Gypsy Truths (All The Pretty Monsters Book 6) Read online

  My stomach roils, but I watch the familiar scene without blinking.

  “She didn’t do this to learn her weaknesses, as she claimed to Arion,” I say to myself, since none of the memories can hear me.

  The scene flips again, and this time, I recognize the eyes on the man. I should have noticed the eyes sooner, and I could have guessed which one was my mother.

  This is Edmond’s eyes, and he’s on his knees before Idun, tears streaming from his face and blood dripping from numerous wounds. Behind her, I spot Caroline in the shadows, her body limp and nearly bludgeoned.

  My stomach revolts, but I apparently can’t vomit when inside someone else’s memories.

  “This was really all your jealous bitterness breaking the girl who wasn’t as pretty, wasn’t as smart, and wasn’t as spectacular as you. All because he truly loved her. He just made a mistake in thinking he loved you more, when you were pretending to be something he wanted.”

  Cutting my gaze back, I decide I can’t take anymore.

  “Never trust a gypsy with no gypsy pride!”

  Before the image even settles, I prepare to sing the next line, considering I don’t want to see all the many betrayals that will surely accompany that bit.

  However, I pause when I see Arion slinking through hallways, clearly looking suspicious as hell. My brow furrows when I see him, because he’s slipping into Caroline’s room.

  She doesn’t startle when she sees him, but she does keep her face mostly hidden.

  I watch as he pulls something out of his pocket—bread, I think—and hands it to her. Then he hands her what looks like a potion, and I watch as she hurriedly drinks it.

  My heart sinks a little, because I have no idea what’s going on, but this is Arion while he was in love with Idun. Why is this image accompanying a line about not trusting a gypsy without any gypsy pride.

  It can’t be good.

  But I watch as her body relaxes, and some of the bruises on her begin to fade…

  He gave her healing potions? From who? Why? I thought he was Idun’s monster—always on her side and at her beck and call.

  There’s another scene where Vance is slipping in, bringing her something as well. It’s a salve of some sort, and he drops it and goes without looking back.

  He stops at the end of the hallway, where Idun is on her way to Caroline, but distracts her, charms her, and guides her away…

  Damien is in another scene when the world around me once again changes. He’s doing something similar. Twice his gaze flicks toward Caroline’s cell, and he lures Idun away after what seems to be an eternity of flattery.

  I wish I knew more than one language.

  Emit’s in several scenes after that, charming Idun away from Caroline, distracting her.

  They tried to help her without making it obvious, in an effort to keep Idun from punishing the poor monster that much more.

  “Why didn’t you run away when you learned of the altar, Caroline? Why did you let them turn you immortal?” I ask, watching as she peers around the corner.

  Once she’s sure all is clear, she lifts a painting from under a stone in the floor, dusts it off, and smiles down at it. It’s one of the original Portocale men, which gives me my answer.

  She loved a man enough to follow him into eternity, even after he coldly broke her heart.

  I can only imagine how Idun must have sold it at first, during the time she was pitching immortality among women and men with humble morals and values.

  Idun trusted them, and they betrayed her, in an effort to help Caroline as much as they reasonably could. They did have hearts. Even the soulless vampire.

  The next several scenes result in some majorly eye-opening insight into all their paranoia, because I watch Idun mentally torture them with all her many faces.

  So many times, Damien is so furious and disgusted that tears gather in his eyes, when she turns out to be the true woman he was feeding from. Idun laughs in every scene for having pulled another one over on him.

  I finally understand why he was so cold to me, and why he immediately assumed me to be Idun.

  She’s fucked with his head too many times for me to even count on this never-ending reel of memories.

  Emit’s been just as tortured. Idun doesn’t pull punches.

  All his reels result in the same disgust and fury.

  Vance as well, given the never-ending strand of endless swaps. He seems less bothered by it. He was good about not allowing her to provoke him, even though I see the anger in his eyes when he turns around. His jaw subtly tics, and he walks out casually.

