Gypsy Rising (All The Pretty Monsters Book 5) Read online

She smiles tightly.

  “As I was saying, I’m not asking that, because I know it’d be laughable. But Arion went under and came out different. It’s not so hard to believe that it took a thousand years to break even the demon that had latched onto me. Ask Arion to tell you what it’s like to be trapped in that coffin, cut off from your den, nest, or whatever your group calls it.”

  A muscle jumps along Arion’s clenched jaw.

  “He’s not punishing you for it, because he had no choice but to break,” she goes on, quieter. “I was dismembered. My head waking up with no body attached…was far worse. I assure you.”

  A loud noise buzzes, and a series of shrieks go off so loudly that the bits of glass remaining on the house shatters. In the next instant, I’m rushing through traffic and leaping into the open window closest to me, panic damn near seizing my breath.

  “Sorry!” Violet shouts, slinging her voice in a circle. “It’s just a saw that gets loud. I’ll warn you next time!”

  She swats at a little dust, as she stumbles toward Tom, pulling something out of her bra.

  “Healing potion. Put it in your ears!” she shouts to him, as he winces and digs a finger into his ear.

  I roll my eyes, my heart hammering in my bloody chest, and sway to the side, as I exhale in relief.

  “Vance?” Arion growls just loud enough for me to hear him from across the street.

  “All in one piece,” I assure him as Tom shouts at Violet.

  “What?!”

  She holds up a finger as she looks over at me in surprise. “Are you okay?” she asks me so sincerely.

  “Can you please pretend to realize the reality of the situation at hand until I can explain it to you later?” I ask her.

  She cocks an eyebrow. “I’ve got my problems—a lot of them at the moment. You’ve got yours—one of them at the moment. You deal with your shit, and I’ll deal with mine.”

  I point a finger at her, as she crosses her arms over her chest a little defiantly for no reason at all.

  “We’re going to talk about you sending all my calls to voicemail the second we have a chance. And then I’ll check to ensure the text messaging is working on your phone as well.”

  “What?” Tom shouts again, cupping his ear toward us.

  I really do hate that man.

  Violet holds a finger up at him again.

  “It’s just been a few days, Vance. You’ve been busy, and so have I. Can we do this later? I sort of need to help my dad be able to hear again, since no one mentioned Simpletons could do that scared shrieking thing. Then I’m going to be up all night doing what little we can, before we have an actual game plan, so that we don’t waste any time with construction.”

  There’s a sociopathic monster with jealousy issues just outside, after we’ve painted Violet a glowing target, and Violet’s too busy to deal with me right now.

  I’m not sure if I’m still stuck in a hellish Portocale curse trance, or if this is just one of those days where Violet makes no sense.

  Idun is watching me as I begin my return, and she glances around.

  “I’m not the monster anymore, and I won’t interrupt this relationship you have going with her,” she tells us very abruptly.

  When we all look at her like we know she’s leaking horse shit, she rolls her eyes.

  “Again, you’ll just have to see to believe. I’m working on diluting my accent, catching up to an acceptable vernacular, and I simply haven’t had time to even try to catch on to how very different the world looks.”

  Cue her dramatic head-tilt toward the sky, paired with a distant, thoughtful stare.

  I actually roll my eyes, and Damien checks his reflection in his pocket mirror.

  “But for now, I have things to do, such as learn as many changes as I can in a vastly new setting. I’ve secured the fifth available wheel that will fortify the circle here. I could only assume that seat would be mine, since we’re all the family Heads of our respective Houses.”

  “And you really expect us to believe you’ll just leave Violet be, when she’s the very first person you taunt with your presence?” Emit asks through clenched teeth.

  I keep a keen eye on Idun, waiting for the trap. Always waiting for the trap.

  She glances toward the hotel, eyes never meeting ours, her expression staying stoic.

  “I can understand your trepidation, given my past, but even if I felt threatened by a young, mildly attractive Simpleton, I still wouldn’t react, because you’re on the verge of giving her up,” she assures us.

