Gypsy Moon

She’s never going to speak to me again, and I’m going to rip that vampire to shreds.

“Violet, could we speak privately?” I ask, but before she can answer, Arion is through the door with her, and they’re both gone when I step over the threshold.

“Someone probably should have been monitoring this situation before he did something this brazen,” Emit growls.

I start to move around the side of the house, toward the cells underneath the home, when I hear Violet’s screech upstairs.

CHAPTER 9

ARION

Violet makes a sound of surprise in her throat when she sees her father sitting on the other side of the glass, playing a card game with Shera.

She glares at me in the next instant.

“Open it. Now,” she bites out.

I shrug a shoulder and press the button next to the door that swings open. Violet rushes inside, and I casually take my time, as the other three manage to find us.

“Dad,” Violet says quietly, almost with…is that guilt?

He turns abruptly, and his eyes widen when they land on her. A frown lines his thin lips. “What’re you doing here?” he asks as he balks.

“What am I doing here?” Violet asks on a humorless laugh before glaring at Shera. “This couldn’t have been a last-day-alive confession?!” she shouts at Shera.

Shera primly lays down a pair of cards, not looking up.

“Didn’t know about this until after my return,” Shera answers with a flippancy Violet seems to overlook.

“You imprisoned my father?” Violet shouts at me, turning on me very quickly and advancing with her bollocks-crushing knee looking raring to go.

“Violet, there’s—”

“Stop talking,” she says to Damien, holding up her hand in front of him, as she continues to glare into my eyes. “I’m waiting on him to explain why my father is imprisoned in his home.”

“Hopefully, he’s not going to be for much longer. He’s maddening, if I’m honest,” I tell her very seriously. “But if I release him into your custody, there will be conditions.”

Her look sort of changes, almost like she’s now confused.

“Why is he imprisoned?”

“Because he’s your father and I couldn’t kill him after he put a stake through my heart,” I tell her while pointing at the madman. “Clearly his conditions could be worse if he were anyone else.”

Tom winces like he doesn’t want her knowing that bit about what he did. He’s yet to understand the gravity of his dire situation, and I rather hate my hands being so effectively restrained.

This stupid old fuck…I swear…

She whirls around, staring in horror at her father, as her hand almost unconsciously moves to be just over my heart, barely touching my thin shirt.

I step into the cool warmth of her touch, deciding this is going even better than planned, when she continues to gawk at her father while touching me.

“You stabbed a stake through his heart?” she hisses in shock, horror, and disbelief.

Tom blinks a few times, opening and closing his mouth, and then glares at all four of us, lingering on Vance and Damien, who he doesn’t really know. His glare returns to me.

“I told you she can’t know about all this,” Tom bites out.

“I can’t know about all this? I’m the monster. Not you,” Violet tells him.

I notice Shera doesn’t even blink. She’s a good beta to pretend like she’s not hanging on every word.

Tom scrubs a hand over his head that he’s shaking, as he puffs out a breath.

Violet turns her head toward Vance, even as her hand remains resting over my heart. I keep my hands to myself, following Shera’s very helpfully bold plan.

“Did you know my dad was here while—”

“No, he didn’t,” Damien cuts in dismissively, lying to her for reasons unbeknownst to me. “Tom showed up just before you went missing, and despite appearances, we don’t always communicate so well. Vance got left out.”

She looks relieved as she turns around, and Vance shoots Damien the same confused look as I do. Emit takes a seat in the corner, eyes on me as if he wants to turn wolf and have it out like the good ol’ days.

Oh, now that would be fun. Maybe it’d give Tom a helpful fright as well.

“It’s not like he’s in a dank cell with rabid vampires, Violet. Arion has been quite merciful, under the circumstances,” Shera goes on, putting the cards down like she’s finished pretending she has to stare at them for longer. “He’s been extremely hospitable and should be rewarded,” she adds like she’s really selling me, while giving Violet a pointed look.

Violet’s hand curls on my chest, and she exhales harshly.

“Dad, you’re supposed to be at home right now,” Violet says in a way that suggests she’s certainly angrier at her father than me.

Shera may get yet another raise for this.

Emit’s gaze flicks between Shera and I, like he’s figuring out whose idea this really was, and he rolls his eyes at me before narrowing them. I give him a fuck-you-giant-savage look.

Tom looks down at his cards, idly placing a pair on the table. “Got sidetracked,” is all he says in response.

Shera told me not to touch, but Violet wearing Vance’s shirt instead of mine, while in my house, is really annoying. I wonder if she’d change.

Shera gives me a look like she’s telling me to keep playing the game by the rules she gave me.

Sighing inwardly, my hand curls into a fist at the last moment, and I don’t touch her like I want to.

