Gypsy Truths (All The Pretty Monsters #6)- Kristy Cunning Page 0,73

little extra muscle.

There’re a few ominous pops, as some clear definition abruptly outlines her biceps. Her thighs expand, rippling with more muscle. Little by little, she starts to look like a light-weight body-builder, with a few harsher features…

It’s incredibly underwhelming, and it happens so fast that it’s not even all that exciting.

She stalks firmly…toward a tree, and she snaps it with one hand. With another embarrassing roar, she slings the tree into another so hard they both crack.

Then she pounds the ground like a gorilla, as though the flowers there have offended her.

“This is anticlimactic,” I state with utter disappointment, as I stand and put my hands on my hips. “Let’s liven this party up a bit,” I add as I race away from them.

I cringe for her.

This is too hard to watch.

I hear Damien hiss my name, but I’m willing to risk Violet’s pathetic wrath.

She’s a Simpleton Neopry.

I knew this.

Not only that, she’s a Simpleton Neopry freak accident, who was born to be immortal. It makes her unique. It…doesn’t make her powerful.

For whatever reason, I still expected more.

“You look disappointed, vampire,” Anna says, as she cringes, while Violet bites down on some bark, chewing it with clear abandon.

Suddenly, her fully violet eyes turn to meet mine, and I…easily dodge her obvious, lumbering charge. Too easily, in fact.

She roars in rage, and I effortlessly sidestep her next attack.

“Now you’re just making her look pathetic. She’s so certain her monster is dangerous to you guys. I’m not sure anyone should tell her differently, and let’s hope she doesn’t remember this,” Anna says, cringing when Violet trips and crashes to the ground, before rolling into another tree…that snaps in half.

“I mean, to a human, she really would be terrifying,” Vance says as though he’s attempting to spare her some dignity.

He barely puts forth any effort to dodge her crazed arm swings once she sets her ‘vicious’ sights on him. He catches her wrist when he tires of the cat-and-mouse fixation she has on him, and spins her around. With a slight shove, he sends her in Damien’s direction.

Damien sighs, as she charges him with full-on rage…that is much less fueled than any of the other Simpletons. She’s a watered-down version of them, even after all her feeding.

Her biggest strength truly does lie solely in her resilience.

What a terrible superpower to have.

“This is almost tragic. I think I secretly hoped she’d be some epic freak alpha that would bring Idun down once and for all,” Damien confesses in a way that suggests he’s ashamed of himself.

I think I was starting to hope for that myself, even as it filled me with dread at the possibility of facing it all over again, should Violet get too sidetracked from our true goal.

Family.

Our family.

The five of us.

Damien dances around Violet, teasing her, even as her monster rages at full speed.

We built this world to live forever with the woman we all once loved, and…our new, much gentler woman is a target. Now I know she’ll need us protecting her all the fucking time.

We’ve been too careless.

“I really think you should never tell her how stupid she looks for being so scared of…this side of her,” Anna carries on, even as we pointedly ignore her.

“This little monster killed your wolves, even when she was mostly starving herself?” I ask Emit, wrinkling my nose at him. “I’d be offended if I had betas so weak and slow. Surely more than three could have made retreat, if they’d been smart enough to get out of her path.”

His mouth opens and closes, his eyes blinking as though he’s been standing over here in a stupor. Come to think of it, he’s had no commentary.

“Wolf?” Vance prompts, brow furrowed.

Emit scratches his head, eyes never leaving Violet.

“I-I-I have no idea,” Emit stammers. “To be fair, I’d taken a blow to the head so hard that it knocked me cold, and my skin was burning with silver. Maybe I suffocated and mildly hallucinated? Fuck if I know,” he says, exhaling harshly, clearly the most disappointed of all of us.

“We were damning her if we were hoping she could singlehandedly dispatch Idun,” Vance states as he easily trips her up.

He reaches out to right her before she falls on her face. He grimaces when she still manages to crash into a tree, face first, of course.

The tree crashes to the ground, and her along with it.

“At least she’s strong. And she’s still pretty,” Anna inserts.

Damien chokes on laughter and then scowls like he found