Gypsy Truths (All The Pretty Monsters Book 6)

by Kristy Cunning

  We all tilt our heads to the side in unison, as she gives us a small grimace, that expression that I now know is a signature Carmine expression—the aw shucks look.

  This is not a damn aw shucks moment.

  Not. At. All.

  Especially since she’s dragging Idun’s headless body, in two separate pieces, like it’s hard work.

  “Could someone give me a hand?” Violet asks too casually.

  As if it was planned, one of Idun’s hands drops to the ground.

  “I swear I didn’t do that on purpose,” Violet rushes to say, standing before us as the picture of innocence.

  I…have no words. I have no thoughts. I have…nothing.

  Judging by the stunned, stoic, or savagely curious expressions resting on the faces of the silent other three, I’m assuming I’m not alone in this.

  She kicks the hand toward my feet, and I drop a suspicious glance to it, before taking a large step back. I’m going to need another minute or two.

  Violet’s shoulders sag, as she continues to stare at us, and she drops her hold on Idun’s body, letting it thud to the ground on either side of her.

  “I guess you’ve got questions,” she says, still using that barely contrite tone, and bearing that aw-shucks look.

  “I’d say that’s an understatement,” Emit informs her very seriously.

  After inhaling a tired breath, Violet says, “I didn’t tell you, because I knew you’d never believe me.”

  “We asked to see your monster. You hoodwinked us,” Arion tells her, canting his head to one side, as his lips curve in a grin. “You sly little monster.”

  Violet shakes her head. “No, I actually planned on showing you my monster. But…Anna is a pain in the ass to control. She’s the one who fucked with you. Not me. To be fair, I don’t even know what you saw, but I knew you didn’t see Anna. That much was clear.”

  Does she…still not know everything about herself? Does she know she has two monsters? Does she know one is pointless and she’d have been prey in this dangerous world of ours?

  Also, how do we know this is Violet, when her monster is so good at playing pretend?

  “First impressions really do matter way more than you guys seem to understand. It forces you to see a person in a certain light—either equal, above, or beneath you. People are inherently loyal to their own opinion,” she adds, sighing heavily.

  I’m not sure why now is the best time for her to be lecturing us on first impressions.

  But since I can’t seem to make myself speak, I let her go on and ramble.

  Idun’s chest is intact. I can hear her heart hammering from here. That means she’s still conscious.

  “Don’t be fooled. Violet’s not possible of regaining this much control so soon after giving Hyde that much power and freedom,” Talbot is quick to point out. “You all remember what it was like to deal with your monsters in the beginning, and you had far less power than she’s starting with.”

  Anna appears so suddenly, right next to him, that I hear the chills rake over his body. He darts his gaze to her.

  Anna grins, spinning her floating ghost body around him.

  “Aw, now. Did you have fun? I did. I don’t know when I’ll get to do it again, so I did all my favorite ideas in one night,” she says on a giggle.

  Her look changes from sweet and goofy, to serious and cunning in the next instant.

  “I’ll have even better ideas for next time,” she adds in a dark, sinister tone, her lips curving in a chilling grin.

  Her expression changes again, returning to the Anna we’ve all come to know...

  “Violet still says she’s in charge, whether I like it or not. Tell her I’m a better main character. Please. Tell her so she’ll let me play more. If you enjoyed that, wait until you get me in the bedroom. Am I right, Van Helsing?”

  Anna elbows Vance, although her elbow simply crosses through him. He’s staring at her with that steely, stoic expression still firmly in place.

  “Anna, either shut up, or I so totally will salt you. You weren’t supposed to let them see you,” Violet cuts in, very angrily, while bloody arguing with…her monster…in front of us.

  I scratch my head. I’m still going to need another few minutes.

  “But did you see their faces? I let you remember, so surely you think it was worth it. I know you do,” Anna gloats, spinning like a ballerina on one toe.

  “Anna, just because a thought crosses my mind, it doesn’t mean I want you to act on it. Sometimes, a thought is just an absent thought. This is just one of the many reasons I have severe trust issues with you,” Violet carries on, as though this has secretly become a common thing.

