We end up in a very small, somewhat adorable type of kitchen with retro appliances. She shuts the door behind me, and then she moves through the unique space that’s decorated with large pastel flowers here and there.
“This is Arion’s kitchen?” I ask incredulously.
“Of course not. He likes all things shiny and modern. He has an entire room full of computers, and I’ve had to turn a technical support guy just to have one on hand to teach him everything about it.”
I pause halfway to lowering myself to a chair and just sort of gape at her, while she primly carries on, collecting a blue teapot from the flowery cabinet.
She stumbles to a halt, blinks, and then gives me a dry look when she sees my stupefied horror.
“Like the tech guy didn’t jump at the chance to live for all eternity, so long as he avoids the pointy end of sharp, wooden objects. He also makes triple what he was making in his cubicle. And now he’s a vampire. Vampires are sort of still all the rage,” she goes on. “Makes useful recruiting so much simpler than it once was.”
I’m not really sure what to say to that, but I finally finish sitting down in a flowery painted chair.
“This is my kitchen,” she goes on, gesturing around. “I prefer to have my own space in all our houses.”
“All your houses? Like you and Arion…when you’re not with Isiah?”
She snorts derisively, carrying on with the task of preparing tea. “Hardly. Isiah is mine, but I share him with Arion’s sister, Emily, when she’s in the mood for him. She’s a little…strange. He loves her, though. And I love him.”
It sounds so sad, but she just sort of states it like it’s the perfect setup—loving a man in place of someone he loves but only gets on occasion.
“I threaten his position too much, and even though Emily is an alpha, she has no desire to rule her own nest. She just sort of travels and fucks and gets wasted, and then she loves him for a while, before she returns to her cycle once she realizes he’s simply not enough.”
“I take it you want your own nest?” I guess, trying to do Shera-version of girl talk, since I think that’s what this is.
“No. I want to stay here and beta rule Arion’s nest, and Isiah wants to take it away from me because he wants me and him and Emily to live his version of happily-ever-after with a nest the size of this one…with Emily at the helm. It’s all rather elaborate, and it’s simply too tiresome to consider.”
It’s almost laughable how primly she discusses this as she puts her apron on the second the pot starts to whistle.
I really need more caffeine than I’ve had. My mind can’t handle this madness right now.
“I like running this nest. It’s harder for a female vampire beta to establish dominance. I rarely have to fight to prove my worth anymore, and Arion shows me favoritism because he essentially raised me since my turning.”
She moves the pot to the stand on the center of the table. Next she goes back to collect the tray she’s been preparing on the side, her hostess mannerisms making this conversation completely weirder than it already is.
I feel like we’re in a sixties version of a vampire family drama sitcom right now.
“Sure, I had a small crush on Arion in the beginning,” she says with a dismissive wave of her hand, as she takes a seat and pours the hot water over the tea bags.
“It was sort of hero-worship, since he raided a nest of the unregistered vampires, who’d turned me and used me for the first year of my new life,” she adds matter-of-factly.
A knot forms in my stomach as she continues.
“Arion took five of us out of there, registered us, and killed all the ones who’d harmed us. He gave me a position in his House as a kitchen maid before he learned I was a vampire gypsy freak with a special gift. It’s a small gypsy family that never had much clout like the top six,” she goes on. “He trained me personally then, took me under his wing, and now I’m everyone’s favorite vampire beta. Or at least I was.”
She pushes my tea toward me, and I take it, as she sits back.
“Isiah is his favorite because of how good he treats his sister when she comes back from one of her decade-long—or century long—vacations. I’m his second favorite. If Emily is my alpha, I’ll be her second favorite as well, but I’ll lose Isiah eventually if she decides to go through with starting her own nest. Each time she talks about it, the more serious it sounds like she’s considering it.”
“So you’d get cut out?” I ask quietly.
“Even if Emily didn’t want me gone, Isiah would lose use for me. I’m okay with feeling like the runner up, because it’s so much better than being stepped on at the bottom. However…I’m not leaving Arion because I’ll then be his favorite if Isiah is gone, and I won’t be stuck somewhere I won’t belong.”
She sugars and milks her tea, before sliding the tray toward me.
“But you’re not here to talk about my woman troubles. You’re here to discuss your own,” she says as she finishes stirring her tea and levels me with a look. “I take it your new wolf girls told you about Idun?”
I bristle.
“Idun is stiff competition—no dead or undead pun intended,” she adds with an amused grin. “Makes all my trouble seem mild in comparison.”
I think she’s gloating.
