Stone of Thieves (Robbin' Hearts Series Book 2) (10 page)

“Just one sniff,” Zuhna encourages.

I take a big whiff, hoping it will get her off me. At first I smell mostly her skin, a light musky scent with hints of cinnamon and clover and the earthy smell of horses. But when I inhale another deep breath, the stone trembles at my breast, and that’s when I smell smoke. Grassy smoke, like a nearby meadow is on fire—

Alarmed, I reach my fingers to the scarf over my eyes, but her strong hands stop me.

“Follow,” she insists, as a breeze swells up in the glen. It brings such a strong smell of smoke I start to cough.

“What kind of fool walks toward a fire?” I argue as she gently nudges me forward, her arms still wrapped around me like a vise.

“Are you so sure it’s a fire?” she says.

Sighing, I take another whiff.

She’s right, it smells more like . . . ash. As though there used to be a fire that was recently put out.

“Take a few more steps,
jel’enedra
.”

I can hear her breathing deeply as well, as if catching the scent, and I wonder if she has her eyes closed, too. We step through the grass and she loosens her grip, her hands now firmly on the back of my shoulders. We go over a little hill and down into another glen. I know it’s in the trees because I feel colder, as if we’ve stepped into a shaded, woodsy area. But when I feel the sun on my forehead again, I assume we must have reached a clearing. The stone shivers at my breast—not warm this time, but oddly freezing. It’s such a shock to my skin that I rip the scarf off my face before Zuhna can stop me.

And that’s when I see the blackened patches of earth. In a small meadow that’s so familiar it nearly knocks the wind out of me.

This is the same place where I had my vision of the lovers who were murdered.

And I swear to God, the burned grassy area in front of me looks like two people lying on the ground holding hands, with smoke rising all around them as though they’d fallen here and were incinerated in place. The sight is beyond ghastly, like accidently stumbling into Auschwitz, and my hands rise to my mouth as I scream.

Zuhna hugs me—it’s the first truly compassionate thing I’ve seen her do—and she rips the scarf from my hand and tosses it into the meadow, where it bursts into flames. The sight startles me and I shake all over.

“Shh,” she purrs kindly, rocking me a little. “You did it,
pakvora
. You felt your way through the cracks.” Just as she says that, the stone at my breast warms again.

And the blackened earth is gone—

Even the yellow paisley scarf lies on top of a few wildflowers, completely unscathed.

“Never forget,” she says, “you are nothing without learning to feel. This is where your power lies—what will lead you to your mother. You must feel your way through the cracks of the star . . . through the folds of emotion and time.”

Zuhna begins talking softly in her gypsy tongue. Not to me, but as if there’s already a conversation going on with someone I can’t see. With every word she utters, the stone at my breast grows warmer. I watch her nod, as though she’d retrieved a missing piece of a puzzle.

“You must be a woman to find a woman,” she says to me gravely. “Not a little girl. But it comes with a price.”

I don’t know what the hell she means.

“How do you know my mother is
alive
in Italy somewhere and not dead?” I demand.

Zuhna tilts her head back and laughs, her smile a mix of gapped teeth and gold, with a broad cackle that eerily reminds me of Granny Tinker.

“Gypsy Queens can never truly die,” she says mysteriously. She reaches out her fingers to lift my chin. “Can you handle what you find?”

My fists tighten into balls.

Who the hell is she kidding?

I’ve already survived a childhood in mean-girl boarding schools, an absent dad, robbing banks, and now people who’ve been shooting at me! I think I got this fucking covered.

“I can handle anything,” I hiss back at her.

Zuhna runs her hand over my hair, stroking me like a horse.

“You are strong—so strong, young one.” She cups my cheek. “It is in your soul.”

Then she runs her fingers over my forehead and slowly down my temple to my cheek and jaw, her hand lingering and massaging a little, as if detecting something.

“You have tasted your lover’s blood,” she nods. “It’s written on your face. But when he tastes yours, you will be a woman and he will be a man. And then you will come into your full power . . .” Her voice trails off, as if she’s thinking for a moment. “You can never go back,
pisliskurja
.”

She reaches into her pocket and glances back up at me. “Use your talents wisely,” she warns.

With that, Zuhna holds up the ruby heart.

