through the air, and I drop to the floor, as a pulse shoots from the pot.

Damien yelps, as he and Emit are thrown into one wall, and Mom curses seconds before she and Arion are launched almost into each other, hitting opposing walls instead, when they manage to twist in the air to avoid touching.

Everyone crashes to the ground at almost the same time. Groans and grunts and coughs of pain all ring out in annoyed unison.

“I warned you,” I call out, even as most of them narrow their eyes in my direction.