  I’ll never take my eyes off my Flame ever again. Apparently, very important, life-changing things happen quickly, abruptly, and in secret around her.

  I look to Talbot, since he’s the closest thing to an expert on Hyde that we have. He’s studying them with intense concentration and some clear confusion.

  “You can’t possibly be Violet. Separating yourself from Hyde so easily after something that intense wouldn’t be so simple,” Talbot bites out. “You don’t fully remember everything yet, Hyde, but I swear I won’t put you in the box.”

  “There is no box,” Anna and Violet say in unison, causing me some suspicion.

  Then again, Anna is nothing more than an extension of Violet, so it would make sense for them to think the same thing…

  “This is scary,” I decide aloud, now wondering if we’re being hoodwinked.

  Again.

  “No,” Violet says, looking directly at me. “It was scary. It was scary and I couldn’t even think about it, because a mind-reading gypsy freak was living in town. Turns out, she’s been in Sanctuary, so I’m thankful for my paranoia right now. I wasn’t ready to deal with any of this, so I stuck a big pin in it.”

  “It’s Violet,” Arion says with too much certainty, his lips curving up at one corner of his mouth.

  “Violet sheds tears after she takes lives,” Emit argues, clearly the most suspicious. “Especially when her monster comes out.”

  “When I’m killing wolves you care so much about, yes, I shed tears,” Violet says in a soft tone, before taking a deep, seemingly steadying breath.

  Her hand trembles just slightly.

  “I didn’t know if I’d win against Idun. I wasn’t too scared of losing. I had no idea it’d be that easy, so now I’m actually scared. I found the bottom of the hill at last. Now Idun knows what it’s like to feel completely powerless in the hands of someone far stronger, who has little to no compassion for her, simply because of everything she’s done to everyone around me, in her petty quest to target me.”

  She takes another deep breath, even as Anna dances like she’s excited about something.

  Violet’s shoulders sag. “Hyde’s biggest secret is that it thrives on feeding off the emotions my empathic side apparently feeds it. I never feel those things, which is why I never have any idea how anyone is feeling. My monster devours it. It’s only gotten stronger since meeting the four of you, and now I think I’ve been underestimating what you felt, simply because you’re so terrible at expressing much of anything,” Violet carries on, her tone changing to one of acceptance by the end.

  As if now is the perfect moment for her to figure out the obvious.

  Vance opens and closes his mouth, as though he intended to speak, but is still too confused…about one of the many things we’re all currently baffled by.

  I still have no idea if this is Hyde or Violet—a problem I never considered having nor knew to look out for, before tonight.

  It feels like Violet, but…I’m not entirely sure how to sense her monster whenever that suffocating presence is concealed, so how can I be certain?

  Shit’s sake, I don’t know. I just don’t fucking know.

  I take a seat on the ground and blow out a long breath.

  “Typical men,” Anna mutters, rolling her eyes. “Too self-absorbed to notice
the woman, while thinking their problems are so much more important.”

  “Seriously, Anna. Stop. You’re making me sound bad, because that’s not even a thought of mine,” Violet gripes.

  Anna grins.

  “It must be a subconscious thought you’re repressing,” Anna quips.

  Violet gives Arion a look. “Why are you smiling?”

  Good question. Why does the vampire look like Christmas has come early?

  “You’re stronger than Idun,” he says with far too much amusement. “I’ve never been more turned on in all my life, love. That’s why I’m smiling.”

  Anna grins as though she feels complimented. Violet pinches the bridge of her nose as though she’s exasperated. Which one is suggesting the truth of how she feels about what the vampire just said?

  Hyde is a contradiction to the emotion Violet shows, but her monster is supposed to be an extension. Fuck, I’m confused.

  “Say something, please,” Violet says, looking to Emit, Vance, and then me.

  Since the other two remain stony, I stutter out the first thing I can think of.

