Changing Beauty (Book 2) (The Deadly Beauties Live On)

by C. M. Owens

  Fuck a duck. This just keeps getting better.

  “Great. Any chance we can survive and hide in another plane if a different dimension comes in a starts a feeding frenzy?” Karma asks. “Because I’m too young to die.”

  “And I’m too pretty to die,” Dice adds.

  “Once they gain access to our ground plane—the breathing plane—most creatures will be able to access all the other planes as well,” Chaz tells us.

  “Got it. Gloom and doom unless we find the big bad boom,” Dice says while clapping his hands together once.

  I grab an anointed sword, testing the weight of it, and feeling myself transported back centuries ago when my name was a loud roar in the stands. Even as a mortal I was controlled and forced to relish the kill when they forced me into the arena for their entertainment—to the death.

  Maybe life has been preparing me for this.

  “I need to go back to—”

  Kimber’s blood-curdling scream cuts my words off, and has all of us spinning around as she clutches her head, swinging her elbows as she backs away from everyone. Gage panics, trying to reach her, but he suddenly drops to the ground as though he’s unconscious.

  What the hell?

  Kimber’s eyes are screwed shut as she battles whatever in the hell is going on inside her head. Fighting it as though it’s tangible. Ella starts to go to her, but staggers back when some invisible force hits her like it hit Gage, unable to do the same damage it did to him.

  “Kimber! What is it?” Ella yells, trying to reach her over Kimber’s screams.

  Suddenly, the screams stop, and Kimber’s arms slowly move down her body as her head comes back down. A wicked smile tilts her lips seconds before her eyes open and shock the hell out of us all.

  There’s no color—her eyes are just solid white and glowing, and Ella takes a cautious step back.

  “Kimber?” she asks, but Kimber doesn’t answer.

  “Kimber is a little busy right now,” someone else’s voice says. Guy? Girl? I have no idea. The tones change, moving from deep male to feminine on almost every word.

  “Get the fuck out of my daughter,” Drackus growls, launching himself forward, but Ella grabs him before he ends up on the ground beside Gage.

  “Tsk. Tsk,” the body snatcher taunts. “I’m just the messenger. You’ve heard the phrase, ‘don’t kill the messenger,’ haven’t you?”

  “What the hell do you want?” Chaz asks, standing up from the table and covering the book with his body, as if he’s subtly blocking it from view.

  “I don’t want anything but your blood. However, Master wants the wolf. The wolf belongs to us, and you can retrieve her.”

  Roslyn.

  My entire body tenses as dread creeps up my spine.

  The body snatcher pulls out a necklace from thin air and tosses it to the ground, letting it slide to Chaz’s feet.

  “Once you get my wolf, that pendant will show you where to go to make the exchange. You have four hours.”

  “What exchange?” Chaz asks, either stalling or genuinely interested.

  I don’t want anything they fucking have if it means handing over Roslyn.

  The body snatcher smirks as a portal forms behind Kimber, and my eyes widen seconds before Kimber disappears from sight, and the portal seals itself.

  “NO!” Drackus and Ella yell in unison, launching themselves toward the portal, but it’s too late. She’s gone in less than a breath.

  “Fuck!” Zee roars, slamming his fists against the bar and splitting it down the middle while Gage remains unconscious. “How did they possess her? She had on her anti-possessing necklace!”

  “It wasn’t a demon possession,” Karma inserts.

  “What other kind of possessions are they?” Dice asks, serious for once.

  “That was a psychic link. I could see two visionaries inside Kimber’s head. We already knew there was a visionary involved, and we knew they were powerful. Strong visionaries can link with other visionaries, especially weaker ones,” Karma goes on. “Kimber has had me studying possessions, and I ran across that during my research.”

  “We can’t trade Roslyn for Kimber,” I tell them, feeling my blood rushing around in panic.

  “Of course we can’t,” Chaz says, scrubbing a hand down his face. “They’ll use her to collect anyone, and they can just come in and make demands whenever they please. But we need to devise some sort of plan, and I have an idea.”