  Damien grins broadly, and I make another derisive sound.

  Arion has stepped back, arms crossed over his chest, and has propped to a lean against a tree, seemingly content to observe her.

  “How long do you foresee a girl, who is carrying a burdened heart such as hers, to open her arms to monsters not all that different from me?” she asks us seriously. “Because I’m not the only one they all fear, and you’re all even bigger hypocrites than you already were if you don’t see that.”

  With that, Idun turns to leave, and I hold my ground, since I can physically take no action against her until she gives me a reason to.

  She glances back a few times, giving us a small smile, just before she turns the corner and disappears from sight.

  Damien is gone in the next instant with Arion, both of them trailing her under Damien’s illusion, and Emit’s eyes meet mine.

  “Okay, Van Helsing. Now we know her game,” he tells me idly as just a handful of his wolves line up alongside my knights a little late.

  Both of us are doing what we can to hold our composure in front of so many prying eyes. A composed, united front looks better than a rattled one, and monsters stuck in a state of fear and paranoia would be a volatile concoction in this era, more than any other before.

  “And now you know your betas still aren’t up to par. You need to bring in your best for this, Emit. Quit leaving them out there and bring them in to restore your House, before Idun tears it down out from under you, while pretending she’s lost the monster inside her.”

  We turn and look over at the hotel, and he releases a frustrated breath.

  “Violet almost has a good idea. She just doesn’t realize the true depravity lurking inside Idun,” he says in deflection, as I watch movement stir in the house, even though the occupants remain quiet—aside from Tom and Violet, who loudly discuss which walls need to be opened up.

  “A neutral haven for omegas, charged and legalized by the alpha Simpleton collection she’s recently acquired, and aided by Arion’s best beta. It’s the sort of ideology that will only break her heart when Idun uses it all against her to do just that. Idun may as well have said as much before she strutted off like she was untouchable,” I add, as Violet comes out with Bobo on her heels.

  She’s carrying a small bag of trash. He’s carrying two overflowing, fifty-gallon trashcans.

  She pauses at the street, and as they drop the trash curbside, her eyes coming up and landing on us. She gives us a small wave.

  “All good?” she calls out.

  Emit makes a gesture with his hand that signals all’s well, and she returns the gesture with a lazy thumbs-up, before heading back inside with Bobo lumbering at her side, instead of behind her. She even slows down to get behind him when she sees he’s trying to hurry in front of her to keep us from being at his back.

  It’s all done so subtly that I wouldn’t have noticed if Idun hadn’t already planted the seed in my head. Violet doesn’t need her eyes opened, though; she already knows we’re monsters.

  And they’re going to tell her just how terrible we all really can be.

  “Fucking hell. Things are changing too fast,” Emit states, echoing thoughts too similar to my own.

  “We focus on Idun for now. We need to know when her first move is coming before it actually comes,” I tell him, as a text comes through from Damien, giving me Idun’s current location.

  “Now that she’s made her entrance, it
won’t be long before the entire monster world is on edge,” Emit states flatly, as Avery crosses the street to join me.

  Just as Avery reaches me, I tell him, “Call in more men. Violet is now your only priority for the foreseeable future.”

  My phone goes off with a text from an unknown number with a link attached. I click the link, and it immediately takes me to a live video of Idun walking into a house. The screen flips to a new room as she sits down on a decadent chair that suspiciously resembles a throne.

  Her eyes move to the camera, as she smiles tightly. “I figured I’d save you the trouble of having me watched. I’ll be under open surveillance, available to all alphas. Betas and omegas will also have access to this channel for their own peace of mind,” she says, causing my brow to furrow, as I cant my head.

  “Full transparency is what I’m offering to everyone. I’m not asking for anything in return. For now, let’s focus on our own Houses in our own regions, as we once intended to do. My website has everything detailed there about what’s happened since my rising.”