  “I think we’re trying to understand how this is already so normal to you,” I interject, needing some direction on how she managed to get to this place so quick, so I can follow along.

  “Because my life is one big cracker-box full of unique chaos, dangerous situations, and no discoverable death so far. It makes me…me. Also, I’m not okay with it, but I’m used to how hard it sucks to be me.”

  Her tone is flat, as though she’s waiting for us to give an indication as to how we feel about all…this…or show an expression before she does.

  Arion slips in behind her, arm going to her waist, as he bends and starts kissing her neck. Violet allows it, and even leans back on him.

  “Your monster tried to force you to be with me,” Arion murmurs, as though now he’s suddenly very pleased with the twist this puts on…every single fucking thing those ghosts have done.

  “My monster made me dance like a puppet on her strings for her own agenda, in some ways. She manipulated the hell out of me, and even went so far as to fake my dead best friend’s death, while also trying to force a new version of herself on me—via the triplets. When that didn’t work, she brought in a male ghost, who was in love with another woman, but suddenly found me fascinating enough to stalk…”

  She rolls her eyes, leaning back to look up at Arion.

  “She tried to duplicate what you and I had when you were Ace, but I had zero interest in getting to know him, which cock-blocked at least one of her manipulation attempts,” Violet elaborates very pointedly to Arion.

  The vampire’s smile is so bright and cheery that you’d genuinely believe he just found heaven.

  “This shit is seriously fucked up. Stop acting like it’s so exciting, please. I’m internally freaking out because how pleased you look, and I don’t want to freak out so soon after giving my monster so much freedom. I…liked it too much.”

  Arion’s smile only grows.

  The more she talks, the more it starts sounding as though this is undeniably Violet.

  “Again, you’re seriously freaking me out. That’s not a good thing, Arion,” Violet tells him with an abundance of conviction. “For whatever reason, you all think I’m so damn sweet, which means you’re all entirely too fucked up. But you can’t just grin after what you’ve seen tonight. Not even you’re that crazy.”

  The vampire is falling in love all over again right in front of our eyes, because she’s underestimating just how crazy he gets when he’s in love. Unlike her, he loves being underestimated.

  Obliterating an adversary, starting a war, dancing on a bloody field, and underestimating him…

  She’s spent the last several hours doing all his favorite things.

  “Hyde couldn’t be this coherent. Not with…all the things apparently rolling around inside Violet’s head,” Talbot says as though he’s already convinced, but also extremely bewildered by the possibility. “Also, being in charge of the body gives it a power trip from hell. It can’t carry on normal conversation for long periods of time.”

  “You said it was impossible for her to regain control,” Vance states on a shaky breath, his voice nearly hoarse, as he stares on at Violet, who is dealing with a genuinely turned on vampire. “Ten minutes later, you shrug and flippantly reverse everything you’ve been adamantly preaching.”

  “In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve done a shite job of predicting anything about Ms. Carmine,” Talbot fires back, sounding more fatigued and exhausted than anything else.

  “The vampire isn’t intimidated by powerful women, but the Van Helsing certainly is,” Anna chides, grinning as she gets in Vance’s face. “Tell him what I did to him, Violet. Tell him how I tricked him.”

  Violet’s face turns white, and regret shades her eyes, as she looks at Vance.

  “Wh-what is she talking about?” Vance asks, completely off-kilter, as he sidesteps Anna.

  Violet darts a gaze around, and I lean forward, idly waiting on Idun to glue herself together, encase us all in her fancy new silver-curse, and bury us. Setting us up with false hope is the norm.

  Violet’s too casual.

  Arion’s already accepted the world is a brave new place.

  Vance is on the verge of needing a reboot.

  Emit’s so clearly confused that his brain must hurt.

  Me? I still have no idea what I feel. I don’t know what to trust.

  Chapter 49

  VANCE

  Violet stares at me and releases a shaky, hesitant breath.

