Gypsy Rising

She stands so abruptly that her chair flips over.

When a knife appears in her right hand from nowhere, Emit pops out of the room he was in, grinding his teeth as his muscles bunch.

Seriously, if they break out into combat, I’m going to finally lose my cool.

“It’s actually not at all what you’re thinking. I can assure you,” Emit says very tightly. “And I’m not discussing it farther than that.”

“I’ll be damned if my daughter joins your omega har—”

“I stole them from him by accident, and I feel bad enough about it. Can you not make it a deal right now?” I ask in interruption to my very embarrassing mother.

“You stole them from him?” she asks like she’s confused. “I thought you were with—”

“Do you remember that mother in the park who flung sacks of dog shit at a group of kids after one kid looked at her daughter wrong?” I ask her very seriously.

“Of course I do. That woman was batshit crazy. Why are you—”

“Because you’re more embarrassing than her right now. If you could stop, that’d be great,” I say over my shoulder, as I kneel in front of my lesser purchased items that are all in one box.

“They’ve been under for a while,” Leiza says quietly to me, as Mom makes a frustrated noise at my back. “They’ll need a lot of everything, and it almost feels like you were making them supplies that had a comforting scent…like the good omega you are.”

So…they know. About me. It’s apparently all out in the open now. Great. In a game of life and death, everyone wants to know when a new player is on the floor. It only makes sense the hardcore survivalists know what’s going on as it’s going on.

At least they seem to be confirming my suspicions that I’m omega.

“Not all of them will need comforting,” Damien says from right across from me, appearing abruptly, as he lifts a bottle of the shampoo. “And not all will appreciate the scent of this apple. The mummified Neoprys you didn’t get the chance to see are the ones who won’t thank you or even appreciate what you risked for them, Violet.”

He slowly lowers the bottle back down.

“They’ll spit in your face and kick you for being thoughtful. They’ll call you pathetic and punish you for being kind. The cold doesn’t soothe them; the fire does,” he goes on more seriously, his eyes flicking to my mother. “Fire and ice in one family has left them subject to the worst House to be a member of, unless you’re of the skin-walker variety. You’ll stay in the Simpleton ward when visiting. And I advise against your mother’s ploy to use you as a treaty token for her to make new allegiances with Nadine.”

I exhale harshly, as Mom goes rigid, eyes narrowing on Damien.

“It won’t work, deviant,” Mom says calmly, glaring at him. “You won’t tear down my daughter’s trust in me just because you toss in a few well-placed warnings about things I’ve already told her would come. War is on the horizon. We all feel it. I’ll be looking after mine. You worry about yourself, and only yourself, as you always do.”

Leiza bristles at my side, and my eyes flick over the omegas they’ve forgotten are even here, as Lemon quietly hands me a full inventory list.

This is the part where I keep my head down and let the alphas rev the engines on their pissing contest. Lemon’s clearly trying to guide me into my role or whatever.

My eyes scan the sheet, even as my nervousness ratchets up.

I really don’t want Mom and Damien breaking out into combat the way the guys do.

“I’m worried, since you’ve left out quite a great deal of family history, Marta. About why Nadine hates you enough to have backed Idun, despite the monstrous acts performed on her favorite children,” Damien carries on.

Emit scrubs a hand over his face, darting a worried glance to me, as I turn around.

Mom’s jaw trembles, and I glare over at Damien.

“I got the gist,” I tell him very seriously as he opens his mouth to say something really cruel, not having an ounce of compassion for the woman, who has apparently made his life pure hell in a different way than Idun.

“Mom told me I had a brother who died. She told me he was cruel to be so young, and that he’d gotten that way because of her dismissive eye. I’ve heard the guilty tale more times than I can count, as she took far more blame than she deserved,” I go on, causing Mom to glare at me like I’ve committed some sin, mostly because she seems mortified that I’m sharing this so freely.

But Damien’s eyes lose the menace immediately, as some realization sweeps over him.

Marta Portocale may be his enemy, but she’s been the mother who has protected and loved me for my entire life.

None of the top-tier alphas are very perfect, and they’ve all been cruel at some point, including him.

I see a flicker of regret, but it’s gone before I can be certain, as he looks over at a vacant spot on the wall.

“Given the story, and how severely the Portocale Council hated all of you before this even escalated, I’ve stitched things together. It’s the only way to get answers, since no one here wants to come out and say the whole truth all at once. It’s given in small, confusing, somewhat convoluted fragments, leaving me to search through the wreckage of information for the important pieces.”