Gypsy Truths (All The Pretty Monsters #6)- Kristy Cunning Page 0,135

House.”

“Idun TV is back on!” someone shouts from inside, just as I drop to my knees, an instant, painful burning attacking me so intensely that it steals my breath and traps my howl.

Unbearable pain licks all the way up my spine, and my throat is too frozen to even release a sound. My skin feels like it’s bubbling off me, and my head swims, nausea sweeping through me with force.

Voices echo in my ears, as my face slams into the wet ground. I’m not sure how long I’m there, as Charlotte, Jacob and several of the others try to move me, only to have their hands burned.

I’m dropped back to the mud, as my mind floats into a fog, the pain too overwhelming to stand.

Then something just as unbearable builds in my core and damn near explodes outward.

A garbled sound barely escapes me, as the two bone-jarring pains war with each other.

What the fucking hell is happening to me?

Chapter 39

ARION

I knew better than to come here. I knew it would be missing. I knew it’d do me no good to ever attempt to hide it from her.

I stare at my empty safe with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

“Somehow, she knew where you hid it,” I tell a trembling Shera, who swallows so loud it echoes through the room.

“I swear, Alpha, I never told anyone—”

“She has a mind-reading gypsy freak beta, who can also skin-walk and shapeshift just like a Neopry alpha,” I interrupt, my voice calmer than the anger rising inside me.

“C-can I ask why that necklace is so powerful?” she asks, true terror in her voice.

Howls sound in the distance, wolves barking in panic and fear, as I stand in my cellar, staring down at the broken concrete and destroyed safe.

“It held the excess hope. It was meant to be given to Caroline to cherish and nurture. But Pandora should have known better. Once Idun saw its beauty, she had to have it. Once she tasted its power, she punished Caroline for keeping it a secret,” I answer on a tired exhale. “And I was stupid enough to fucking believe it held no power or meaning to her anymore. She was simply fucking waiting for her opportunity.”

“I-I swear I never even thought about where I hid it,” Shera stammers.

The room continues to chill the longer I stare at the empty safe.

“Demetria can skin-walk, but you still would have sensed her authority over yours…unless her Neopry alpha was close enough to cloak her,” I murmur to myself, nearly whispering the last part.

She whimpers, because whether she heard it or not, she still would have pieced it together for herself.

“Not once did you think about it?” I ask, as the wolves continue to howl in panic.

Surely Emit is tending to them. I have no idea why I’m itching to go aide the fucking wolves.

“There was once,” Shera says in a hushed tone, as though something’s just occurred to her. “It crossed my mind so briefly I almost forgot about it. I was preparing your new office with timeless, yet modernish pieces. I took a lot of time to put it together in hopes you’d appreciate it,” she says, seemingly unable to pass up an opportunity to point out her best deeds, even in a time of crisis.

“Shera,” I bite out, prompting her to hurry it along, when she simply stares at me like she’s expecting some sort of appreciation right this moment.

She shakes her head, and then she nods.

“Right. Right. I was putting in some of your personal effects, and I ran across your small portrait of Idun that you carry around. I couldn’t help but think of it, because that necklace was staring me right in my face. Normally that portrait was kept in your office vault. I don’t know how it even got in that box.”

“That was Idun,” I say on another tired breath, while massaging my forehead to stave off the pounding headache. “She meant for you to find that piece and deliberately provoked the thought.”

Right under my nose. That bitch was directly under my nose all that time, and I spent my attention on pointless vampires and petty betrayals, by comparison.

I remember Shera decorating that room, while I was privately haunting my House, spying on all the traitorous bastards running amuck. I remember her finding that portrait. I even remember wondering why it wasn’t in the vault, and I got a little irritated with her for her incompetence with such an important article.

“Damn