Gypsy Truths (All The Pretty Monsters #6)- Kristy Cunning Page 0,111

shallow sacrifice.”

My gaze flicks back to the screen, and I watch as Idun smirks. In the next instant, she blurs across the field, and she slams into Violet so hard I hear numerous bones crack and echo through the otherwise silent stadium.

Violet makes no sound other than a slightly pained grunt when she hits the ground in a broken, lifeless heap.

My heart damn near stops in my chest. The camera pans to the vampire tent, and I curse, needing it back on Violet.

“Oh, the show’s getting sad now. She’s about to learn the hard way what you couldn’t make her understand,” Pandora says with a sigh. “But at least it’s not my pets anymore.”

The vampires are barely holding Arion back, as the fury doubles in his eyes.

“Violet said to let her handle this. As your future bride, she deserves that respect,” the triplets say in an attempt to manipulate him.

It seems to mostly work, but it’s obvious his composure is a thin shell at best.

The camera pans to Damien, who is staring with a furrowed brow, while he slowly stands to his feet. He stares in some confusion ahead of him.

The camera pans back, just as Violet stands and snaps her broken neck back into place. Her arm cracks and pops as she sets the broken bones there, all while never making any sort of verbal noise.

Her back stays turned, and she smiles as she looks over her shoulder at Idun.

“I don’t know the rules, but isn’t excessive violence breaking one or two?” Violet asks her with more brass than brain.

“Just kill me and get her off the field,” I tell the bitch, who’s forcing me to watch this while bound in chains.

“And spare you the indignity of being all tied up in a trap while your young and dumb girlfriend gets punished for your own insolence? Absolutely not. Now you know how it felt to watch my Bobo wither away under her reign. And she’s just getting started, Van Helsing. I’m afraid you stuck your head in the sand for too long, and now you’ve got it up in the clouds. One day you’ll look ahead and actually see what’s really going on in front of you.”

“Then help me, Pandora. I’ve gotten quicker, smarter, faster, and more determined. Arion’s in the best shape he’s ever been in. Damien is at an all-time high, and he’s actually a contender for a change. Emit’s gained strength since his mating, and his wolf is in more harmony with him than ever before. If we had your help, we wouldn’t need two or three centuries to dull her image. With you, we could do it in under a century,” I tell her.

“Recruiting me this late in the game will reap you no awards, Van Helsing,” she says, holding my gaze. “I’m not as strong as I once was. You missed your opportunity. My magic has faded and withered and bled back into the world I borrowed it from, since I held onto it for much longer than I was meant to have it. Your ‘plan’ is a hopeful fool’s errand, and you know it, or you would have tried such a thing long, long ago. It’s only now you’ve turned into a hopeful fool, though, so I suppose hope is the thing to blame for making someone outrageously idiotic.”

She presses closer, almost as though she’s planning to tell me a secret.

“I trained an occult of witches who had small traces of blood magic in their trees,” she whispers conspiratorially. “Who do you think was leading and hiding the shifters during the long years she was underground?”

I tilt my head, studying the batshit crazy woman anew.

“Why would you do that? Why stay loyal?”

“To raise Idun, of course. I’m loyal because she’s in charge, and there’s no changing that. The witches or shifters would fetch the Portocale sacrifices. I’d have my occult use their magic to help me siphon the life from them into these,” she says, holding up a locket.

“Then I’d wear the necklace to one of the gravesites and started the long process of unsealing Idun’s graves. All while sending you into pain and misery upon the death of one of those orange-smelling gypsies.”

“As well as the Simpletons, who are also affected by that curse,” I point out.

“It was going to happen anyway. However, their Portocale curse broke after the first death woke them. Marta Portocale severed that curse, and could have done the same for you all along. But she hated you