  “Sadie,” Ella says immediately, moving toward us. “Sadie can look like anyone and fool magic barriers that could detect imposters. She did it for months when she pretended to be Grandma.”

  “Sadie’s a little pissed at us at the moment,” Zee reminds her. “I doubt she’s going to help us get back one of the people who aided in her torture.”

  That sparks a feud as my mind rushes for answer.

  “I said I have a motherfucking plan!” Chaz barks, stepping in between them. “And no one call Alyssa. Now more than ever we need to keep our silence about her, and Kane has to be there to keep her safe. She’s already grown weaker.”

  “You’re not using my daughter,” Reese says as he moves toward us. Hell, I forgot he was even here. “You have no idea what they put her through. She won’t survive a second round of their abuse.”

  Chaz’s eyes soften, and I stand beside Reese, agreeing with him. I love Kimber, and we’ll get her back, but we’re not using the girl I’m in love with to do it.

  “I don’t want to use her, Reese. I have a plan that will work without her. It just might… raise a few questions about me that I don’t want to answer. And no one will ask those questions. Got it?”

  Karma eyes him, taking a deep breath, and I notice she’s the only one who’s not confused about that request.

  “Like what?” Ella asks, just as befuddled as the rest of us.

  “There’s a question I don’t want to answer. Where’s the necklace she threw?”

  I look around on the ground, just as everyone else does, but there’s no necklace in sight.

  “Where the fuck is Drackus?” Reese snaps.

  My heart leaps into my throat, and I run to the door, only to be launched backward the second I attempt to breach the outside. Weightlessness consumes me as I smash into the table, destroying it on landing, and I curse while hopping back up.

  “I can’t dematerialize,” Karma says, straining as though she’s trying.

  “That son of a bitch locked us in here,” Chaz hisses.

  “I can get us out. I just need a few minutes,” Ella says while moving toward the door.

  We might not have a few minutes, and I’ll kill Drackus if Roslyn ends back up in their hands.

  Chapter 36

  ROSLYN

  A storm crackles outside, and it’s not a natural storm. It’s also not my storm.

  Mom’s eyes meet mine, and she groans as she leans back. “Drackus,” she whispers. “Or Ella. More than likely, though, it’s Drackus.”

  Dray frowns as he moves toward the doorway. “Definitely Drackus. Why would they send—”

  His words are cut off as Drackus suddenly appears in front of the house, and he maintains his distance from the magical barrier.

  “I don’t have long, and I need your help,” he says, his eyes locking on mine through the broken window.

  Thad. They went for Thad.

  Panic seizes me as I rush outside, but Mom grabs me by the arm before I leap off the porch.

  “What do you need?” Mom asks, barely able to restrain me, and only able to do so because I don’t want to risk hurting her by fighting too much.

  “Nothing from you,” he says with sad eyes before meeting my gaze again.

  Then my eyes fall down to a familiar pendant, and more memories from the past assault me. Memories of tracking down innocent people as a form of exchange to get what they wanted. And I was just their tool.

  “Who did they take?” I whisper, looking back up. “Is it Thad?”

  He shakes
his head, and a wave of relief washes through me.

  “It was my daughter—Kimber. She’s been through this before as a child. I know I have no right to ask, but I need your help getting her back. I have a plan.”

  I see the pain and tears in his eyes, and my own eyes water because it makes me think of how hurt my father would be if I was taken again.

  “Obviously I hate this happened to your daughter,” my mother says. “But you can’t expect to trade my daughter for yours. Roslyn’s two years were two years of torture. And I consider us even, considering what was just done to me.”

  Drackus tightens his lips as the sins of my past roll to the forefront of my mind, sins that need atoning for.

  “I know what I’m asking is dangerous,” Drackus says on a weary sigh.

  “It’s more than dangerous,” Dray interjects. “If they get ahold of her, they can track down anyone whose blood they have. There has to be a better way to retrieve Kimber.”