  She keeps her eyes soft, as she tries to shoot for sincerity. My jaw grinds seconds before I laugh to myself at how certifiably insane she is if she thinks this is really going to work.

  “I’m not seeking penance,” she says as if we needed to know that. “I know I don’t deserve that,” she goes on. “But I’ve served my sentence, so please leave my family in peace, as we heal from the wounds some may feel are too severe.”

  “Nice dig, Idun,” I mutter.

  “It’s irrelevant now, because the only way to move forward is to stop fighting about the past,” she adds.

  I idly wonder if she’s not weakened without that necklace, and if she’s trying to rattle us with this just to cover that up. She should be slitting throats and removing heads by now.

  “And,” she says as she smooths a wrinkle out of her dress, while the camera nearest her pans wide to reveal the large room where all the skin walker alphas have gathered, fully hydrated now, “we’re about to hold our first on-camera family meeting.”

  “Are you watching this?” Damien asks as he holds his phone up with a fucking-eh look on his face, while he stalks toward us.

  “Of course I am,” I say as Clive, Idun’s father, steps up to the front of the table.

  “As minutes-keeper of this meeting, I now call us in session.”

  Idun kicks up her feet on the table, as she shuffles a stack of papers in front of her.

  “Let’s begin,” she says with her red-lipped smile.

  CHAPTER 6

  VIOLET

  Month One…

  “And you really think you can do this in five months? I don’t even know if some of the materials can be here that soon, and I need longer to finish up some of the—”

  Jerome’s words stop when he turns around, following my father’s line of view to me.

  I pause descending the sketchy stairs to lift Arion’s bag out of the way and drop it over the edge. Jerome watches me, as his grin slowly grows.

  “Why in the world are you buying and building a hotel, Violet?” he asks by way of greeting.

  “I’m getting it for a steal, so it’s easier to make repairs,” is all I tell him. “When do you think you’ll have the finished outline?”

  “You’re asking for an impossible timeframe here. Something like this can take up to a year or longer just to get mapped out before construction even—”

  “There’s a guy downtown who says he has a design he can easily modify, and even have it ready within a week or two,” I cut in. “I just wanted someone I trust who can make changes as we go, because it’s going to be a lot of work done really fast but very well. I have the best construction crew ever. I need a flexible, hard-working architect to match them.”

  Jerome gives me a look, lips twitching.

  “Always just as impatient as ever, huh, Vi?”

  “You know me,” I say with a private smile, as I meet them in the middle of the foyer.

  Jerome gives me an awkward hug that I return just as awkwardly, and then quickly back away because I hear four deranged alphas coming…who may tear him apart for that.

  Should be fun hiding a bunch of immortals from Jerome over the next five months. Hopefully he’ll stay too busy to notice.

  “She’s trying to convince all the stupid shifters hiding under rocks to come out so she can rebuild her army. This is all part of her ploy to look sane and reasonable. After she punishes them for hiding, of course,” Arion is saying, as the guys walk in.

  Emit is holding a very massive TV and heads off to one of the side rooms where they’ve started setting up. To keep me safe and all.

  Dad makes a frustrated sound, as I loudly clear my throat.

  “We have an architect here. Can you take that new TV show conversation somewhere else?” I ask them.

  Arion moves to me, kissing the top of my head. “Sure, love. Come find us later.”

  Jerome’s eyes follow after Arion briefly, but they widen on me again when Vance distractedly gives me a quick kiss on the head too.

  Damien doesn’t settle for a chaste kiss. His lips are on mine so fast that it’s dizzying, and his arm circles around my waist as I lean into him, momentarily rendered stupid, as he works his mojo.

  He grins and nips at my lips just before I hear, “We have an agreement, Morpheous!”

  Hearing your Mom’s voice, even from a new, foreign body, is the quickest libido killer. Especially when coupled with your father’s disapproving grumbling.

  I quit kissing him, and he grins before slapping my ass and running off. “Violet, we’ve got training class at five,” Emit says as he points a finger at me.

