Gypsy Truths (All The Pretty Monsters #6)- Kristy Cunning Page 0,168

and knees, and she crawls toward him, her eyes bright with excitement.

He shivers and cuts his gaze away when she puts her face inches from his.

“I’m Diva, bitch!” she shouts, and then a spray of salt fills the air, as she vanishes.

“The salt sprays are more dramatic now that she knows we know. Also, Violet clearly has a multiple personality disorder,” I decide to point out. “She has ‘mimicked’ a lot.”

“Just like Leiza said,” Emit murmurs, more to himself than us, as he cuts his gaze toward the bells that are ringing.

“Sanctuary,” Vance says under his breath in a damn near worried tone.

“She surely wouldn’t harm anyone in Sanctuary,” I say, feeling uncertainty and dread creeping up my spine.

Vance takes off in a dead sprint, with me right on his heels.

The wolf, on four legs, races by us with a desperate speed, as Talbot drags behind us on shaky legs.

I can see hints of the sun rising, as the storm begins to ebb, the blood-magic incubus losing steam at last, it seems.

It’s been a full night.

The longest night I’ve ever lived through.

“Even if we all have to die, we stop it before it harms a single person in Sanctuary!” Vance commands.

“No need for orders, Van Helsing! For once, I think we’re all on the same fucking page with who doesn’t need to die,” I call out, barely managing to keep up with him, which isn’t the usual.

Fuck’s sake, I need to feed.

It’s a terrible time to be without energy.

When Sanctuary comes into view, I spot Marta Portocale sitting on the front steps with Zuela Van Helsing, as though this is a casual night for a front-stoop sitting.

Vance stumbles over his own feet, as Marta sits with a blank expression on her face.

“Where is she? What happened?” Vance demands.

Edmond Portocale staggers out of the Sanctuary doors, face paler than I’ve ever seen it.

“Marta,” he says on a dry, slightly trembling breath.

“I suppose you won’t ever cross her again,” she says without looking back at him.

“That’s…nothing that should even exist,” he says with no emotion, dropping to his knees.

“Where is she?” I grind out. “Why were the bells ringing?”

“She asked me to ring them at sunrise,” Marta states, as Arion slides to a halt beside us, slinging up dirt in his haste.

“I smell Idun’s blood all over town, and I can’t find either one of them,” Arion says, eyes on the verge of being red.

Damn vampire has already come, gone, and searched for Violet, before returning, in the amount of time it took my starved self to make it this far.

“I bloody hate you,” I say aloud, because at this point, my mind can’t even begin to start the process of understanding. “Where did you disappear to?”

“I was chasing Violet’s trail, at least until she ditched me. The trail went cold real fast,” he says as though this is the most frustrating part of all this.

“Was Idun defeated? Is it over?” Emit asks, shifting back to two legs, and looming over Talbot.

Talbot grinds his jaw, his next words coming out harsh. “It’ll never be over. Neither one can fucking die. Both are too strong for you to take down on your own. Idun and Violet will war for all eternity, unless I do something. Violet’s lost to the monster. She’s too fucking young to have faced Idun so soon. That much power has consequences,” Talbot goes on.

I remember the first alpha fight I had with Idun. My monster stayed in place for over a decade, and that was after learning to harness it.

Violet has all the power, but lacks all the experience. Only, she doesn’t bloody understand that, because we never explained all the hardest parts. She’s too fucking soft to hear that much.

“I’m getting really tired of everyone underestimating me,” Violet says, startling us all into a bounced-turn-about.

Her hair is drenched, leaving it plastered to her head under the torn, semi-bloodstained/semi-white veil, and a bloodstained, silk…wedding gown, is clinging to her body, visibly outlining the very slinky underwear underneath.

We all tilt our heads to the side in unison, as she gives us a small grimace, that expression that I now know is a signature Carmine expression—the aw shucks look.

This is not a damn aw shucks moment.

Not. At. All.

Especially since she’s dragging Idun’s headless body, in two separate pieces, like it’s hard work.

“Could someone give me a hand?” Violet asks too casually.

As if it was planned, one of Idun’s hands drops to the ground.

“I swear I didn’t do that on purpose,” Violet