“Why are you just wearing a shirt?” Tom asks her.

Vance clears his throat a few times, and Violet levels her father with a look. “We’re not discussing me right now.”

Tom mutters something about her being too worked up, and Violet takes a calming breath.

She’s barely raising her voice, so I don’t know how she’s too worked up. I’d love to see Violet really pissed off—at anyone other than me, of course.

Her hand uncurls over my chest again, flattening against my heart.

“Why in the hell did you think you’d be able to kill an alpha vampire? How do you even know who or what he is?” Violet goes on.

Her father’s eyes cut around the room, drifting over Vance, Emit, Damien, me, and then at last settle on Violet again.

“They’re all four Alphas, aren’t they?” Tom asks. “As in the Head Alphas.”

“You really do know what’s going on in this town, and never once did you bother to actually bring it up to me,” Violet says a little sadly as she steps even closer to me.

Emit’s eyes narrow on me, as a slow grin spreads over my face, because Violet leans against me like she’s forgotten it’s me she’s touching. At Shera’s guiding little nod, I finally wrap my arm around her waist—not grabbing ass or anything I’ve been instructed not to do.

It’s hard to tell a newly impatient man to be patient, but I do like the early spoils of my labor.

The taste of her sweet blood still lingers on my tongue like a drug, something that should not be possible. All Portocale gypsies taste like rotten fruit on a dying day. Or at least they should.

They sure as hell shouldn’t taste as strong, virile, and intoxicating as Violet.

“Can you not stand so close to him?” Tom asks, trying to cock-block me like a natural prat.

She leaves my arm around her waist, even as I use it to pull her closer and closer—with great subtlety, of course. I even smirk at her father, as he glares at me.

“Can you guys give us a second?” she asks, slowly trying to pull away from me at last.

I don’t let go. I’m not grabbing ass, so there’s no reason to back away. Shera is giving her a look instead of me, and I grin when Violet stops trying to pull away.

Shera definitely gets a raise. She can build herself a mini den or something to match her mini kitchen.

“There’s more we should tell you, Violet,” Damien says very carefully, navigating much trickier water. “Starting with how Tom here became a captive, aside from trying to kill a vampire who is really fucking hard to kill.”

I smirk, thinking back to good ol’ Tom honestly believing he could kill me.

“No, there’s not,” Tom says with a firm shake of his head. “Nothing more to tell.”

“Is someone else captive besides the Neopry monsters you’ve put underground and my father?” Violet asks, casting a pointed look up at me like I’m the only one who has ever wronged her family.

Just when I was making progress…

“No other captives, love,” I tell her, slowly letting my hand slide down her back, until she gives me a look that immediately stops the descent.

My lips twitch, and I leave my hand in the safe zone—as Shera called it.

“There’s nothing else to tell,” Tom says again, shaking his head harder. “Nothing,” he says more insistently, almost desperately.

“She’s already getting them raised, Tom,” I say with a cruel smile. “No need in unnecessary secrets.”

Violet looks between us, confused, as Tom shakes his head more and more. “Don’t do this. Marta said not to tell her.”

“Tell me what?” she asks, her eyes darting to Vance.

Vance opens his mouth to speak, but Damien cuts in. “Again, he didn’t know,” he says, casually lying, while absently tossing a thumb at Vance.

This time, Emit even casts Damien a dubious look, likely not understanding the reason why he’s covering for Vance. Vance is in, and it’d be really nice if he was just a little bit out again, if you know what I mean.

“What’s going on?” Violet asks, her eyes flicking from Vance to her father.

Tom’s jaw grinds, and he looks away. “You should always do what Marta says. She’s got a plan. She always has a plan.”

“Maybe she had a plan, but she died, Dad. I know you weren’t there when they put her six feet under, but I was,” Violet tells her father with an edge of coldness.

When Tom winces, I smile. I like to see that prat in pain, even if I didn’t cause it.

“That’s what we have to tell you, love,” I say to her, ignoring Tom as Violet’s sweet face angles up, looking at me like she just wants the milk to spill on the table so she can hurry up and start cleaning it.

“It’s rather delicate, given how detached from our sins you’ve been,” Damien adds a little hesitantly, proving he’s been dreading this.

Her eyes stay on mine like she knows I’ll be the one to tell her and cut through the shit.

“Your mother isn’t really dead,” I state bluntly, causing Vance to curse and Damien to groan at my ineloquence, most likely.

Violet’s brow furrows as she looks around.

“If she’s not dead, she’s going to be really pissed at me for burying her,” Violet states like she’s trying to remain calm, swallowing thickly. “I waited the amount of days her will stipulated.”