Gypsy Moon (All The Pretty Monsters #4)(51)

The next strike hits her right behind that one, not even giving her time to breathe between rounds.

“How do we make it fucking stop?” I shout as Arion tries to get close, but he gets knocked back by the next hit.

With a grunted curse, he hits the ground as effectively as I did, when yet another strike seems to come at an impossible angle, literally seeking her out.

All the while, her tortured screams leave us helpless.

“Bloody make it stop!” Damien shouts, shoving at Vance, as the storm whirs louder around us, small pieces of the somewhat intact plane still flitting down like forgotten debris.

Vance starts toward her and stops, when the next bolt rains down on her as well. Violet’s shouts fade into silence, her mouth open in a soundless, pitiful scream, until her body goes limp.

The storm eases as the thunder dulls, and Violet collapses to the wet ground, barely managing to get her hands out in front of her face before it takes the brunt of the impact.

Arion beats me to her by a fraction of a second, and her head lazily lulls to the side. The vampire hisses out a breath and jerks back his hand. A spark at his other hand has him making another expression of mild pain, but he grinds his teeth and deals with it, as the sparks trickle from her in ebbing currents.

Violet limply reaches for Vance, who snags her away from Arion. She clears her throat, as she gives us all a weak thumbs up, even as that violet rim has expanded to nearly take up most of her eyes. “The seatbelts were exceptional,” she says through strain.

Vance makes a humorless laugh, and I shake my head, as Violet gives us all an unconvincing, tired smile. “Next time, maybe just avoid the storm,” she adds as her eyes roll back in her head and her entire body goes slack.

I snatch her out of Vance’s arms, and I cradle her unconscious body to me again. Vance wisely lets me keep her, since I’d likely bite any hand that tried to pry her away in this moment.

“That might have been the most pain I’ve felt while conscious in quite some time, and it was just a taste of what she experienced just now,” I state quietly, gingerly running my lips over her head, as just the tiniest bit of electrical currents tingle against my touch.

I’m aching all over from the lightning bolt wallop.

“We question her resiliency too often and too easily,” Vance says, drawing my attention to him, staring on at the remaining pieces of Fiona.

Damien snaps his leg into place as if to punctuate just how severe this all could have been.

“She has the most painful feeding curse of anyone,” Damien says so quietly I almost don’t hear him. “It was almost like watching the lightning from that night’s storm that awoke Bobo and the others from their deaths.”

“It makes a man feel stupid when the answers to the nagging questions have been glaringly obvious all along,” Vance says on a tired exhale.

“She’s soft when her guard is down. She’s damn near unbreakable when it’s up,” Damien adds, jaw grinding.

“I’d prefer to never witness that again, so a full weather report will be added to Shera’s daily tasks,” Arion chimes in, looking idly around the airplane. “On another note, so long as I learn to land a plane, I’ll already be an exceptionally better pilot than Vance.”

“Do you have any idea how damn fine of a job I just did?” Vance asks Arion with narrowed eyes.

Arion glances over at the smoking wreckage, quirking an eyebrow. “Not really, no,” the vampire quips in a very genuine tone.

“Fuck’s sake, Arion. It wasn’t me who crashed the plane; it was the—fuck it. Never mind,” Vance says, sighing in exasperation as he pulls out his phone. “I’ll have someone come take care of this and pick us up.”

I start walking, feeling the need to do something, as Violet remains unconscious in my arms, the rain growing colder and colder.

My footsteps pause when the rain turns to powder-soft snow, and gently trickles down on us.

Arion moves beside me, eyes intently on Violet, as his breath puffs out in a fog in front of his face.

A howl in the far distance, along with the familiar scent finally cutting through the smoke from the plane, quickly tells me what territory we’ve just crashed into.

Arion stares off in the direction of the howl, twirling a strand of Violet’s hair around his finger, as he keeps stride with me. In a wry tone, he says, “Now that we’re here, let the fun begin.”





CHAPTER 15





VIOLET


“You’re insane if you think I’m leaving her at the Morrigan Estate in these parts,” is the first thing I hear Arion arguing when I come to.

“She’ll stay in neutral territory—the Van Helsing Estate,” Vance states dismissively.

“That’d be a fine argument, anywhere but at the estate your father runs,” Damien chides in a dry tone, sounding very close, as fingers gingerly stroke through my hair.

“She’ll be perfectly safe,” Vance states like he’s defensive on the matter.

“And completely cut off from the rest of us,” Emit growls.

“Well, she’s sure as fuck not staying at the local House of Morpheous or House of Jessup,” Vance says, causing me to groan.

Everyone stops talking at once, and something crackling gathers my attention, seconds before a chill slithers over my skin.