Gypsy Truths (All The Pretty Monsters #6)- Kristy Cunning Page 0,2

seen in a while pops through the wall, and I startle. It’s that weird guy the triplets introduced me to.

“Why did you start ignoring me?” he gripes.

“Why did you start stalking me?” I counter, feeling defensive.

His eyes level mine. “If you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it’s meant to be.”

I blink. Rapidly.

“What?”

He shrugs. “She’s not wrong. You and them? You’re nothing alike. With four against one odds, you’ll never make it. But it doesn’t happen all at once. You build a foundation, make it sturdy, and build the rest brick by brick. My father taught me that.”

He turns and starts walking away, and I sigh harshly.

“Did you seriously stalk me just to eavesdrop and offer unsolicited advice?” I ask him.

“Of course not,” he says over his shoulder. “I stalked you because you started ignoring me. I don’t like to be ignored.”

With that, he disappears.

“Why couldn’t I have been a normal girl who played with Barbies?” I whimper, as I slide down the wall and shut my eyes.

A weird smile suddenly stretches across my lips. Then again, since I met the four of them, I’m starting to love being a monster. You know, when it isn’t a pain in the ass.

Chapter 1

Now…

VIOLET

Dorian Gray is in my office, alone with me, and smiling like he’s planning to do something that will prompt my monster to break free. I really don’t trust my monster enough to let it loose in a houseful of Simpletons it could rip apart, after I’ve promised to keep them all safe.

I end up backing into my desk so hard I bump a few papers off, and Dorian grins down at the bottle of apple shampoo in his hands.

“This stuff is quite remarkable. Did you know it masks a person’s scent?” he asks me, looking up to meet my gaze.

Swallowing thickly, I tune out my mother’s voice in my head. She said to take the apple products off the shelf. She told me not to grow the apples. She said it’d be used against me.

I have no sense of smell. It’s not like it affects me one way or another.

But the guys won’t know he’s here if—

“To be honest, I didn’t believe it when Idun first told me such a thing. I thought she was setting me up for my younger brother to destroy me for coming to take his potential Flame away,” he tells me, using far too casual of a tone, while placing the bottle on the desk.

He’s eerily similar to Damien, but when Damien says stuff like this, it’s a turn-on. When Dorian says it, my skin crawls.

“You can’t be in Sanctuary without—”

“I’ve read your book quite thoroughly, Violet Carmine,” he says as he grins broader. “By the way, they can’t hear us in here, so speak freely. The sound-trapping illusion is a specialty of mine. Damien was never quite as good at working the audio as well as he does the visual. I do have to hand it to him for being a master of visionary illusions, though.”

The words he says doesn’t sound threatening, but the threat is clear: No one can hear us.

I swallow against the instant lump in my throat.

“There’s a loophole for alphas you should have considered, though, in regards to a great many of your rules. You see, once you invite the Head of a House into any House that’s been established with the same authority as an Alpha House, you legally extend such an invitation to all members of their alpha family. I suppose Vance should have been more involved, since Avery isn’t abridged on most of those tedious details, regarding alphas—”

“What do you want?” I interrupt, my nervousness ratcheting up, as I fight down the urge to panic.

I can’t panic and tear apart Damien’s brother. Also, what if Dorian destroys me? I have no idea what he’s capable of.

His smile is so sinister that it immediately starts a flurry of warning bells in my head.

“You’re a Neopry monster. By law, you’re a part of Idun’s House. Whether you’re registered or not, and regardless of having Portocale blood or not, you’re still regulated by Neopry law as much as you are Portocale law. And by Neopry law, your alpha has the right to loan your services out to another alpha. I hear you break curses, and I have one I desperately want broken.”

I startle when he takes a quick step toward me, and his grin doubles as though it excites him.

“I wonder if it works even