  “I’ll have to miss. I have a lot to do,” I tell him distractedly, and then turn to face him again. “But you can help with the—”

  The door shuts to the room they’ve taken over before I can finish asking for his help.

  “You’re going to want to work on the padded room first,” Shera says to Jerome, drawing my eyes back to the people actually ready to work.

  Jerome is just staring at me like I’ve sprouted a second head.

  I understand his confusion, but I’d rather not delve into explanations about my monstrous love life with my human ex.

  “Sure,” he tells her, even though I don’t even know if he knows what he’s agreeing to.

  “Clear!” Anna shouts just before I hear a whir of electricity.

  A squeal is startled out of me when Ighan comes crashing through the wall across from us. Chunks of plaster violently spray into the room, and I barely get in front of it before it slaps Jerome.

  It crashes to my chest hard enough to force a grunt out of me, knocking a bit of my breath from my lungs. As it falls off me, I blow dust and hair out of my face and glare through the hole that Anna is peeking through, ghost-eyes wide.

  “I said clear,” Anna reminds me, as Ighan laughs like a giggly kid on the floor.

  I can actually feel the electricity humming through him, and I inwardly groan, as I literally watch his stitches start visibly healing. Right in front of Jerome.

  “That’s great!” Ighan shouts, pumping his fist in the air.

  “I-I-I-are you okay?” Jerome stutters, as he grabs my elbow and spins me around in a panic, his eyes way wider than Anna’s were as he looks me over.

  “I’m fine. Just fine.” I glare over at Dad, since this is his fault.

  If Jerome keeps touching me, I’m going to have to deal with at least three possessive alphas.

  Emit will be a coin toss, depending on his mood.

  Jerome releases me when he realizes I’m uncomfortable, and he clears his throat.

  “Well, I’ll get started on this. If you want to stay and help, I’ll get it done faster.”

  I dread the impending argument that will come when they realize how much time I’m having to spend with my ex, and four brooding stalkers will be in the room with me.

  Should be great fun.

&nbs
p; ***

  Month Two…

  “I’ve never seen construction moving at the same speed as design layers, and I have to tell you that leaving no room for error is proving intimidating,” Jerome tells me as he hands me my cup of coffee.

  I pass the sugar once I’m finished, and he absently takes it as he studies his latest draft.

  “I have to hand it to you, though. They catch any potential problems before they happen,” he adds. “It’s all impressive.”

  “They’ve built a lot of homes in their time with far lesser technology,” I say as I glance over the flooring options, smiling to myself.

  “Why are they all so tall? Usually I feel tall, but unless your dad is in the room, I’m the shortest man most times.”

  “Don’t forget Luis,” I point out just as Luis comes to pat my back on his way by, hobbling a little.

  “Why does he have the huge hunch?” Jerome asks me.

  “It’s just something to add to his character,” I state idly, sipping my coffee during my ten-minute morning that I take daily.

  Damien walks through, landing a quick kiss to my forehead on his way by, as he goes to the coffee pot.

  “Can you believe she’s going to cull the cult that’s supposedly linked to feeding her power? The cult who has killed all those Portocales these past centuries?” he asks, not even acknowledging that Jerome is sitting here.

  Jerome is used to this, and believes Idun TV is a pilot show they’re somehow involved in.

  I’ve been creative over the past several weeks.

  “How exciting,” I tell him dryly, as I glance at some of the cabinet choices Jerome scoots toward me.

  “Ooh, I like this grayer one,” I tell him, as several shrieks ring out with the saw.

  Fortunately, they’re far away. Hence my ten minute mornings in this area.

  “And get this, she genuinely thinks we’re stupid enough to buy into all the bad acting. She should have at least hired professionals,” Damien goes on, scoffing as he walks out with the entire coffee pot.

  Good thing I have spares.

  Giving his back a subtle glare, I mask my features and smile back over at Jerome.