I choke back surprise—

I never felt her take it! Her gypsy pickpocket skills must be legendary.

I stare into her eyes for either mischief or deceit, but instead what I find are dark pools that appear like an abyss in the middle. Instinctively, I wave my hand in front of her. Nothing registers—no flutter of the lashes or eye movement.

And for the first time, I realize that Zuhna is blind.

“We all have our
segreti
—our secrets,” Zuhna nods. “I only see the sun and moon, things that shine very bright. Like you.” She cups my face in her hands and kisses both cheeks, in that odd way that Old World people do, and drops the stone back into my cleavage. It burns like a fire. “I also feel heat,” she says, turning to walk away.

Just then, the little girl with dreadlocks scampers up to her from behind a tree, as if she’d been spying on us all along. And part of me wonders if she’s for real, or if she’s one of Zuhna’s familiars. But then she grabs Zuhna’s hand and they swing their arms in rhythm with their strides. The little girl holds up another fistful of herbs and smiles proudly.

Zuhna pauses and turns around.

“Time for breakfast,” she says, tousling the little girl’s hair. “We have much work to do.” She lifts her head and stares in my direction, as if she can actually see me.

“And tell your man not to follow me anymore,” she calls out, pulling a silver dagger from inside her boot and flashing it to the sun.

“Or I shall have to kill him.”

Creek drops from a tree right in front of me, scaring me out of my mind.

“Don’t worry, babe. She wouldn’t have a chance at offing me.”

Cocky as hell, his lips curl crookedly, turning his cheek scar into a dagger that rivals Zuhna’s, and he folds his arms. A shaft of light warms his wayward blonde hair, making his blue eyes sparkle.

“She’s blind as a bat, you know, like Lorraine at Turtle Shores. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t see things—”

“Creek!” I gasp. “You were watching this whole time?”

“Of course. You don’t think I’d let you out of my sight, do you?”

I swallow him in a kiss.

A hot, impulsive, grab-your-face kiss. The kind that says
Thank God you’re here, because I don’t think I could last another minute without you
.

“Mmm . . .” he sighs, stroking my back and relishing my rare vulnerability. Beneath my lips, I can feel his stretch into a smile. “Miss me?”

Goose bumps dance across my skin. Not just because I’m liplocked with the handsomest guy I’ve ever known, and he smells as fresh as the open air and grass we slept on last night, but because Zuhna’s right—I’m as ripe as they come. I can feel my desire for him moistening parts of my body I hardly knew existed, filling the cool morning air with heat. But also with relief that I’m not alone with Zuhna anymore.

Creek presses his chest against mine, as if to prove my point. My nipples stretch to meet him, greeting the hardness of his body. But then he wraps his arms around me, sensing how frightened I really was to be away from him in the camp.

“She couldn’t hurt you, Robin,” he whispers into my hair. “Not with me around. That’s why I let you go off with her. I wanted to hear what she’d say.”

“You saw me walk away with her and everything?

“I always keep track of you, remember? That’s how we met—I was your stalker.” His lips reach into a smile. “It was fun.?”

I sock his arm. That arm, the one with
Partners
carved into it.

“Ow!” He yelps, laughing and rubbing his bicep.

“You let me think I was all alone with that crazy gypsy chick?”

“I wanted to see what she would show you.”

All of a sudden, I remember that I still have Zuhna’s suede pouch in my hand—the one she claimed helped guide me to the scorched meadow. Or I should say, formerly scorched meadow that’s now perfectly green. “Did you, um . . . see anything?” I ask Creek.

He falls silent. But I notice his cool blue eyes flicker a little.

“I don’t see what you and Zuhna see,” he admits, thrusting his hands in his pockets.

The irony’s not lost on me, considering Zuhna’s blindness.

“But that doesn’t mean I can’t tell what’s happening to you.”

In that moment, I feel as transparent as glass, as though Creek sees through me more clearly than Zuhna. He glances down at the pouch in my hand and then looks at me strangely, as if something about me has changed.

And God as my witness, I can taste his blood in my mouth again, that blend of iron and copper and soul. I try and swallow to force it away, but it doesn’t work.

Is that the difference? I wonder. Are we linked now more than ever before—because I took a lick of my true love’s blood?

