Gypsy's Blood (Page 16)

Continuing to pretend the ghost doesn’t exist, I sigh and search for the tracks I can find before the snow covers them all up. Damn girl is going to freeze to death out here.

Chapter 11

VIOLET

Teeth chattering, I sip my cocoa, pulling the blanket tighter around me, as I scoot in closer to the fireplace.

Anna pops in and takes a seat beside me, sighing wistfully.

“The werewolf is a wild one you can’t trust, but Vance Van Helsing—”

“Anna, not now,” I groan.

“What?” she asks seriously.

“Just…not now,” I say quieter, eyes still on the fire.

She disappears from sight, causing my lips to tense. Her attention is getting divided too easily, which means she’s getting even closer to the dementia stage.

Just as it grows quiet again, my brow furrows, her random words sifting through my mind as I stand abruptly and go to my desk, lifting my book.

Valhinseng…

Van Helsing…

Maybe it’s a coincidence that the really bad anagram and Van Helsing have the same letters? Maybe Anna’s delusional mind is snapping those pieces together and now making my saner mind follow her down her rabbit hole because of this tiring, insane day?

Werewolves…

That would explain the attack in the woods that started this domino-effect of a night. It’d also explain why Emit showed up naked and how they were both so strong and resilient.

It’s also completely, utterly, and unquestionably insane. Or maybe it’s not.

I mean, Mom hunted ghosts as a hobby. Most people don’t believe in ghosts. Who’s to say there’s not an entire world of monsters that’s been kept from me?

After all, I believe monsters exist. I have no choice but to believe that, because I know at least one monster lives.

Things stir in my head that have no business stirring, and I try to put together pieces that don’t fit.

Something bumps and knocks against the window, startling me, and I curse the wind when I accidentally knock off my mother’s potion book.

My gaze lands on the book, and a buried memory from the day I turned thirteen climbs to the surface just as I kneel down.

Blood coats my hands as I rock back and forth, crying so hard I can’t catch my breath. “I’m sorry, Mommy. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

“Shhh,” she says as she pulls me against her, not bothered by the blood all over me, dripping from my hair, staining my clothes, and invading my mouth with its disgusting taste…

She patiently consoles me as I sob.

“It’s not your fault. It’s theirs,” she says so quietly. “They shouldn’t have been here.”

“I’m a monster,” I whisper, hiccupping around a sob.

“I can assure you there are real monsters out there, January. You’re not one of them,” she goes on, kissing the top of my forehead. “Anything you do is simply to survive. That doesn’t make you a monster.”

As a child, it sounded like she was so certain, but in this moment, I hear the hesitance and tremor of fear in her voice. That was the day my father became an over-the-phone sort of dad. That was the day my mother threw herself into her work.

That was the day I realized there was something terrifying inside me, and if I panicked too much, it came out to defend me.

I just don’t know what it is, and neither did Mom. Now I wonder about this town with possible monsters, and look over at the name of a legendary monster hunter.

Vance fought a pack of possible werewolves—which could just be the crazy in my head talking—and he barely wrinkled his shirt. What happens when he finds out what I am? I can’t fight like that. Mom said, given my dark side, it was a terrible idea to ever be a threat, so I was never taught to fight.

The book is open to a page about this town—a potion that locks out the negative energy from the house. Picking it up, I jerk back, because the door blows open and Vance walks in, cursing as he gapes at me.

“How the fucking hell did you manage to get yourself back here without freezing to death?” he snaps.

“Gypsy warming potion,” I lie, blinking in surprise to find him here so suddenly.

He shakes off the snow, cursing a little more, and starts pulling off his wet clothes.

“Do you have any fucking idea how stupid that was?” he demands. “I’ve been searching everywhere because I thought there was no way you could make it this far on foot, you foolish little girl.”

It would have been stupid…if I could literally freeze to death.

“Is Emit Morrigan a werewolf?” I ask, catching him off guard with the abrupt shift in conversation.

