Unchained Beauty (Deadly Beauties Live On Book 5)

by C. M. Owens

  “You really step back and take a look at how much perspective plays a part in how you view the people in your life. A strange girl leaves me to die, and I fear she’s been looking in my windows. You tell me you’ve been peeping, and I get little stupid butterflies,” I grumble.

  He makes that warm, gruff, laughing sound, his arm going around my shoulders. “She’s under a blood oath. She can’t harm you,” he finally says. “I told her I’d let you kill her eventually.”

  Again, somethings really should not be romantic. But I’m not killing Simone unless I have to.

  “Will you tell me how the hell your mother created that forest?” he asks, causing me to laugh before I can stop myself, and he turns to give me an unimpressed look.

  “Purgatory residue, basically. She designed a core that drew all that power to it, and it became a part of that forest, sealed inside to become its own entity.”

  “Rather anticlimactic now that you’ve explained it, but incredibly intriguing process of thought. How’d she do it?” he asks.

  “Her magic,” I state flatly, causing his eyebrows to lift.

  “You really don’t know me at all if you think I’m capable of rattling off one of those long equations. It’s still all just magic to me,” I dutifully remind him.

  I must say the magic words, because his arms go around me and pull me to him before he kisses me. Simply standing so close to him has already put the beasts back into hiding, even though I ache a little to fully shift.

  “Everything I do is because of you,” he murmurs against my lips, then deepens the kiss before I can call him out on being sweet again.

  He pulls back abruptly, smirking as his eyes grow a lighter silver. “Come on. I know a better way to train you.”

  Chapter 26

  ELLA

  Stepping into the new location Dad has procured for us over the past couple of days, I look around, finding the place…odd.

  Everything is very flowery.

  Dice’s back is to me as he concentrates really hard on stacking up some dominoes. No wonder Slade used to think we had no focus. Okay, so maybe he still thinks that, but Dice really shouldn’t be the reference point of our group.

  “What’s with the floral patterns everywhere?” I ask, startling Dice into knocking over all his dominoes.

  “For fuck’s sake, woman! Can’t you see I was almost done?! Why the hell don’t you assholes just use the door?”

  “If you hadn’t been in here, I would have thought I was in the wrong place. Did someone bring my stuff?” I ask, ignoring his tangent.

  “No, someone didn’t bring it. I brought it,” he grumbles. “Karma’s pissed at me, then I get demoted to bellhop. All because of you.”

  “Me? What’d I do?” I ask incredulously.

  “You walked in and became the person I blame for all my problems,” he says as though it makes all the sense in the world.

  “Got it. So my stuff?”

  “Upstairs. First room on the right. Don’t know why it matters since you’ve been staying furry with the scarred menace the past two weeks,” he calls to my back as I dematerialize up the stairs, checking my phone as I go.

  “Stop calling him that,” I call down. Then add, “And by the way, staying furry with Slade is helping me get a lot more control over my power.”

  That’s a bit of a stretch, but the new technique is working wonders for my hope levels that one day I’ll have control. Plus, there’s this heartbeat meditation exercise that is actually quite genius.

  Turning, I walk into the room, and I stumble over my feet when my eyes land on the bed. “What the hell?” I say under my breath, spinning in a circle as I take in the room.

  Quickly, I turn and jog back down the stairs, just as Dice says, “Sure it’s your control that has had you howling from the woods.”

  “Who picked that room for me?” I ask him urgently, causing his brow to furrow.

  “Me. What’s the deal? We’re only going to be here a little while before things get real,” he says, sounding a little serious for a change. “Hey, can you give me a lift to see Karma?” he goes on.

  A little creeped out, I decide not to go back up to that room just yet, since it looks exactly like the daisy-covered room I saw in that weird vision of Slade and I. The one where we were laughing and happily lying naked on that bed as we stayed lost in each other.

  I thought I’d touched one of his fantasies somehow, and it broke my heart and warmed it at the same time. But how did that room come to be?

  He had no scars in that image, so I know it’s not real. A dream, maybe? But how could he possibly have dreamed that exact room?

