Unchained Beauty (Deadly Beauties Live On Book 5)

by C. M. Owens

  Shifting so much in such short intervals, while fighting with your own mind has to be excruciating. Her next scream as she shifts back has me opening my eyes, even as my heart thuds in my ears.

  “She’s trying to get control. She’s doing all this alone,” I go on, a slight growl to my tone as I sit up, then lean back again, feeling antsy.

  “I guess it’d be nice if she had someone who’s already gone through all this to help her out, wouldn’t it?” Kane asks a little bitterly.

  My eyes narrow on his.

  “Tell me you want me to be the man your daughter ends up with for all eternity. I dare you,” I scoff.

  “I like you even less than Drackus liked me when he learned I was drinking from his daughter’s body,” he says with a scowl. “But I clearly don’t have a say in the matter.”

  “Where’s Gavin?” I ask him again.

  He groans. “Swear you won’t kill him or return to kill him or kill him any time during his stay in our custody,” Kane says on an exasperated breath.

  “No. But I swear I’ll try not to,” I concede.

  He gives me a dubious look.

  “How are you going to convince him what you say is true when none of us could?”

  “Let. Me. See. Him.”

  He studies me for a moment, then he leans over, picking up his phone. I hear him call Gage, and the dark user appears in the room, arguing animatedly right in front of me.

  I use the free time to close my eyes again and watch as Ella lies on the ground, her body curled, denying another shift as her eyes flicker from black to silver.

  She’s exhausted even the darkest parts of her. Her eyes seem to find my direction and stare right at me again, haunting me with that helpless, hopeless gaze as her eyes stop flickering and stay a dull silver.

  My eyes open just as Gage glares over at me. “Don’t make me regret this. You don’t get to do that to Ella too.”

  “You talk like you could actually hurt me, when we both know you don’t stand a chance,” I say with a dark smile.

  He takes a step forward, and I remain seated, leisurely propping my feet up.

  Kane pulls him backward, and Gage blows out a frustrated breath as he turns his back on me.

  “Taunting is a little inappropriate under the circumstances, don’t you think?” Kane bites out.

  “I’m not the good guy, remember?” I point out rhetorically.

  Gage stalks out of the room, banging the door against the wall on his way out, and I swing my gaze back to Kane.

  “Nice chat. I’ll let you know where the battle will be. Do no prep work on the location when we have it. Plan from your safe house. Relay all messa—”

  “Are you seriously telling me what to do right now?” he asks.

  “If you want to beat Hannah this time, you’ll listen to me. Relay all messages through physical people behind soundproof walls. No phones. And don’t tell a soul until the battle is actually here.”

  “What if Gavin knows where to find her now? We could ambush her,” he points out. “He’s somehow free from his blood oath, but he’s not talking until he’s sure Morgana will be one of our priorities. It’s his only bargaining chip to save her.”

  “Hannah wouldn’t be stupid enough to do that, but some things she can’t change. He’ll know how she thinks, and he’ll be able to pinpoint the location based on the information I have. Clock is ticking.”

  I turn to walk out, and he calls to my back, “What happens to Ella when you die during this battle?”

  The words are quiet, barely spoken, but it feels just as electric as a venom-tipped whip cracking on my back. I shouldn’t be so surprised that he’s gathered this information.

  He’s a far more calculated and knowledgeable male than I’ve credited him thus far.

  Looking over my shoulder, I arch an eyebrow. “She has all of you.”

  “I couldn’t live without Alyssa,” he answers, eyes staying on mine.

  “You’ve had longer to bond,” I state, bristling as I walk out and hurry my steps to the angry dark user who is leaned against a wall. “Make sure to tell her I helped betray her when she learns about all this,” I add without turning around.

  Gage glares at me as he grabs my shoulder, and we dematerialize. When we reform, we’re in a cell, and I fight to remind myself it’s not my cell.

