Gypsy Truths (All The Pretty Monsters #6)- Kristy Cunning Page 0,187

aspirations for dominance. Still, think things over, and let me know if this is something you can really handle.”

Damien keeps a cool smile on his lips, not speaking or giving anything away, as he calmly sits atop a table near the cases.

Her eyes land on me last.

“I’m sorry about what my monster did to you. If there’s a way to reverse it, I’ll find it. If that’s what you want. You’re all free to go at any time. I don’t want you feeling chained to me. This really is a lot to take in, so I’m going to let you have some time.”

With that, she clears her throat and quickly heads up the stairs.

Emit blows out a long breath.

Arion smiles at Idun’s head.

Damien keeps that cool expression in place.

When the door shuts, they all turn to look at me as though I should be the one to say something first.

Chapter 52

ARION

Vance, for the first time ever, looks positively stupefied. One might even accuse him of seeming lost.

Best. Day. Ever.

“Idun TV,” Emit snorts, laughing and groaning at the same time.

“It’s clever. It’ll keep eyes on Idun at all times, so that no one has to worry about what the bitch is doing,” Damien chimes in, a dark and calculated look stirring in his eyes. “Should eliminate the vast majority of her out-of-control fear factor, until she’s diluted enough to be on the same level as us.”

I feel like Damien is finally alive once more.

I know I certainly feel more alive than I have in centuries.

“She put thought into this. She knew she’d win,” Vance tells us, eyeing the display cases, the tarred room, and the camera last.

It’s a simple setup.

Simple.

Now there’s a word that will never be the same after tonight.

“She knew she’d win,” Emit echoes, as though that’s just starting to set in.

The ghosts are still in the room, but they’re playing a card game together now…right between the display cases.

“I have to say, this is possibly the best day of my eternity, and I don’t see how anyone could ever top it. Well, I suppose Violet could when she lets me take her as my bride,” I tell them, though no one but Damien seems to be listening.

I don’t want to wait days for that to happen. I want that to happen to finish off the best day in the world. Given all the events, this day truly started with the sunset instead of the sunrise, so it’s a vampire day to top it all off.

“Bloody hell. All that power, and the girl wants to save the weak and make fucking shampoo,” Damien says, clearly not listening to me as much as I thought.

“Vance, you give the PSA on Idun TV. I’ve got more important things to do,” I tell the Van Helsing.

Vance makes a frustrated sound, and then there’s a chilling silence. We all turn to look at Idun, expecting this charade to finally end, since it’s too hard to trust that it’s just that easy.

A simple pine case.

I suppose only time will tell if Violet’s made the impact she thinks she has. I’ve called her arrogant quite often. I’m starting to wonder if she’s deservedly arrogant.

“You’ve never been effortlessly dominated before,” Vance tells Idun.

Her blackened, crisped skin hasn’t started to heal. Her body remains severed in three, shelved pieces.

Life as we knew it exists no longer, and it’s impossibly hard to come to grips with that.

I have a lot of trust issues.

Understandably so.

“It takes a moment to adjust to such a reality,” Damien assures her, smirking with more abandon than even I feel.

“It’s a hard pill to swallow—watching your pride be smashed to bits, while your life gets put in the hands of someone who simply cares nothing about what you do or don’t want,” Emit tacks on, the words spoken solemnly and with some strain.

“To come so close to thinking it was all going to finally go your way. To have your dreams so closely in your grasp. Then to have it all stripped away with cold, unapologetic flippancy,” I decide to add, falling that much harder in love with Violet.

“Idun’s irrelevant now,” the jester says from the ground, while she gives a red-lipped grin to the long-haired, black eyed girl, whose face is still fortunately mostly covered. “You don’t have to care about the heartless villain when they’ve no power over you. It only took Violet a few months to be ready for her. Talbot was wrong. She didn’t have to take those licks.”

“She chose