“Creek,” I sputter, “do you think I really am the next . . .”

I can’t get the words “Gypsy Queen” out of my mouth. It’s too damn weird.

Creek presses his palms over my temples, staring into my eyes.

And I realize something about him has changed, too.

He’s a man, now—eighteen—all grown up.

And the daylight has become stark, revealing every scar and burn mark on his skin from his horrendous childhood, along with the tattoo of a snake winding down his forearm that he got to cover it all up. What used to look devil-may-care about him to me now seems as hard as a soldier who was simply hiding beneath his happy-go-lucky front. We’re alike, he and I. We had to grow up fast in our own ways. But what does the future hold for us now?

“Robin,” he whispers, tracing his finger slowly around my head like an invisible tiara. He runs his hand gently down my neck to the stone heart that’s buried between my breasts, where he lets his fingers linger. “You were always a queen in my book.”

I blush, feeling the heat suffuse from the stone through my breasts and into my entire being. Arching my back toward him, I wish I could have him here—right now—for breakfast. But for this moment, I let his warm hand pulse inside my bra, seeking one breast and then the other, tenderly pressing my nipples. White sparks overtake my vision as the sensation makes me soar . . .

I swipe another kiss. “Happy birthday, baby,” I breathe, feeling the blood swell in my chest.

A shrill cry cuts through the air like a wild bird, giving me a start. I hear the sound of violins rise, low and mournful at first, then swirling in elegant notes to a brighter tune.

Creek smiles. He leans in and draws a slow breath, as if to inhale my essence for a second, and gently removes his fingers from my skin. He kisses my breastbone with soft lips before readjusting my shirt so no one can spy the stone heart.

“C’mon,” he sighs, “I think they have plans for us.”

“Plans?” I reply as he grabs my hand. “What plans?”

Creek smirks. “You’ll see. We’re not as far from Turtle Shores as you might think.”

We walk toward the camp, where it’s obvious that everyone is up now, folding blankets, feeding horses, and chasing chickens and children. But what I didn’t expect are the whimsical decorations that run from wagon to wagon that seem to match the light and airy violins. Thin wires coil around little ceramic pots holding lit candles, which hang between the wagons and trees, sparkling around the camp like stars. The sight is so lovely it makes me gasp.

“Do they always celebrate daybreak like this?” I ask Creek, just now noticing the colorful scarves that dangle from tree branches, waving in the breeze like wings.

Creek shrugs. “No. I think they consider this a kind of holiday.”

When he gives me a wink, it takes a second for it to sink in.

“Because it’s your birthday?” I ask, floored. “How would they know?”

Creek stares at Zuhna’s pouch in my hand again, lifting his gaze to the tree limbs to spy the last thin outline of the round moon in the sky. He reaches down and rips up a handful of weeds with a pretty wildflower in the center and holds it out to me.

“Weren’t you listening to Zuhna?” He replies. “The gypsies know, the same way they know everything—by feeling the days and seasons. The ripeness of things.”

He tastes one of the shoots at the root the way Zuhna did. “Hmm, not bad,” he smirks. “Might make a half decent tea. With leaves that can tell the future, like birthdays.”

Could he sound more like Granny Tinker? I marvel, wondering if spooky redneck sorcery runs in his family, too. He lets the grasses fall through his fingers, but tucks the delicate wildflower tenderly behind my ear. Then he plays with a curl of my hair for a moment before taking a step back.

My heart nearly stops at the way his eyes admire what he sees.

You would’ve thought I was in that silver gown again with him at a ball in Cincinnati, the way his eyes shine, tracing along each curve of my face and body. And I can’t help stealing a glance at my sneakers, half-expecting them to turn into glass, and wondering if the nearby horses were once field mice. Meeting each other’s gaze, we both feel it. This potent moment in a slightly secluded glen near the camp, both of us on the cusp of blossoming into something grown up—something altogether new.

And there’s my Creek. Tall, handsome, gallant as always, with that big crooked grin on his face, looking at me as if I’m his star.

The music echoes lightly around us, and he holds out his hand.

“Dance?” he whispers. The yearning in his eyes steals my heart for eternity.

You goddamn thief, I think to myself, smiling inside. Each day you swipe everything I’ve got in my soul all over again.