Gypsy's Blood (Page 25)

My hands push up on his ass to keep from slipping again, and Anna squeezes his ass under my hands.

“Is it firm?” she asks seriously. “I bet it’s firm. Like rock hard.”

“We’re here. I think. Based on the directions Vance said you vaguely gave him at some point last night,” he says as though he’s beyond relieved as he drops me to my feet. “Is this it?”

I glance around, taking in the surroundings as I pull out my phone, unable to remember telling Vance anything like that, and silently worrying what else I can’t remember saying. I quickly pull up the picture, and I hand it off to him, distracted by the unsettling feeling in my stomach.

“This is it. You said this was in the report you received?”

I nod in response to his question, trying to detach myself from the very real chance I’m standing where my mother was killed. But words can’t form at the moment, as that unsettling feeling spreads.

“Did they not tell you?” I manage to quietly ask.

“When a Portocale gypsy dies, it’s handled with discretion. Your mother didn’t tell you even that?” he asks me as I kneel and close my eyes.

“When a Portocale dies, no one ever gets punished,” I say quietly. “It’s our family curse.”

“That’s entirely incorrect,” he says with a soft, subtle edge to his tone, as I force myself to detach from the world, not caring what his next words will be.

There’s a dizzying moment when someone quickly pushes themselves to the brink of death with very little effort. Straddling the line of dead and alive is usually a tedious, dangerous task, but it’s one of the very few things I’m good at.

It’s not something most do with very little preparation in the middle of the woods with a notably dangerous, strange werewolf at their side.

Unfortunately, there’s no mirror to my mother’s death here, and with all the spirit energy fueling the air, it doesn’t take much effort to see that very clearly.

When my eyelids blink, I find Emit staring down at me with a furrowed brow as he runs his hand over his beard, dusting the snow away.

“You didn’t just do what I think you did without any ritual whatsoever, did you?” he asks me quietly.

“I’m a Portocale. We’re a little more gifted in some areas than other gypsies,” I say dismissively as I stand.

“I’m aware of what the Portocale gypsies are skilled in and that’s not one of the areas,” he says with a hint of suspicion in his tone. “What just happened? How did you do that by simply closing your eyes?”

“Tell me all your secrets, and I promise I’ll tell you all mine,” I say with a straight face.

Chapter 16

EMIT

She cocks a challenging eyebrow at me as I play off my uneasiness with a smirk. “Touché.”

“Can you tell me what happened? You knew for a fact she didn’t die here, and then you start spewing about a code for handling gypsy deaths, and—”

“When a Portocale gypsy dies, the Portocale council handles the case,” I interrupt, wondering why in the hell Marta wouldn’t have told her daughter that very important fact about her heritage.

Her mother’s death prompted our curse…

Clearly she has the blessed blood…

This girl is such an unorthodox enigma at this point.

“What are you talking about?” she asks like she’s so confused that she’s simply asking on autopilot.

“When you faked your death—”

“How is the fact I faked my death common knowledge?” she asks incredulously.

“—your mother would have had to have approval from them to do it. Faux deaths is a common practice among Portocale gypsies who carry stronger blood. Which clearly you do,” I tell her, watching her face and the true oblivion in her eyes.

“They would have come to speak to you directly. They become very involved when a Portocale fakes their death, because they try to keep track of anyone and everyone with saturated Portocale blood. Changing your name is one thing, but after executing that path, you’re usually not allowed to visit any of the fault lines.”

“Fault lines?” she asks, which is one I shouldn’t be surprised by.

I guess Vance has only started telling her the basics, even though this is pretty basic shit too.

“Towns like Shadow Hills, because they’re filled with creatures who can smell your sweet blood,” I explain.

The snow continues falling as Anna runs by us screaming about bees sawing down trees and coming after her.

“My mother knew all this?” Violet asks softly, eyes on me like she’s trying to wrap her mind around the sheer volume of secrets she’s been left out of.

“Of course. She was the first Portocale to ever live in any fault line town, and certainly the first to ever do business with us,” I say as she starts to shiver.

Her eyes stay on me expectantly as the breaths puff out between her slightly bluish lips.

“You’ve sat with two monsters today. Are you up for a third?”

“I sat with a monster and a monster slayer,” she corrects, before she blows out a heavy breath.

“Trust me when I say Vance is more monster than human.”

“That’s it. I want them all,” Anna, the lingerie ghost, chimes in, waving her hand in my general direction. “I’ll climb atop his mountain peak first.”

“Vance was perving on me through my bedroom window, apparently,” Violet grumbles as she looks down, and I…keep my mouth shut about my part in the same crime, even as my lips twitch.

“You dirty homewrecker, I already called dibs and now you’re stripping for them on your flag pole?” Anna asks her on an indignant gasp.

I only know that damn ghost’s name because she kept shouting it in my ear when I was trying to fall asleep, since she hoped it would subconsciously stick with me as the name I would ‘forever scream out during sex.’

Bloody relentless dead people sometimes…

Ian’s scent catches my attention, though it’s distant. I can tell he’s on his way to us, and I’d rather not have a discussion about a Portocale while one is with me.

“You want to climb me or get tossed over my shoulder?” I ask her, drawing her attention back up to me. “We need out of here before the temperature starts to plummet real damn fast.”

“Tell me what you meant about a Portocale being safe with the three of you, two of which are sick perverts.”

She is really bent about the window-watching. I’m not sure why I find that…cute.

“Because if all the Portocale gypsies die, we lose our chance at breaking the painful curse,” I tell her, leaving out the part where we suffer in agony with every Portocale death.

I think it’s best if we ease her into the truth, since she’s getting bent about the little things.

She just blinks at me.

“Let me guess, it’s not as easy as a simple direct answer as to why that’s a thing,” she states dryly.

You can tell she’s been asking questions and not getting many answers.

“Are you sure you want to know the dark secrets of monsters, Violet Portocale?” I ask her more seriously.

“I do,” she says as she glances around. “But maybe some other time in some other place.”

“Are you climbing or riding over my shoulder?” I ask her as the snowfall picks up.

She looks too tired to argue about it this time, and without too much hesitation, she gets on her tiptoes, putting her hands on my shoulders without any warning.

Trying not to think too much about the fact a Portocale is willingly touching me, I lift her from the ground, suppressing my own groan when she immediately buries her face in my neck and wraps her legs around my waist.

Her warm breath teases my skin, but I focus on putting my hands in safe places, so as not to make this situation worse than it needs to be.

“You’re far too trusting,” I murmur as she finishes tightly winding herself around me.

“I’m clinging to a werewolf alpha the day after werewolves attacked me. All while adjusting to the fact werewolves are real…I’d say that’s an understatement,” she says against my neck, her lips innocently brushing the skin there.

I never let anyone so close to my throat. Maybe I’m the one who is far too trusting of the mysterious Portocale who has us all obsessed to an unhealthy level.

“I really do hate you, and your cobwebbed vagina,” the pest says, reminding me there’s a ghost still stalking our every move.

Moving quickly through the snow, I continue to ignore the damn pest, even as she drops to her knees right in front of my path.

“He’s got another boner! I think it’s bigger than last time. Ooo la la,” she adds.

Violet shakes her head against me as I pass through the ghost like I can’t see her at all.

“I just gave him a phantom blowjob. If I lick it first, that makes it mine!” she shouts from somewhere behind us.

I speed the hell up, and Violet’s arms tighten around my neck in response.

“Do you know who killed my mother?” she asks quietly.

“Not definitively. It’s speculated it’s the same ones who try to kill all the Portocale gypsies. Followers of the Forsaken.”