  “Anna stole the identity of a real person. I found a newspaper clipping in my grandma’s old things, while looking through my storage buildings for some of my old research,” Violet states, not giving me any indication about where this is going. “I forgot about researching that woman, simply because she had such a crazy life story. She wasn’t famous enough for anyone to care, though. The second I saw that clipping, I started remembering.”

  Violet starts toward me, but then takes a step back.

  “Anna has access to all my memories, even the ones I forget. She came to me as a person who had already interested me once. After she suppressed all my memories of the real Anna, she came to me as a horny fucking apparition with no grip on reality, and she passed as a decaying ghost suffering from extreme delusions.”

  “Sorry, I know you’re trying to explain very important things. But I’m just now sort of processing the part where Anna has been an extension of you,” Emit cuts in, ruining wherever Violet was trying to go.

  It must be bad if she’s spending this much time to start at the beginning.

  “I mean, you’re saying Anna’s like reading your private journal of your collective thoughts and aspirations?” Emit adds, slicing through the tension with an off-the-wall question that in no way suggests he’s paying attention to the current conversation.

  Violet groans, scrubs a hand over her face as though she’s mildly embarrassed, and then she shoots him that aw-shucks look I’ve grown warier of than ever tonight.

  She…she…she can’t be serious with this careless, dismissive attitude toward all of this. As though it’s supposed to be nothing special that she can destroy Idun and have this rather huge secret she’s kept.

  “How long have you known?” I ask her, getting back to the important part.

  “I think my question is just as valid,” Emit argues, looking over at me.

  I punch the fucking wolf’s face, and it makes me feel better about life when he staggers backwards. As my hand throbs, and Emit pops his jaw back into socket—all while growling at me, of course—I return my attention to Violet, expecting an answer to my question.

  “About Anna? Or about the really fucked up thing I helped Anna do to you?” Violet asks, wringing her hands with some nervousness.

  She is literally standing between Idun’s severed body, and is nervous about speaking to me?

  I…now know what it’s l
ike to be Violet when we’re all standing around discussing the world as we know it, even though she just got here and has no idea how anything works or why it’s just something she’s supposed to find acceptable.

  More especially, since she’s a whole new level of powerful. There’s the reason she never felt the need to lower her eyes or back down.

  No one could have convinced me of such. It took seeing it with my own eyes. I’m still struggling to believe what I’ve seen. I almost don’t trust this is more than some elaborate illusion.

  Violet is just so…not alpha.

  I genuinely believe Damien to be more capable of betraying us, siding with Idun, and is somehow in my head, crafting this elaborate, unnatural, impossible reality. It makes far more sense than this actually being reality.

  She can’t be a whole new level of powerful with an aw-shucks form of contrition for being powerful.

  I don’t like this.

  I don’t ever want to feel this way again.

  I prefer to know everything at all times. I need more order in my life than this, and apparently, I need to pay more attention to the anomalies I face in the field.

  My brain is so tired that it is actually thinking of work in order to take a break.

  “What did Anna do?” I ask, only because it seems that’s what she’s waiting for.

  Also, I really do want to know every-fucking-thing, just so I’ll know how much I’ve been oblivious to.

  I don’t like being oblivious. It’s damn infuriating.

  Marta stands, and she grabs Edmond’s arm.

  “You wanted help to save Caroline. You have it in spades now,” Marta tells him softly. “And it’s coming at a great sacrifice to my daughter, because she’s not ready to be alpha. Certainly not a Neopry alpha.”

  “I’m not going to be alpha, but we’ll discuss that later,” Violet cuts in, holding her finger up.

  Fuck’s sake. I hadn’t even considered that part.

  If she’s defeated Idun, the Neopry blood will demand her on Idun’s throne.

  “Violet, I warned you if you did this—”

  “I said we’d talk about it later,” Violet cuts in, interrupting Marta, before smiling tightly. “I don’t trust myself not to get angry. The shifters have spent centuries hunting our people. I can’t rule over them. It’s going to take a long time to make them understand the world is changing. I’m afraid my monster will overtake me in a weak moment of anger, and I’ll kill them all.”