Gypsy Truths (All The Pretty Monsters #6)- Kristy Cunning Page 0,147

not be ruined,” Talbot says, ignoring me, while keeping his attention on the Portocale woman, who is not his alpha. “Hyde has been the ultimate thorn in my side for so many centuries that I’ve lost count. But until Jack, I’d always been able to get it back in the box,” Talbot tells Vance, who, thankfully, seems equally as out of the loop as I am.

I have so many questions.

“Who the bloody hell is Hyde?” I ask, now getting angry enough to punch the irritating son of a bitch.

“Hyde is Anna,” Vance says, clearly knowing more than me.

“Hyde is all of Violet’s ghosts,” Arion adds, clearly knowing more than the both of us.

The wolf looks utterly perplexed. Awesome. I’m in the same dog house as he is. Isn’t life grand?

“Someone better explain to me, in grave detail, just what the bloody hell we’re standing around in a freak storm and talking about right now, or I might just kiss one of you and then kill you,” I assure all of them.

Arion says, “Make it quick. We have to find Violet. That’s our priority right—”

We all grow quiet when Bobo comes walking toward us.

“Yeah, I have something to tell you too. Actually, Bobo has something he wanted to tell all of us once we were together,” Vance says, as Bobo casts a sympathetic look toward Marta, who still looks positively devastated.

“Someone, anyone, start fucking talking,” I grind out.

Chapter 42

EMIT

I scrub a hand over my face, walking to the forest line to get some space and try to wrap my head around everything they’ve just said. Or tried to say.

None of it sounds…real.

“So you’re saying this thing is volatile, uncontrollable, manipulative, and takes root in the subconscious?” Vance asks, absorbing every word like he’s piecing together some puzzle.

“It’s also resourceful and clever. It’s never had a host as powerful as Violet,” Talbot tacks on.

“Theon was responsible for Jack,” Arion tells us, his head down. “That altar he made was no joke.”

We should have killed him sooner. We just knew Arion would retaliate, and now the vampire is showing contrition over it for the first true time.

It makes me almost hate him again.

“It’s hard to get Hyde back in the box. Since the first ceremony was never completed well enough to achieve immortality, the box stayed intact,” Talbot continues. “But since that first botched ceremony, anytime someone builds an altar, Hyde has the strength to break free, and it rushes into the first host with the most suppressed inner desires—not the one who has built the altar in hopes of receiving a powerful monster. Usually, it lands in a human, drives them mad, and takes over as the supreme ruler of the body, until it calls enough attention to itself for me to track it down.”

He gives Vance a tired look.

“All you did was make it harder and harder for me to trap it, every time you stepped in to play the fucking hero and kill it,” Talbot adds.

“I’ll stab you here and now if you’re somehow blaming me for this,” Vance assures him.

“This is boring and old news. But it is cute how it looks when the shoe’s on the other foot. I wish Violet could enjoy it,” Diva says, grinning, before she disappears.

“Why the hell is there a ghost everywhere tonight?” I demand.

“Aren’t you even listening?” Arion bites out, staring at me as though he wishes he could put his fist through my face.

“I still have no idea what the hell you’re even talking about, but I do know I’m seconds away from stabbing you if you don’t wrap it up and spell it out for me,” Vance says, stepping up beside me, as he glares at Talbot.

Two stab-threats in less than five minutes. Someone better hurry.

Talbot releases a heavy breath, as Arion stares down, saying nothing.

“Violet’s birthmother didn’t die the way Violet thinks she died,” Marta says very quietly, drawing our attention. “She was struck by lightning in her third month of pregnancy. She and Tom had a very real relationship, and he loved her very deeply. I lied and dishonored her name with that lie, because if anyone knew she’d been struck by lightning, they may have suspected the child to have Neopry blood. I panicked. Then I kept panicking and covering more and more truths, because Tom and Violet became my life.”

She shakes her head and runs both her hands through her hair, as she stares at a piece of the house crumbling.

“I thought I could pretend to