“Is there any possible way Arion is under the impression that I am her?” I ask, causing her drink to pause at her lips, as her eyebrows crawl up her forehead in clear surprise.
She lowers her glass, clearing her throat, and then she gives me a tight smile.
I think her cup clanks against the glass plate when it slips, but she recovers too quickly for me to be sure.
“Why would you ask that?” she asks a little cautiously.
“Because Damien said something to that effect. Due to the sex and all,” I go on, keeping things believable but still vague.
“Arion said Damien’s curse must have waned. It is a really old curse set by just one woman. She gave up more than she bargained for to put that nasty hex on him.”
“You don’t ever seem to forget Damien,” I note.
She bats a hand. “I make it a point to remember him. He’s still an alpha. Usually the most dangerous are the ones you think nothing of.”
I bristle again, though it’s clear she has no idea what’s going on with me, despite her usual all-knowing ways.
“I want to remove the Portocale curse from them. That’s actually the reason I stopped in,” I tell her, causing her eyebrows to hit her hairline this time.
She stands abruptly and goes to the door. She opens it and looks around, before she finally shuts it again.
She turns on this buzzing thing next to the door, and moves to the window and turns on another. It’s mildly annoying, but I watch as she takes her seat again, sipping her tea as she studies me.
“For obvious reasons, that’s not something discussed without care. Portocale gypsies are not even thought about, heard of, or even known about by the general public. Only those closest to the alphas know of their value. Maybe your wolf friends should have informed you of how sensitive some matters are when they moved you in with their alpha.”
“I’m not moved in. Leiza packed me a bag, and I’m staying during Emit’s cycle.”
She exhales an annoyed breath, while putting her cup down. “Arion’s is far worse. He usually goes last, unless a Portocale dies at midnight. Then he’s first.”
“Why?” I ask her as I lean forward.
She gives me a pitying smile. “Because he was the most brutal in the second sacrifice. He drank Portocale blood straight from the hearts of the dead, and savagely tore through the village with no mercy. That’s when he was just a human man,” she states like it’s common knowledge, but then her words die off when she sees my horrified expression.
“Oh shit. You don’t even know what’s going on right now. Still? Do you?” she asks as she jumps to her feet, her chair flipping with the abruptness of the action. “Don’t say anything about this. I assumed you knew why there was a curse if you wanted to remove it.”
She dumps her tea into the sink, and she quickly leaves the room like she doesn’t want to risk saying anything else.
I sit back, calmly sipping my tea, processing quietly in a kitchen that really doesn’t scream vampire.
This…isn’t what I expected to come from this meeting.
Pulling out my phone, I gauge the distance between Shadow Hills and my mother’s storage unit.
I can be there in under two hours.
I need to see her story quilt, even though I swore I’d never look.
Chapter 4
VIOLET
Emit hasn’t changed much since yesterday, but he at least feels slightly cooler to the touch.
The lashes on his body won’t heal no matter how much healing potion I use, because this is just a physical manifestation of the mental torment he’s suffering through.
The gaping wounds just bleed, as he whines or groans or screams, depending on what sort of agony he’s facing in his mind at any given time.
After sponging away the fresh blood, I go wash my hands and resume trying to piece together what story my mother was telling with this really huge, intricate, complicated weave of patches and patterns.
The center patch is a bright orange one, as though her story began on a brighter note. But all the stitching past it just gets harsher, and all the patterns grow darker, making that one orange patch seem out of place on the rest of the quilt.
But then toward the edges, there are new orange squares that have been sewn into the darker pieces, telling a more complex story before the outer ring turns blue. It’s still unfinished. Then again, most life-story quilts are left unfinished.
“Your mother’s quilt?” one of the triplets ask me, though I can never tell which one I’m talking to.
I barely react, getting sick of how abruptly they’ll pop in and be super creepy.
Folding the quilt, I glance over and glare at the three of them, still on my knees, while they just stare down at me.
“I told you I hate it when you pop in like that.”
“Pardon us. Should we knock?” the one in front of me asks in a tired tone.
“I have salt in my bra,” I warn her.
“And in your vagina, according to Anna. You remember her, right? Your friend who was likely killed by your mother when she decided to try to keep ghosts away from you.”
“Hypothetically,” I point out, lifting the quilt and going to the trunk. “It’s just a theory. Stop making it an accusation.”
“It’s starting to affect us. We can’t do much more investigating, and our freshly dead boy has gone missing,” the ghost next to me says.
I open the trunk in the corner of Emit’s room and start tucking the quilt away.
“Anna stayed with me knowing it was killing her. If anything, I’m angry at her for not telling me this,” I go on.