He narrows his eyes at me as he shuts the door behind him and continues to strip out of his snow-drenched clothes.

Where’d Anna go?

She must be chasing Emit or Damien around.

“He’s not just a werewolf. He’s the alpha. All the packs in this region are under him, and several betas actually run the packs. You can’t go roaming around on his lands, since clearly you know more than you’ve let on.”

I’m not sure how it happens. One second I’m standing, and the next I’m dizzy and lifting off the ground. It all happens within a blink of my eyes, though I’m not sure exactly how long it took.

My mind is trying too hard to process everything, and it’s overwhelming.

“Or maybe you don’t know anything at all,” Vance says, drawing my attention over to him.

Swallowing thickly, I stand and back away.

Somehow, in those few seconds, he’s gotten down to his boxers, revealing a lot of firm, toned, tan skin. He snatches a blanket from my sofa and wraps it around his waist.

I scramble to adjust my own blanket over my hideous pajamas. He just quirks an eyebrow like he’s amused by all this.

“Do you kill monsters?” I ask with an unreasonable sense of calmness.

His eyes drop to the paper where I scratched out the letters of his name, toying with an impossible anagram.

When his gaze cuts back to mine, his smirk looks a little dark. “You mean, am I a Van Helsing?”

“A Van Helsing? As in there’s more?”

“Aye,” he says as he takes a seat near my fire, being far too casual about all of this. “There’s a lot I won’t tell you, Violet Portocale. But there’s a lot someone has to tell you before you get yourself killed. What I’m curious about is why your mother knowingly sent you to a town full of monsters without warning you first.”

Staving off the tears that try to fall, I don’t let my mind wander down dark paths. Why would my mother send me, a sure monster, to a town with a legendary monster hunter, who scared me even when I thought him to be a myth?

She wouldn’t do anything to harm me. Couldn’t. Wouldn’t. Never.

A wad of emotion gets caught in my throat as my tears waver on my lids, and he studies me like he’s trying to figure out why I want to cry.

“She’s going to hurt someone innocent one day, Marta. I’m sorry, but I don’t feel safe here anymore,” I remember hearing my father say.

“You’re a coward.”

“I never signed on for this! You said gypsy magic and occasional ghosts. Not monsters and…whatever she is. It’s not natural, Marta. You can’t expect me to handle this. I’m just human! I love my daughter, but whatever is inside her…it terrifies me.”

We never spoke of it, even to this day. Dad left because he got a new job, and that’s the only reason I’ve ever acknowledged to either of them.

I wanted to forget I’m a monster.

Now there’s a monster hunter in my living room who didn’t kill a single werewolf tonight, despite the fact they’re clearly monsters.

“Why did you spare them?” I decide to ask.

“His land, his mutts,” he says as if on autopilot. “Make no mistake, if they try that shit on my territory or in town, I will happily—and legally—rip them to shreds.”

I swallow harder. There are rules to being a monster?

“But despite what that stupid wolf thinks, I only bend rules—I don’t break them,” he goes on with a shrug. “I am the Van Helsing assigned to this area because of my history with the three other monster alphas who occupy the outskirts of town.”

“Three other monster alphas?” I ask, feeling dizzy again as I move closer to the fire and take a seat there.

He purses his lips as he takes a seat close to me, and I pretend to not be scared of a monster hunter, since only monsters should fear him.

“There’s no delicate way to explain your current situation, Violet Portocale. But you are, indeed, safe in this town, despite appearances,” he adds.

When he glances around, my eyes follow his.

“I don’t exactly feel safe,” the monster girl says to the monster hunter, who has no idea she’s a monster.

“You will once I explain,” he says as his eyes come back to mine.

The familiar sensation of my heartbeat pulsing in my ears returns, causing that edge of panic to seep back in when I fear what he’s about to ask.

“Everyone has a calming, coping mechanism. How can I keep you the calmest while I explain?” he asks.

Once again, as though dragged from my throat, my words tumble from my lips without permission. “My mother always gave me a pedicure when she delivered heavy, life-altering news.”