Gypsy Truths (All The Pretty Monsters #6)- Kristy Cunning Page 0,209

I’ve been left too vulnerable to do anything about it.

My head fogs for a brief second, and a hiss of familiar whisper enters my ear. “I can break these chains.”

Shaking my head to clear away the annoying monster, I focus my attention on Vance.

“Of course I am,” I manage to say, even though my voice is strained.

This really isn’t the time for conversation, but…he looks as vulnerable as I feel right now, and my heart does that fluttery thing he tends to make it do.

His serious, oddly hopeful eyes meet mine. I’ve mated him and he’s surprised to find me wearing his ring?

He just put me out of some of my misery, so does that mean we’re okay?

“I had a much more romantic reveal planned, but then you were taken,” I tell him.

There’s a sharp, nearly staggering, almost-orgasm that hits me hard and abruptly.

Vance hisses out a breath when I clench around him, and I cry out in frustration when I just barely miss that edge, getting doused with the metaphorical bucket of cold water once more.

I dart a glare to Damien, even as Vance starts hungrily kissing my neck.

“I just need a few minutes,” Vance says against my ear, his lips dragging back down my neck immediately after.

My whole body aches with the need for immediate relief, and my legs tremble against Vance. Damien smirks before there’s a stabbing surge of euphoria pushed upon me and stolen away just as quickly.

A whimper escapes me, and I try to lunge for Damien, feeling a chill violently surging through my veins. Damien’s grin deepens.

“Stop fucking with her, Damien,” Vance grinds out.

Damien cuts his devious gaze toward Vance. “Do you really think I’m going to pass up an opportunity to be claimed? You don’t get to be special, Van Helsing. I want her mark on me too.”

Another stab of unnaturally blissful pain erupts through me when the same process repeats itself.

Vance curses, as he’s abruptly pulled away, and my hearing dulls to a near echo.

“Told you she’d probably start reacting a lot more once she had her one chosen mate atop her. Now I know why my monster really kept the fucker out of the room when I was claiming her,” Damien drawls.

Another attack hits, and my vision dims.

I hear salt spray, and immediately that’s followed by Vance cursing.

“Fuck’s sake, Damien! What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Vance shouts.

“I’m punishing her, of course,” Damien states, his touch ghosting over my body, as the heat rises to the surface, leaving me whimpering for release. “If our darling little new alpha wants it to stop, she’s going to have to break those chains.”

“You’ve already been claimed, but we haven’t. It’s my wedding night. Violet said it’s more important to me, so I can have whatever I want,” Arion says through a grin, looking right into my eyes.

Fucking vampire.

I’m so damn gullible.

Here I was thinking he’d be a romantic sweetheart on our wedding night, after waiting so long to take a bride. Instead, he’s busy reminding me why I don’t trust him.

This is why Arion is dangerous.

“You really told him that?” Vance asks me like I’m stupid, even as his lips twitch.

Why is he now amused—

My thoughts are cut off when the next hit of ecstasy painfully teases my body with another almost epic moment.

I want to cry when it doesn’t happen, even though I knew it would just be taken away like all the others. I was so relieved to feel Vance on me, but that already seems like a false memory, because all the desperate sensations have done is double since then.

Just as I feel myself almost giving into the foggy sensation in my mind, Monster Mash starts playing very loudly throughout the room. It slices through the fog—as well as the maddening tension—and I pant heavily, watching as everyone cuts a glare toward Arion, who is standing in front of the speaker.

He gives them all a blank look in between a slow blink.

“Yeah, everyone look at me. Makes perfect sense. Because that’s certainly a song I’d play in this moment,” Arion states in a tone that’s clearly dripping with sarcasm.

As one, the four of them cut their gaze to a grinning Anna, as I’m allowed a moment to catch my breath between Damien’s hits. She gives them a little five-fingered wave.

“Four against one hardly seems like fair odds,” Anna chirps.

“You’re supposed to be on our side. You want to claim us, remember?” Arion argues, jabbing a finger at Anna like