  Then my eyes land on Gavin who is chained just like I once was, and his eyes come up to meet mine. He doesn’t even seem surprised as he looks over to Gage, and I focus on not killing him now, remembering I have a much bigger end game than him.

  “You guys are really fucking batshit crazy, aren’t you?” Gavin asks his brother. “Him? He’s going to kill me now, and there’s nothing you can do but watch.”

  Gavin laughs humorlessly, his head falling back as he shakes it.

  “I want every name who preceded Hannah’s,” I tell him.

  “The ring runners?” Gavin asks on a snort. “Sure. Why the hell not. They’re all dead anyway.”

  My jaw grinds. I already knew as much, but hearing it aloud makes it more real. Steals more of my revenge from me.

  “I’ll settle for proprietors. The ones who helped fund it. The ones who contributed. The families of transporters and informants… Surely they’re all not dead,” I bite out.

  “I have hundreds of files I planned to use as blackmail so that I could get Morgana far away from here when I got her back. But hell, fucking take it. At least if they’re dead I don’t have to worry about them coming after us. Only one bus station in town, and I have locker four thirty-nine. Everything’s in there.”

  “Don’t make this too easy, Gavin. I have things I want to do to make you talk.”

  “You can’t touch him,” Gage growls. “Trust me, it doesn’t work, and it’ll give him a chance to escape.”

  Gavin just continues to laugh, almost hysterically. “He doesn’t care, Gage!” he shouts. “Let him. Go ahead. If this is my only chance of saving Morgana—his fucking help—then it was a pipe dream from the fucking beginning.”

  “I said I’d try to save her, and I will.”

  “You’ll vaporize her body to eject Hannah,” he growls. “Her soul will be cast out—”

  “If I could kill Hannah inside Morgana’s body, I would, but I don’t have enough power to do that. However, Morgana’s memories—everything about her and you and everything you’ve ever meant to her will be gone. Not her body. Her mind will be sound, and healthy, unlike what will be left of it if it’s intact. But resetting her mind will eject Hannah, because for just a split second, the body will be momentarily dead. And Hannah needs her alive.”

  He sits up a little, eyes watering. What is with all the fucking watery-eyed males lately?

  “She won’t remember me?”

  “No, but she also won’t remember spending all this time trapped inside her own body, likely rocking in the corner of her mind somewhere, while Hannah controlled her. It’s the reset that ejects Hannah, but it’s one shot. I have to hit her at the exact right spot with all the power I plan to siphon, and when Hannah is ejected, I channel the rest into her spirit. Killing Morgana’s body and soul does nothing to kill Hannah. She’d simply escape and immediately possess someone else until she found a new body. This is our chance.”

  “Why not just tell us that to begin with?” Gage asks from beside me. “We could have delivered all the information.”

  My lips tug in a smirk. “Because I couldn’t have done this.”

  I’m across the cell so fast neither of them see it coming, and my hand grabs Gavin’s head. He roars in pain as centuries of tortured and abused memories flood through his mind, all of them toppling over each other, letting him see all that was done to me. All he helped them do, no matter the price.

  I show him what I plan to do, letting him see what happens next as I know it. I let him feel the pain I’m feeling now. I show him the monster he’s helped to create.

  He thrashes under me, and I fling out a hand to st
op Gage from doing something stupid. The dark user crashes into the bars, and I hold him there, using my power like a blockade, while channeling the rest of the memories at Gavin.

  As soon as the last one finishes, the one of Ella so lost and alone in the woods, I pull my hand back, and he pants as he jerks back away from me.

  His heavy breathing is the only sound in the room, and I release Gage, since he’s not fighting, letting him stare at his brother in confusion.

  “You cost me mine so you could have yours. Morgana’s body will be intact, but she’ll be terrified of you without her memories. She’ll eventually learn all you did, but she won’t know you enough to forgive you. That’s the price, and you’ll pay it.”

  “How?” he asks, laughing bitterly as he spits out a little blood. “You’ll be dead.”