  “Ella?” Dice says very seriously, eyes on me again.

  I expect him to finish with something ridiculous, so I grumble, “Yeah?”

  “I think something is wrong with my kid,” he tells me quietly.

  My eyebrows furrow. “What? Why?”

  He gestures at himself. “I’m an incubus. That kid will be half me. Karma is half demon half human. It means the kid will be one/forth of each to complete the other half. Karma looks more drained than Alyssa right now.”

  Going over, I actually rub my hand over his back soothingly, and he clears his throat while blinking and looking away.

  “Dray would have already told you if something was wrong with the baby, Dice. You know that.”

  He nods almost absently. “You’ll see. Give me a lift.”

  I dematerialize us to the safe home, landing inside a room and startling Shay—er, I mean Abigail—and Frankie.

  “Where’s Karma?” Dice asks, immediately panicking.

  “In here! Don’t you dare freak out on me again!” Karma shouts from down the hall.

  I give Dice a weird look.

  “She projectile vomited blood across the room,” Frankie tells me very quietly, and my stomach twists in a knot.

  “Kya and Karma fused together when we were captured, and something has been wrong with my baby ever since,” Dice tells me, whispering as his eyes fill with—

  “Damn it, Dice! Stop telling people this before they try to hurt our baby!”

  For fuck’s sake, why am I listening to Dice? He’s a drama queen and I can never tell when he’s screwing with my head.

  I hurry down the hall, glancing in on Mom to see her resting peacefully with Dad curled around her, his hand on her stomach. It feels a little weird to watch them sleep, so I move on and push open the door just as Karma’s sunken in eyes meet mine.

  She really does look entirely too weak.

  “Did Dice really make you come here to see me like this?” she snaps.

  I suck in a sharp breath when I see her stomach as rounded over as Mom’s. Karma looks weak, her body almost a grayish color, as Dray sits at her bedside, his eyes meeting mine.

  “What’s going on?” I ask him.

  “This started happening right after the last visit you paid your mom. The baby began growing at an accelerated rate, and—”

  His words cut off when Karma kicks him, then cries out as she drops to her back like it hurt her to do that. A lone tear rolls down her cheek.

  “My baby is just growing faster,” Karma tells him, lower lip trembling.

  “Why hasn’t anyone called me?” I ask, going to drop by Karma’s side as my hand goes to her belly.

  I can feel the power coursing through the womb, almost as though the baby is collecting all it can.

  “What could you possibly do?” Karma says on a broken whisper. “The fewer people here to see me like this, the fewer people will think there’s something wrong with my baby,” she adds angrily, glaring past me to Dray.

  “I need to get some supplies from the back. Stay here with her until I return,” Dray says to me as he vanishes in a puff of smoke.

  My eyes return to Karma’s, and I stand to shut the door, seeing Dice at the end of the hallway, his eyes imploring me for answers I don’t really have just yet.

  “I almost feel like I should ask S
lade if he’s ever seen anything like this, but I’m afraid he’ll try to kill us if it’s something bad,” Karma whispers so softly that I almost don’t hear it.

  “He’d never kill a pregnant mother,” I assure her, though that’s about all the assurance I feel as I sit down next to her, hand going to her womb again.

  Karma’s eyes flutter shut, and my brow furrows more.

  “This started after you joined together with Kya and raised the dead, right?” I ask her.

  Karma’s eyes fly open as she gawks at me.

  “Kya told me. Dice is still himself despite dying, other than the fact he’s not hashtagging right now because he’s worried out of his mind about you,” I go on, feeling the baby actually sucking my own energy right from my palm.

  Holy shit, the baby is—

  “The baby is part succubus.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You feel the baby sucking at my power right now, right?” I ask.

  “That’s new. My angel must need more than I can give,” she says, sounding so tired.

  I’m not sure I’d call a demon/incubus spawn an angel, but…

  “Karma, it’s like you’re not powerful enough to feed the baby on your own. This baby is more powerful than you, and I think it’s because you and Kya might have increased her appetite after using the power it would have taken to raise Dice.”