  Drackus looks over his shoulder, then back at me. “I don’t have long before they catch up. Thad and the others don’t know I came. Thad will probably attempt to kill me when he figures it out. But I really do have a plan, and it can work if we stick to it.”

  Mom bristles beside me as Liza steps out onto the porch.

  “A plan isn’t good enough, Drackus,” Liza tells him. “There are too many things that can go wrong. Especially without one of the creature gods with us.”

  “I can’t risk Ella, and Alyssa and Kane can’t be a part of this. Trust me. And then duck for cover when I use too much magic.”

  “You’re willing to risk yourself?” Dray asks him. “Because if you lose it without someone to ice you, you could be in a world of pain and lost for a while. Where’s Calypso?”

  “With Alyssa. You know why she’s there, and you know why I can’t ask her for help. Alyssa needs her more than I do.”

  Dray starts says something else, but my decision has been made, and the words exchanged seem to drown amongst my own thoughts.

  “I don’t know how to work this thing,” Drackus says to whatever Dray has said or asked.

  “I do,” I whisper softly, taking a deep breath.

  I swore I’d die before I went back. But I also knew this day would come.

  “How?” Dray asks, taking the locator pendant from Drackus so he can study it.

  My eyes meet my mother’s, and she knows without words what I’m about to do.

  “No!” she barks, but’s it’s too late.

  I dematerialize, grabbing the pendant on my way out, and I move too fast and too stealthily for her to keep up. I can travel farther distances in this state than she can. Than anyone can. Especially now.

  I rematerialize close to Pine Shore, taking only a few minutes where it will take the others at least an hour to catch up, and I hold the pendant against my pulse in my wrist. It wanted me, and it has my heartbeat.

  It lights up immediately, and my head is thrown back as images swirl in my mind. A map scrawls out behind my eyelids, and I pull it away once I see the destination.

  My hunch to return to Pine Shore was right. They’ve been right under our noses the entire time.

  There’s no plan. There’s no hope of escape. There’s no hope of survival. There’s just a sense of peace surrounding me, because I know I’m doing the right thing for the first time.

  This time, I’ll go down in a fight. They’ll kill me before they break me again.

  I make it to the edge where the woods start before the road stretches into Edgebrook, and I stand on the spot where the map told me to, still clutching the locator pendant in my hand.

  “So Thad’s human girlfriend is the wolf?” a familiar voice asks, and I spin around to see the face that matches the voice.

  Alex? The guy Jenny was taking home from the party the night Wendy… Oh damn. I forgot that was all real.

  “You?” I ask, completely confused. I never saw him.

  “Someone had to replace Gavin when the Queen’s circle got him. I just happened to be one who is smart enough to get on the strongest side.”

  He reaches behind him, and orbs form over my hands.

  “Easy, hybrid bitch. Just getting something for you to put on.” He pulls out the familiar metal collar, and my gut sinks as he tosses it toward my feet.

  I spent so long trying to break free from its hold.

  “Put it on.”

  My eyes snap up and narrow on him. “That’s not how this works. Where is she?”

  He smirks before Kimber suddenly appears at his side, her hands bound and her mouth gagged. Her eyes meet mine, looking all too much like her own. But I’m not stupid.

  “Get it out of her,” I tell him. “I’m not putting on that collar until that thing is gone and she’s in control of her own body.”

  He clutches his chest, mocking offense. “Look at her eyes, hybrid. She’s in control. Now put on the collar.”

  “If she was in control, she’d be fighting. No daughter of Drackus would be looking as scared as she does right now. Get it out of her or I will.”

  Kimber’s eyes lose the panic, and the binds on her disappear as a dark smile graces her lips.

  “I actually love this body. I think I’ll keep it for a while.”

  They always did underestimate my abilities. Then again, I never wanted them to know the level of power or knowledge I held.

  “I’d rather see you evicted.”

