Gypsy Truths (All The Pretty Monsters #6)- Kristy Cunning Page 0,112

and loved your suffering.”

She’s so genuine in dropping that last big dig, that it distracts me from the next bone-crunching I hear. For the moment, I’d rather stick my head in the sand than see Violet go through this pointless beating.

“How could you possibly know that?” I ask her, giving up on struggling with the chains.

She turns her head to the TV for the first time, and I summon the silver, feeling it slide into my fingers. I work it to a short blade, and manage to stab into the chain…

The chain doesn’t budge.

Pressing as hard as I can, with as little leverage as my position allows, I strain, desperately waiting to hear the telling snap of the metal.

But this metal is stronger than my silver, because there’s no give. She found a way to fully confine me. When I come back from the death I’ll likely suffer this day, I’ll know everything there is to fucking know about this metal.

But today…I’m defeated.

It’s rare I step into a trap.

It’s rarer that I die after someone’s been foolish enough to capture me alive.

It’s rarest to have an adversary who knows more about my strengths and weaknesses than even I do.

She looks my way, giving me a cold smile.

“I know things because I pay attention,” she says, smiling tightly. “Just like I knew your girl was no ordinary Portocale. She killed my witches and the shifters I borrowed, during the times they tried to siphon her life. Terribly rude young lady, that girl.”

She tugs at a strand of her hair, eyes getting colder.

“She’s been quite the enigma until recently. Now she’s rather anticlimactic,” Pandora carries on.

“Why would you raise Idun when you hate everything she’s done with the eternity you helped her gain? Give me a real answer this time, Pandora.”

She looks back at the screen, and I look too, just as Violet is slammed into once more. This time, her bones break so badly she looks unnatural and dead when she lands.

When it pans to Damien and Arion, they’re both unconscious, and father is holding a bag of salt. He whirls around, as though he’s searching for ghosts.

Where the fucking hell is that useless wolf?

Anger stirs in my body, as the defeat sinks in.

A tickle at my hand only mildly distracts me, until it starts spreading upward. When the tickle continues all the way to my wrist, I start noticing a wet sensation as well.

Looking down, I barely catch a glimpse of silver through the chains, as the tickle spreads to my elbow.

“What the hell is going on?” I ask as calmly as I can.

She cuts her gaze back toward me, spots the silver working its way up, and shakes her head.

“Vancetto Van Helsing was a naughty boy. You tried to cut me, didn’t you?” she asks in a tone that suggests she thinks I’m a young lad.

She wags her finger in front of my face.

“I merely tried to cut free,” I say in my defense.

Her jaw tics with genuine anger. “So you could do what? Try to kill me? None of us can die, and we still keep trying to kill each other. I never could understand Idun’s logic.”

“Says the madwoman who raised her,” I remind her very angrily.

“A promise was set in stone. I didn’t want the promise broken to Idun. The universe has an active hand in righting our wrongs in some confounding and terrifying ways, at times. You failed to raise them, so something unique and different was born into the world. Then you found that unique treasure, and…you stuck your dick in it, painted it a target for Idun, and now you’ll lose it. Just as all of us have lost something. It keeps us humble, at least.”

She gestures to my chains.

“You should be more concerned about yourself than Idun or your soon-to-be-broken toy. You’ve set off the spell. It’s a spell that has a terribly negative reaction to your silver, but only if your silver is manipulated. Maybe your father should have warned you about this spell.”

She beams as though she’s boasting, and I finally understand what’s craziest about her. Besides her very creepy eyes.

“You’re sucked into the game. You like one-upping the alphas. You think you’re one of us,” I bite out.

That’s not the Pandora I know. She was never an advocate of the game. She saw more than we could fathom back then.

“If you can’t beat em’, join em’,” she says, eyes getting creepier by the moment, as the silver continues all the