“No, you’re misdirecting your anger because you’re more loyal to your mother,” one states like she can know me better than I do.
“We get it. We loved our mummy too,” one triplet says, and then her eyes turn cold. “Until she smothered us all in our sleep to keep from having to spend so much money feeding us, after our father ran off with the town whore.”
I blink a few times, hoping that’s a lie.
“I can’t deal with this right now. Too much other shit is going on,” I tell them as I tuck the quilt in the corner.
I pause when I see a stack of paintings behind the trunk. There are torn pages that have cracked and withered over time. I’m careful to lift one as they continue talking.
“Anna let us watch her and made us promise to find out what had been done to you, because she was worried you’d lose this—”
“I know. But sometimes things are more complicated than what can be simplified. Stay away if you’re scared of it, because I don’t know how to make it stop,” I say distractedly.
“She’s a bit of an ass now that she’s had sex. Anna was wrong,” one says before they all disappear.
“I’m…sorry,” I say to the vacant air, my shoulders dropping, as my gaze returns to the aged paper in my hand.
The painting is of course a wolf, but it’s a beautiful light gray one that has rings of white mixed into the fur.
A raspy voice startles me from behind. “I raised that pup.”
I jerk my head around, seeing Emit grimace, as he makes a pained sound and tries to sit up.
Gently, I put the cracked painting down and hurry to his side. He glances down at all the many crisscrossed lashings he’s received, his skin so marred that I don’t know how it’ll ever heal.
He gives it an unconcerned look, and lifts the glass of water from the table next to him that an omega fills fresh every hour.
“Is it over?” I ask hopefully.
“For now. I get one of the lesser sentences, fortunately,” he tells me as he sips the water, wincing like it burns to drink.
“I’d make it stop if someone would just tell me the quickest way to do it,” I say as I draw my legs up.
His eyes land on mine and hold for a second, like he’s searching for the truth in those words. He nods as he looks away.
“It’s not a simple or easy task to peel back a curse that has been heavily enforced for so long, growing stronger instead of weaker. It’s not your place to remove it, much as I wish you could.”
“Then what was the point of all your stalking?”
He glances around like he’s searching for something. “Have you tended to me?” he asks like he’s confused.
“The omegas have done most of the work,” I tell him quickly, leaving out the small invasion of privacy I’ve had to do a few times…since they refused.
His lips twitch like he can see inside my head, his lap only covered by a sheet.
“I was going to tell you a story,” he says as he sits up a little more, still wincing.
“I don’t think I want to hear it at this point. Just take the mercy I’m trying to offer you, and tell me how to make it happen.”
“They’ll never hear you if you won’t hear their reasoning, Violet,” he says on a weary sigh. “I’d rather you hear it from one of us before you decide if you still find us worth it.”
I slowly stand and go to lock the door, put pillows against the crack at the bottom, and turn my music on, syncing to his speakers.
He watches me as I move back toward the bed, and I take a seat as my eyes find his.
Chapter 5
EMIT
“You saw what I did. I’m a monster, Emit. I have no idea what I am, but you kept my secret. Let me figure out a way to pay this debt so you’ll continue to keep my secret.”
I close my eyes and exhale harshly. The guilt my shoulders are lined with only grows heavier and more daunting with the scent of her own misplaced guilt permeating the air.
“That’s not the only reason I want to end the curse,” she hurries to say. “Obviously watching you suffer for so many days is the main reason.”
Opening my eyes again, my gaze finds her worried one. “Wolves were burying you alive. Literally. After slitting your throat and leaving you for dead. They were cruel, unapologetic, and felt you deserving of such treatment just for being somewhat close to me. These same wolves killed an omega also under my protection. I didn’t claim your massacre to save you, although it did serve as some incentive,” I tell her, watching as she tucks her dark hair behind her ear.
“I needed to claim it to put some order back into the ranks,” I continue, glancing at the corner where she tucked my painting back up.
“The point is, I know how easy it is to lose control—”
“Violet, were you born this way?” I interrupt, glancing over and lifting my hand to her cheek.
She grabs my hand when I’m too exhausted to hold it up, and she keeps it on her cheek for me, as I move my thumb over her soft, smooth skin.
“Yes. Do you know what I am?” she asks me.
I half hesitate, not wanting to lie, but decide filling her in on one dark blemish at a time is the way to go.
“No.”
The way her eyes sadden and the hope falls away is pretty fucking gut-wrenching. I’m still not entirely sure I’m correct, so it’s better not to confuse her just yet.