  “Trust me, I’ve been plotting everyone’s torture, adjusting where necessary. This will be yours. Seems fitting, considering what you helped cost me.”

  He struggles against the chains, dead eyes condemning me to hell the way mine once did his when he watched them torture me through the bars and took notes for Hannah. Or when he tortured me himself with the werewolf-claw glove Hannah designed specifically for me and Alton.

  I failed to kill him more than once.

  Before I start to walk out, Gavin starts laughing bitterly, and I turn to look at him.

  “I’ll take the deal,” he says, spitting blood out again. “I’ll make her fall in love with me all over again, no matter what you do.”

  I wipe blood off my hand, feigning boredom as he drones on.

  “You think you’re the only one who has suffered, but I’ve been a prisoner for centuries. I’ve barely lived at all outside of some prison, including a blood oath that confined me to servitude to do things most wouldn’t survive witnessing. And I’d do it all over again,” he bites out, yanking at the chains. “Because unlike your arrogant, pathetic, selfish self, I’d do anything for Morgana. And she’s not even some cosmic-bound mate to me. Go plan your funeral, monster. I’ll be plotting my future. Who really wins?”

  My fists clench, but Gage dematerializes us from the room.

  “Go back and get the new portal location,” I say before I yank away from him and dematerialize myself to the bus station.

  Ripping open his locker and scaring the shit out of two women, I pull out a thick file. Just like he said, he has names, proof of involvement, details on their involvement.

  Under it, I pull out what looks like a really old journal, one just like mine. This one is dating back centuries, and when I pick it up, I see it’s really a ledger. That’s why it looks like mine.

  One of the other prisoners swiped it for me when the guards walked through with fresh ones, and I managed to kill the guard who raped her when he came in to torture me. I would have killed him regardless, but letting him know why he was dying was my payment to her.

  Fifteen more ledgers appear like they’ve been spelled to be hidden unless activated. Then more appear. And more…

  Cursing, I grab the trashcan beside me, drawing curious gazes as I dump all the trash out, including the bag, and start catching the ledgers when they begin spitting out, too many of them to have been physically placed in such a small space.

  I lift some of the ones with the oldest dates—dates nearest to my capture, and open it as the others continue to rain into the large trashcan.

  “Sir, I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to stop doing whatever you’re doing,” someone says as I read the first few names on the pages, seeing the ones marked alive.

  The ones who funded them. The ones who helped them hide their tracks. So many more names than I was expecting. It’ll take forever to get through these lists, and this is just one of the ledgers.

  Damn it.

  First there weren’t enough to kill, and now there are too bloody many of them.

  But one name draws my attention above all others, and I tilt my head as I study it. He was my father’s friend. Or so we thought.

  Johnathan L. Trout. Lawyer in the human world. Informant on powerful beings and their whereabouts.

  I flip the page, finding his wife’s name as another informant.

  The books have stopped spilling, so I grab the trashcan and the strays, then dematerialize back to the cabin. I put my hand over the trashcan, and the books vibrate until the next in order pops out and flies to my hand. Each book seems to only cover half a century, but some of the names and families are likely to be in all the books.

  John’s daughter and son were also informants and transporters.

  Another book flies, out, and I open it.

  Seems like his entire family tree has joined the family business.

  Befriending people, learning their secrets, learning their powers…then selling them to rings, paid by the funders who wanted power, and given to the sadists for testing and experimentation to the Anointed—our shared enemy. The cycle continues, even after the original offenders were put down by the hostile new men—immortal men—in charge.

  John’s family helped to transport my own to the rings. Why can’t I remember them?

  It’s like it didn’t even put a hiccup in business when the ownership of the rings changed hands. The only thing that changed was the agenda, and it looks like the funders had more to do with the agendas than the actual runners of the rings, until Hannah.

  It’s daybreak before I’m done speed-reading my way through centuries of accumulated names, many of whom are still alive, and I blow out a breath as I stare at the wall across from me.

