Gypsy Freak (All The Pretty Monsters #2)(70)

I see three absent in total I need to find before anyone breathes a word about this.

I carry Violet to the broken, shattered doors of the barn.

“They shouldn’t have buried me. I didn’t do anything to them,” she goes on, hiccupping around another sob, like she’s fighting to get her breathing under control. “I can’t panic. I shouldn’t panic. They panicked me. It was too late. I can’t turn back once it’s started. It was just too late.”

“Shh,” I say again, exhaling harshly as I put her down.

Her arms fall away from my neck, and she wraps them around her legs, as she starts rocking on the ground.

I look back at the carnage still left behind.

She tore them all apart in under five minutes, and for the first time, I notice the pink ribbon lacing through her neck, the skin there already pulling together in a healing process.

She can’t…die.

She can’t panic.

And none of this can be happening.

Worried Arion will be torturing wolves to find her, I start searching dismembered torsos for phones, finally finding one in a shirt pocket that isn’t too badly damaged.

I dial Vance first, and he answers immediately.

“Yes?” he answers with an edge to his tone.

My gaze flicks to Violet as she whispers over and over, “Mom said tell no one. No one. No one.”

Walking away in case he hears her, I say, “It’s me.”

“Emit,” he says on a harsh exhale.

“That’s Emit?” I hear Arion ask with an eerily calm tone. “Tell him I’m going to kill one wolf for every hour Violet is missing, starting with the two who took her, and work my way down to any wolf who smells even the faintest—”

“Violet’s with me,” I tell Vance, even though Arion is the one running his mouth.

“The omegas said she was hurt—”

“She’s fine,” I say as I glance over my shoulder to find Violet staring vacantly out at the woods in front of her, still rocking.

Her pupils are still too small as she rubs her fingers together. “She’s slightly traumatized, but physically fine,” I add tightly.

I hear something akin to a small scuffle, before I Damien’s voice comes over the phone. “Where are you?” he asks very coldly.

I glance around, noting that I’m definitely not in my woods. “That remains to be determined. Put me back on with Vance.”

He curses as Vance’s voice comes back on the line.

“I know you take issue with hurting your wolves, but tonight that changes unless there’s a damn good reason Violet was—”

“A very small portion of my wolves were involved in the mutiny tonight, and Violet was just a token they used. They wanted to restart the wars, and force you to fight within the parameters of the law of heavy exposure.”

“That’s the most half-cocked mutinous plan yet,” Vance growls.

My eyes flick over to Violet, seeing the blood-soaked satin lacing through her neck.

“Yeah. Luckily they fucked up every part of it,” I lie, knowing there’d definitely be hell to pay had she died.

The wars would have started.

Arion doesn’t play nice when things are taken from him.

It’s clear he’s developed a small attachment to Violet.

For the first time, I see the power this little gypsy already has, and an uneasy feeling fills me. Mostly because this gypsy has no clue what she even is, and she’s certainly unaware of the power she’s unintentionally garnered over the three of them.

“But Arion is right, which is hard for me to say. We’re being too lax with her, thinking our name strikes more fear than it does in this era,” I go on, keeping this casual.

“Your wolves don’t know how to properly fear, and I’ve been underground for a fucking century, which debunks a lot of my motherfucking fear factor!” Arion snaps, his calm edge now gone.

“I have three missing,” I say, sniffing the air, smelling their trail. “I’m assuming they’re headed back to town.”

Ian is the only one who will talk, and I already have his trail scented toward the east, moving away from town. He’s running. He knows he’s fucked, and he’s terrified, because I can smell his fear from here.

“Who?” Vance asks on a growl. “I just need a name or face to hunt.”

“You don’t get to touch them,” I caution.

“Now’s not the time for—”

“They’re still my wolves,” I say on a low growl. “No one touches them until I say so.”

Vance exhales harshly. “The punishment better be fitting of the crime,” is all he says before Damien is back on the line.

“Call when you have Violet close to home,” he says like he’s the only one left with any faux calmness.

“Send my omegas to my house. You’ll probably have to look really hard if they were attacked along with her.”

“You really think now is the time for—”

“I had to let the wolf take full control tonight. It was the only way to get us out, because they tried burying us alive. She would have suffocated,” I start, knowing Violet will be stalked and hunted by wolves who feel she’s a threat if I don’t get my packs sorted first.