My hand falls away when she gently lets go, and she sighs as she lies down next to me, keeping distance between us. The sheets feel fairly fresh and the water is nice and cold, so I assume that means we have a short while before the omegas return.
“Idun was Valorie when I met her,” I tell her, causing her head to tilt. “She was what I pictured the perfect woman to look like. Blonde. Leggy. Secretly wild while appearing innocent and sweet,” I say while looking away. “In those days, it was very rare to find a woman who looked like her, and I was young enough to be so shallow.”
“But it wasn’t really her,” she says like she knows this much.
“No. In real life, she’s dark-haired, like you. Like all the Neopry gypsies.”
She sits up, getting restless, her eyes on me like she wants to know everything and nothing at all.
“It was the best time of our lives. We’d reached an age where we were tired of fucking off, and we were ready to settle down,” I go on, smiling lightly as a few good memories drift through my mind like a bad habit.
“The four of us had been best friends for as long as I could remember. Our families had shared a traveling market that turned into a traveling community. The more it grew, the more we branched off, but the four of us stuck together as much as we could. We even had meeting spots when we had to split up to avoid every gypsy’s worst fear during that time.”
“You were mortal then?” she asks like she’s keeping up with the timeline.
“And worried about death every single day of our lives, as we lived a life of avoiding soldiers, religious fanatics, violent thieves, and worse. People often wonder what makes monsters. The answer is other people,” I go on, looking off again.
“I heard there was an altar, and Damien sacrificed his fame.”
I nod absently.
“I sacrificed my pup, and my family sacrificed the rest of our pack,” I say as stoically as I can. “That strong, beautiful wolf watched me with trusting eyes as I took his life.”
I clear my throat, getting ahead of myself.
“Dark times were all around us by that point. We’d built our own community, and had started defending it by combining the six strongest gypsy families with a true measure of magic.”
“Six gypsy families all stood nigh,” she says, quoting that damn song.
“Five gypsy families for one sacrifice,” I say, quoting the next line. “That comes later, Violet.”
She nods, no longer hanging on the edge of her seat, as realization washes in. I see it in the way her shoulders fall. It’s not hard to piece together by this point.
“We were just men back then. Men scared of death, of being hanged for being gypsies. With their fairer complexion and lighter hair, the Van Helsings and the Morpheous families could pass as less offensive heritages, and we let them lead the wagons and hide the rest of us inside.”
I gesture to my tanner skin that makes hers seem so pale by comparison.
“I was a man born from a gypsy freak family, able to mentally connect with wolves and speak to them. With my height, darker skin tone, and more feral attributes, I was an immediate target for the larger crowds of soldiers. But I was everyone’s favorite when it was just a few and I stepped out of the wagon with my wolf loyally awaiting my order at my side. There was never a need to fight during those times. Those few would certainly tuck tail and run.”
My smile tugs up on one side with remembered pride.
“The fighting took a lot out of us. We fought for survival, or we rotted in prison if we somehow bypassed the hangman’s noose. We just wanted a home. Life had made us hard, before it left us far too vulnerable and empty. Idun came into all our lives as our version of the perfect woman, although we’d never fancied her in the past. She wanted us, and she made the effort to ensure she ensnared us as effectively as we had her.”
Running a hand over my beard, my mind travels back down the darker memories.
“There’s never been a time more humbling in my life than the day she revealed the truth with a daring little smirk on her face like she was proud of herself. She expected us to bow down to her, and when we didn’t, she resented us for it. But hell, we all caved eventually. There was no other who could compare to what she’d shown us, given us, let us feel…”
My words trail off, and I clear my throat again.
“Living our lives as we had…she was a taste of what it could be like, if we could just build a home and stop living our days in survival mode. If we could build our own army and defend our own lands…we could become our own nation. A nation of gypsies. It was that sort of idealism that always accompanied Idun—she offered the world and hid the price, until you’d paid it without even a thought. Arion still called her Victoria, and she still turned into the woman of his dreams for him…for a while. He was the one who possibly lost the most, in the grand scheme of things, to achieve the ultimate goal.”
“Immortality,” she says quietly, and I give her a nod.
Fabric scrapes the floor, and my eyes dart over to see the pillows sliding, as Lemon pushes through the door, interrupting us. The relief on her face is evident as she bows at the door.
“I’ll let the others know you’re okay, Alpha. Do you need anything?”
“The water is good for now,” I tell her dismissively as Violet stands.
“Stay. Sit with him. I know you’ve been worried,” she tells Lemon, causing my eyebrows to hit painful heights.