  I’ll never kill them all in time and be ready for Hannah, yet I’m doing nothing but sitting here, staring at the wall, avoiding the thing I know I want to do most.

  Finally, I lower my eyelids, finding Ella back at a house I haven’t seen before. Must be the safe house.

  She’s kissing the top of her mother’s head before rubbing her belly. Alyssa looks surprisingly well, considering she has a relentless leech draining her from the inside.

  Kane is sitting across from them, and he shoots Ella a sad look.

  “Sorry we went behind your back,” Alyssa says on a heavy sigh. “But I think it’s a good compromise that Slade worked out.”

  She had nothing to do with it, yet she’s still taking partial blame. This was all Kane and I.

  “Yeah. No worries. I had planned to go behind your back, so we’re even. Are you good? Need more pillows or something?” Ella asks.

  Alyssa clears her throat and sits up. “Ella, I think we need to talk.”

  Kane walks out, and I pay more attention.

  “Not now,” Ella tells her, patting her hand. “I’m really tired and just want to sleep for a while. And then we need to focus on Hannah above all else. You look good.”

  “I know you’re different. We’re always different, constantly evolving with each generation,” Alyssa presses, causing Ella to look away. “But I still understand, Ella. Your blood is still my blood.”

  Ella holds her gaze for a second, then lets out a shaky breath. “You know how when you peer into a soul, and you can see if there’s something worth saving?”

  “You mean when I’m not being drained magically and physically?” Alyssa asks with a small smile.

  “I can’t do that,” Ella says seriously, and Alyssa’s brow furrows as I exhale harshly. Because that’s my fault.

  All she’s tethered to.

  “Chaz always explained to people we’re not monsters using that as a means of proof our kind was judged by archaic guidelines, yet I don’t have that ability. When I’m the monster, I’ll hurt anyone.”

  “There were times I was so lost that I did the same thing, Ella,” she assures her, patting Ella’s hand.

  Ella pulls back, clearing her throat.

  “I’m always lost with everyone but Slade,” Ella explains to her, causing a stone to settle on my stomach. “He’s the only one who I trust myself with, because I’m no longer me at all when I lose control now. And it seems lik
e he’s the only one who does know who I am.”

  “Ella, we know—”

  “I don’t mean it like that,” Ella says, waving her off. “I mean the other side of me that he always handles. The side of me that disappears before harm is done. The side he sees and doesn’t fear, when everyone else, including myself, is terrified of what I might do.”

  Just as Alyssa starts to talk, Kane walks back in, and Ella shakes her head.

  “I really want to talk about anything else,” Ella states.

  Alyssa looks like she wants to say more, but instead, she rubs her stomach. “She’s not draining me so much right now. It’s like she’s full but just waiting on the right time to come out.”

  “Stop calling the baby a she until you know for sure it’s a girl. Just because we usually produce women, it doesn’t mean this is going to be a girl too,” Ella says, forcing a lighter tone that doesn’t do anything but add to the tension.

  Kane starts to speak, but Ella talks over him.

  “I should go. I told Thad I’d meet him and Roslyn for a run before I crash. It’s been helping a lot,” she tells them vaguely, not revealing the hell she’s been putting herself through for mere seconds of more restraint.

  Opening my eyes, I go over to the computer and print the list of addresses I could locate with the access Kane doesn’t know he gave me to the ‘royal’ data base. It’s why I insisted on meeting him in his office to discuss the new terms with the dragonites.

  I didn’t expect Gavin to hand over these names as easily as he did, but I did expect to get them.

  I take the first list of names, then I grab the next fifteen pages of names. It doesn’t even cover the first book.

  The jar of blood from the dragonite floats through the room at my request, and little glass vials all appear. As I continue looking over the addresses, I flick my wrist, and a single drop of blood goes into every vial.

  The vials vanish from sight, and I lift the jar, taking a much larger sip than necessary. It goes down smoothly, and I screw the lid back on, putting it aside.