Gypsy Truths (All The Pretty Monsters #6)- Kristy Cunning Page 0,98

Arion steps onto stage, looking entirely unimpressed.

“Dick,” Arion says just loud enough to carry over the microphone at a murmur.

I’m so lost.

“Where’s Vance?” I ask, as Arion instructs everyone to the grounds for the next event.

“Flying at outrageous speeds,” Anna states dryly.

“Do I want to know?” My eyes turn to hers as the question leaves my lips, and she shrugs while staring down at her nails.

“It’s probably a secret,” she says, giving me a smirk, as she looks up to meet my eyes, a deviousness resting in her gaze.

“Then I don’t want to know,” I say very decidedly, nodding my head as I move to the field next to us.

It’d be shitty to expect their secrets if I’m not telling all mine. I already feel as though I’ve invaded too much of their privacy by seeing so many personal details from their pasts.

I really expected Vance to shine in the archery tournament. The Salt Wheeler tournament…may have been Damien’s only possible sport to win, judging by how very obviously the first Morpheous flops.

“Oops. How clumsy of me,” the woman says as the arrow stabs the ground. “Guess I’m disqualified for missing the target. Terrible shame,” she carries on as she goes to drop to her couch.

I notice Arion roll his eyes, while Damien grins.

“Teenage boys,” I mutter.

“I’m starting to think they like being this way. You may just have to adapt to their dynamic, or…loan me your body. I could so—”

“Anna?”

“Yes?”

“Shut up or get salted. Again,” I state with zero emotion in my tone.

“You used to be more fun. Maybe sex was bad for you—”

The salt crashes against her face, and her eyes widen in anger, just before she disappears.

“I warned you,” I tell the empty air.

My eyes drift toward Emit, finding him smirking at his brother, who lands the arrow perfectly in the center of the target. He actually looks to be enjoying himself.

Which is a relief.

Maybe the timing was better than I thought, even though I know he has to be sick at his stomach.

There’s an uneasiness in me today that wasn’t in me before I realized just how severely I underestimated Idun.

I really am reckless.

My age is finally showing, because Idun is centuries ahead of me.

She wasn’t supposed to be my problem.

Chapter 29

VANCE

I’m barely under the time limit when I drop from the chopper, falling the forty feet to the ground, and land with a slight grunt. A mild sting of pain shoots up my legs, burning through my spine next.

As I straighten and stare toward the eternally foggy cemetery, the pain quickly numbs, and my eyes narrow on the cottage in front of me. The chopper flies away, unable to stay longer, since the fog rises when an aircraft is too close.

“Vancetto Van Helsing,” a familiar, almost chime-like voice says.

The wind carries the words toward me from five different directions, giving me very little indication as to where she is.

“I came in good faith. Alone. I hope I’m being wise and considering this a friendly meeting between old friends,” I call into the fog, as I crunch over dead leaves on my way through the creaking, heavy gate.

The feel of the rust grazes my fingers, and I cringe, because that’s disgusting. Rust is offensive to most all the senses.

The distraction pulls me away for only a brief moment, as I focus my gaze on the thick smog surrounding me. It swirls and blows, a path appearing like a long hallway. It doesn’t stop until a silhouette at the back of the cemetery becomes visible at the end.

An ancient witch with an undetermined amount of power left, lurking at the back of a cemetery that stays hidden from the human eye by a mystical fog of undetermined origin.

Not worrisome.

Not at all.

“Curious why you wanted to meet here,” I say when she maintains her silence.

I can feel her gaze on me, even if she’s nothing more than a dark shadow to the eye.

“Did you know this is the one and only dragon that was ever discovered in the history of the world?” she randomly asks.

I bristle, unsure why we’re here to discuss the dragon bones.

“I’d consider that good news, since humans would have been extinct long before we were born, had they bred as easily as most creatures do,” I say, rolling with it.

“I bet it was magnificent. Even as old as I am, I still missed out on such a brilliant piece of unnatural nature. As it turns out, this one was a reptilian mutation. A fluke