  Her eyes widen, and a scream bubbles out as a searing sound emerges. Alex curses before launching an orb at me, but it hits my barrier that is not going to hold long. He’s too strong to be a dark user, damn it.

  Kimber drops to her knees, still screaming as white smoke flows from her lips, and I continue pushing power out of me, branding her skin without touching her. The mark slowly etches onto her skin, forming on her neck as it crisscrosses and comes to life, crawling into the patterned circle with a Celtic symbol.

  Her head drops, and when she looks up, I see the fight in her eyes. “Don’t!” I yell just before she spins to knock Alex’s feet out from under him. His fist slams into her cheek, sending her sailing into the woods, and I take a deep breath, knowing I can’t react without losing my barrier.

  “Let her go. That was the deal.”

  He scowls at me. “What did you do?”

  “It’s rare to see someone walking around with that, but when you stare at stone walls for a year and a half, you learn to be very observant once you get pulled out for walks. I saw that mark more than once on anyone who had a psyche that could be linked to. Think I was too stupid to figure out what it meant? I was just on a leash, so I couldn’t use it.”

  My brain has been so fuzzy, focusing on all the damage I did instead of the details. I could have prevented this from happening, but I was consumed by my own guilt.

  But I can fix that. I can give Thad his family back, and he can seek vengeance without fear of someone using her against them again.

  “Put on the collar. Or I’ll kill her right now.”

  He has the power, and right now, Kimber is unconscious on the ground, vulnerable to any attack.

  “I’ll put it on,” I tell him while picking the collar up, stalling, hoping she wakes up.

  Her head lifts, and her eyes widen as she points behind me. I never even get to see what it is before black speckles my vision, stealing my consciousness before my legs give out.

  The last thing I see is Kimber vanishing through a portal, and a small smile graces my lips. I won.

  ***

  ROSLYN

  I’ve always hated getting knocked out. Sure as hell never been a fan. I also hate waking up inside a stone wall with chains all tethering me to the ground, but I knew my fate when I walked into the trap.

  They just didn’t expect me to take away their one token of leverage they had over the others. That small victory is enough to keep me sane right now.

  I beat them.

  Groaning, I sit up, sliding against the wall as the chains
rattle around my wrists. It’s not the same cell I was once in—I had every stone in there memorized. There are different cracks in here, but to the untrained eye, it’s almost the same.

  “Wakey Wakey, pup,” a voice says.

  I guess they plan to talk to me this time. Great.

  “Already awake,” I mumble as the door to my cell opens.

  I don’t have to look up. I smell the leather of the whip. I suppose it’s probably an anointed whip now.

  The collar lies beside me, meaning they’ll beat me before they put it on. Or worse. But I retreat into the back of my mind to a better time and place before the first lash slices across my chest.

  I don’t cry out, because I’m not here. I’m in Thad’s arms, and I’m staring at his smile.

  The second strike hits me across the stomach as the chains jerk me higher, forcing me to my feet. But it’s all dull noise in the background because Thad is kissing me, telling me he loves me instead of me interrupting him. And I’m telling him I love him back before pulling him inside.

  By the fifth lash that strikes across my face, I’m smiling, because Thad is taking my blood while I writhe beneath him, letting him consume me and take away the pain.

  This time they won’t break me, because I have something to hold onto. They can hold my body here, but my mind still has the ability to escape.

  Chapter 37

  THAD

  “How unoriginal is Master?” Dice asks as we follow Reese in his wolf form, moving quickly through the forest.

  “Not now,” I growl.

  “I mean, really. Master? It’s so cliché, and the lack of pronouns really pisses me off. Why couldn’t they have said she needs the wolf? Because you know it’s a bloody woman.”

  “Dice!” I snap, glaring over at him. “Now is really not the fucking time.”

  “I’m sticking to calling her the big bad or monster evil. Master,” he scoffs, disgusted. “It’s a horrible hashtag too.”

  I grab him by the throat, and toss him to the ground.

  “I said not now!”

  He scrambles back to his feet while glaring at me.