  Time. And time. And time again.

  For Arion, she only wears that one face that is so eerily similar to Shera. He doesn’t stare at her like he wants to rip her clothes off. He stares at her like she’s a comforting, rhythmic set of waves that lull you into peace.

  She was the woman he loved back when he was another man. One with less confusion and constant uncertainty. One with faith and a path. One who had hope for better days and wouldn’t shed a drop of blood.

  Arion gives and gives, rarely ever defying her openly. She rewards him by weakening him, treating him like shit, and never once showing him an ounce of kindness.

  “Sing, gypsies, sing of your truths,” I sing, unprepared for the truth.

  I’m rather sick of all the obvious surprises by this point.

  Chapter 17

  VANCE

  After I finish pulling my sword from yet another wolf I’ve downed, I turn and put on the show everyone needs to see, damning Emit.

  He, in turn, puts on a show of condemning me to hell. Idun backs me, and Emit shrinks back, as we close in on him and Damien.

  Arion’s sitting this one out, since he always takes killing the wolves too far.

  Idun runs her finger up my arm, kissing my shoulder, and I shrug her off, since she knows better than to touch me so intimately in such a public setting.

  Glaring at her earns me a scowl, but I turn and head toward the woods, while Emit and Damien retreat.

  We meet in our private spot, just as we always do after a big show or over-the-top battle—a rundown safehouse in the woods.

  Damien is sitting and laughing with Emit about something, and they both flip me the finger when I enter.

  Arion’s working on painting a picture. He’s carried around that small canvas for weeks.

  Idun goes to sit on Emit’s lap, and though his jaw grinds, he allows it, while she sticks her hand out to show Damien the minor wound he left her with.

  Eyes sharp and somewhat narrowed, he takes her hand, kissing it, even as his jaw clenches with the action.

  It gets harder and harder to play these games. Idun and Arion love them far too much. Despite their effectiveness at controlling population, it’s gotten too cold.

  It happens too often these days.

  The numbers are harder and harder to keep tamed with so many fresh turns out there running rampant with no sight of the laws.

  We need a better system.

  “Games,” a familiar voice says in nearly an echo.

  Where’ve I heard that voice before?

  Words leave my lips in response to something Idun’s said, but it’s all done as if on autopilot.

  “Arion kept saying he thought it was all part of the game, but I didn’t understand,” the voice carries on, seeming to drift into the fog just beyond the window in front of me. “He’s a psychotic vampire, so sometimes the things he says aren’t really supposed to make sense to someone who isn’t quite that crazy. Now I realize he’s not always talking nonsense.”

  I squint, trying to see better, only to receive an even blurrier vision that damn near gives me a migraine.

  “You played a part in front of the betas and omegas, creating conflict and war to keep the numbers under control, because it got complicated really fast. It damn near spiraled out of control when the bad bloodlines popped up.”

  Who the bloody hell is speaking?

  I he
ar my voice behind me, responding to someone’s question, and glance back, spotting Idun, Arion, Damien, and Emit all staring at the spot I was in moments ago.

  “But in truth, you were all still in love all these many years. Until it got out of hand and Idun got too bloodthirsty with too little mercy. The omegas warmed your cold hearts by wiggling their ways in, starting with you.”

  I turn around, hearing that voice behind me, and blink a few times at the girl standing with her back turned to me. She’s wearing…I’m not sure what she’s wearing.

  It’s black leather and tall boots. The leather is thinner than I’ve ever seen, and it shows off the perfect curve of her ass. My eyebrow arches, because I’m not quite sure how this girl got in, nor am I sure why Idun doesn’t have a problem with the girl hugging the wolf.

  The wolf doesn’t even seem to notice her, as he talks about nothing in particular.

  She moves to stand in front of Damien, and her words sound closer, less like an echo, when she speaks, using a language I’m not even sure how I understand.

  “You didn’t give up on being an alpha. It hurt you the worst when she tricked you into loving her again. You really did try to get over her, but you’re a lover. You’ve always wanted someone to love. She tortured you the worst in that area.”

  Why is she telling him that?

  Why is she sniffling and wiping away tears as she hugs him?

  Damien would eat this sweet girl alive and leave pieces of her heart scattered across the sea just to teach the foolish dove a lesson. Daft female.

  She turns and finds me. The voices mingle around like steady noise, making it seem as though everyone is talking at once.

  “She really hurt you,” this very interesting woman tells me.

  Why is Idun not flustered by this very scandalously clad young lady, who is running her fingers through my hair right now? How did she even find us?

  I’m too intrigued, and my head is so fuzzy. My body feels too heavy to move too quickly, and my mind isn’t the sharpest.

  “You just always pretended it didn’t hurt as much as it did. You’re just that sort of man. You take the most pride in being hard to provoke. You take yourself and your role the most seriously. Centuries of responsibility and obligation, mixed with hard decisions and even greater sacrifices than you could have imagined,” she tells me so softly, as though she’s peering into the parts of my mind she shouldn’t be able to touch.

  She smiles up at me, even as I glare down at her for knowing too much.

  My lips won’t move to form the words I want to speak, and I struggle to make even one muscle twitch.

  “It feels like you’re looking directly at me,” she says with that smile, even blushing a little. Then her smile falls, and she abruptly looks a little angry. “I’m going to kill Damien for this outfit. Clearly, it’s not the one that would grab your attention, but it is hella embarrassing. Mostly because I’m not the kind of a girl who can rock a camel-toe.”

  Why in the heavens would she be speaking of a camel’s toe?

  I blink a few times, the only action I can seem to make.

  As she twists to check out her backside in a mirror, she speaks again. “And it’s tighter than that Catwoman suit I tried out my senior year, when I thought I wanted to be sexy at a Halloween party. I don’t get to be sexy, apparently, because the ass of it split. It wasn’t a sexy sort of split, either. Nooo. Part of my ass cheek poked out like a can of freshly popped biscuits, because the suit was that tight. I had to walk out, while everyone threw things at the lump of skin poking through the split, that gradually split more and more, carrying more biscuit-ass with it. Pretty soon, my whole ass was going to be squeezed out like a flowering blossom or something. Talk about the queen of all nightmares.”

  This woman is possibly unstable.

  She glances back to my eyes, studying me. I glance around the room, feeling my head turning, as just a bit more fog lifts.

  “Vance, can you hear me? As much as I want you to say yes, I want you to also tell me you didn’t just hear all that,” she says with a notable amount of dread in her tone, as I study the curious room.

  No one seems to notice us.

  “What trickery is this?” I manage to ask at last, moving my gaze back to the witch before me.

  She smiles very brightly for whatever reason, and she squeals as if in delight. Why the hell is she clapping her hands with so much excitement?

  She is unstable. I’m certain of it now.

  “Who the bloody hell are you?” I demand. “What have you done to them to keep them from seeing us? Answer me, witch.”

  Her smile falls, and she gives me a glare.

  “I guess it only half-way worked,” she says on a sigh, her look relaxing for a minute, as she taps her chin and studies me.

  “What are you wearing?” I ask, annoyed by how many times my eyes dip to the outstandingly indecent amount of cleavage she’s exposing.

  “It’s a long story. So you don’t know me?” she asks, moving closer, peering up at me with eyes far too soft and unguarded.

  “You’re not of this time,” I decide. “Or you’ve been raised in isolation.”

  “Both,” she says with a shrug, her very confusing smile spreading, as though these are great things to be proud of.

  “Perhaps I’m the one unstable,” I mutter.

  My mind still lagging, and my body still heavy, I examine her again.

  Even though she’s dressed too wildly provocative for my tastes, she’s a lovely thing. And suspicious. Terribly suspicious.

  “Who are you?” I ask again.

  She takes a step closer, and my breath hitches, while my body fails to respond, when she reaches out and puts her hand over my heart.

  “I’m January Violet Carmine.”

  I arch an eyebrow. “And that’s supposed to give you permission to touch me?” I ask, given the fact I can’t do much of anything besides be a bit snide.

  I don’t want her knowing my movements are restricted. She’s clearly a powerful witch.

  I’ve not run across one this powerful before.

  No one is powerful enough to do whatever it is she’s done to Idun.

  The strong witch rolls her eyes.

  “So much for our deep and powerful connection breaking the curse. I need to find a way to get myself in danger. But this is all a lot harder than I expected. The one time I get support for one of my ideas, I go and overestimate myself,” she says on a sigh that makes it seem as though she’s entirely too put-out.

  If I could move my arm, I’d scratch my head right now.

  This is all too puzzling, and I can’t even have the appropriate apprehension, because I’m entirely too intrigued by her. This isn’t me. She’s clearly cast a spell.

  Her hand remains on my heart, and she leans over, placing her head on my chest.

  My body tenses, because the contact is damn near stifling in my chest. My heart constricts so much that I swear it stops beating, and my breath freezes in my lungs.

  “I wonder if it’d be as easy as having sex with you,” the brazen woman says with no preamble. “Letting you feel all those emotions you stir in me could jar you out of the trance. It seems easier than somehow making a memory threaten my life,” she says, as my fingers tingle, more and more sensation spreading, alerting me that I’ve been somewhat numbed.

  She runs her hand up my chest, and my breath shakes out of me, because the woman’s touch is just too soft, familiar, and unsettlingly tempting.

  “I don’t have the body for something this tight. It’s really irking me that he couldn’t have let me come in my underwear. My body looks better naked than suctioned in skin-tight clothing that highlights every flaw,” she carries on, being entirely too critical.

  My body certainly appreciates the feel of her in that thin material. It makes me desperate to move.

  She steps back, and I almost feel abandonment in the absence of her touch. My chest constricts tighter, and I strain to move tow
ard her. But my feet remain rooted to their spot, despite my best efforts.

  She taps her chin again, while I remain stuck in this tortuous hell. She’s clearly a witch. She’s undoubtedly here with an agenda.

  I’m a man who prides himself on having control over all my baser urges, but this one is far too tempting. I’ve never wanted anything so desperately as I want to rip that fabric from her body.

  “Come closer,” I tell her with a smirk.

  She lifts one of her eyebrows, studying me, and then a devilish smile curves her lips, as she lifts her hands to slowly begin unzipping the front of that scandalous little number.

  She continues unzipping it, all the way down to where it demonstrates the fact there’s nothing underneath. My tie feels much tighter, and I can’t even manage to loosen the knot.

  With a bit of a wiggle, she works it off her shoulders and down to her hips, her daring eyes not leaving mine. This woman is dangerous, because she does all this without even looking over her shoulder at Idun and the others, confident they’re of no concern.

  She suddenly begins struggling, and she drops her head to where her very complicated boots begin. When she hops around on one foot, her very tempting backside swaying with the motion, my control becomes a thing of the past.

  As if mesmerized by every pale inch of her, my sluggish body begins to slowly grow more sensation. My fingers twitch.

  “Damn these boots. I’m working hard to be sexy. Just look away for a second,” she says with another hop, nearly crashing into the wall beside her.

  My eyes stay riveted to all the bare flesh, and my fingers twitch with movement once again.

  “You’re offering your body to me, witch?” I ask to be certain, as my toes move in my boots.

  “Of course I am. I’ll try anything to get you to snap out of this trance, especially since my prior plan doesn’t seem possible even to me. I wish I’d known you would only snap halfway out. I could have taken one of the others with me, and we could have staged a ruse,” she rambles on, even as she grunts with the effort it takes to remove just one of her complicated boots. “If that was possible. Hell, I know nothing. I’m winging this, in case you haven’t noticed.”