  Her eyes bounce open and dart to mine. “My baby was in my body. Kya joined me in my body, and I don’t know what I did to my child when that happened. I didn’t mean for it to happen, but—”

  “I think joining with Kya made the baby even stronger, because your life force is connected to hers. Don’t ask me to explain all this, because unlike Slade, I just know it’s magic, and it gives me more imaginative answers.”

  She blinks at me. “I’m Karma. Not Kya. Why bring up Slade? The only reason I don’t hate Slade right now is because he took care of my sister, but that doesn’t mean I want to sit around discussing him, and I certainly don’t want him knowing anything about my baby.”

  The baby sucks a little harder, like she’s not getting enough from me, since I’m not exactly experiencing strong emotions right now.

  “Dray hasn’t said anything about this,” she goes on, even as the baby continues to draw from my energy.

  I barely feel it, but it’s like Dice when he’s siphoning our lust straight from us to fuel himself. Most of us don’t notice, but I do. At least I have over the past few months.

  Please don’t be a Type A succubus, baby Dice.

  That’s not supposed to be an issue until immortality hits and they feed too much. But as babies?

  “Babies don’t normally feed like us, but she is. I think it’s because her powers demand it, since she got a taste of it. Kya fused with you. The baby siphoned off the two of you while you were a combined powerhouse, and now she’s stronger and possibly has to stay stronger.”

  “She?” Karma asks, sitting up as I feel something deep inside me, closing my eyes to feel it better. “How do you know it’s a girl?” she goes on, emotion catching in her throat.

  “I can feel her,” I state vaguely, unsure how I even know, but it’s like the baby is latching on, grateful to be draining something other than its mother. “Has Dice touched your belly lately?”

  “I haven’t let him since this jumped up to level five fear factor for everyone.”

  My eyes look around, and I start wondering just how much this cosmic night for opening portals and killing demons is also affecting the babies. Especially a baby who fused with two powerful twins while accomplishing the impossible.

  “Dice needs to know what you did. What she did,” I tell Karma quietly, causing her to frown.

  “He’ll freak out and start worrying his dick will turn into a zombie dick or something. I can’t deal with that right now,” she says so seriously, seeming exhausted.

  Snorting back a laugh, I keep my hand on her stomach, seeing her eyes growing heavier as the baby continues to lightly steal from me instead of her. “That feels so much better,” she goes on.

  “Frankie,” I call out loudly, planning to start a feeding chain.

  “You shouldn’t be touching her. She’s fragile,” Dray hisses as he reappears in the room, and I quirk an eyebrow at him as Karma snores softly.

  His eyes bounce from my hand to her face. Her color and appearance isn’t bettering, but I can feel the break she’s enjoying from the baby’s appetite.

  “Mom has been strong enough to give her child whatever it needs. Karma isn’t. The baby is happy to latch onto anything else right now, so someone needs to sit at her side and help out.”

  “That makes no sense. The mothers are always strong enough to help their children, even though they sometimes need a little help, but the baby can’t draw from outside sources. They’re just mortal. It’s their buried immortal souls soaking all this up for the time to help them prepare—”

  “Don’t need an immortal anatomy lesson, Dray. I get we’re different from humans, even if we do spend time as semi-mortal. Most all of us have powers before we turn immortal, and some have even been known to have to feed that power as mortals, just as we have to immortal. This baby is just one of those.”

  “But that doesn’t make sense,” he argues.

  I grab his hand and yank it to take the place of mine, and he sucks in a sharp breath. “You feel it too, don’t you?” I ask him.

  His eyes light up, and a small smile curves his lips.

  “How is she doing this?” Dray asks.

  “You know it’s a girl too? Can you sense Mom’s baby the same way?”

  “No. There’s no contact to the fetus like this. How does a fetus know to do such a thing in order to stop draining the mother?” he asks, eyes on mine like he’s looking to me for answers for once.

  “The same way animals grow restless when they feel a threat coming. The same way I know I’m going to be needed in this fight and the helplessness has left my beasts in a frenzy until I started garnering control. The same way a night stalker knows to drink blood, even if abandoned by his sire before the completed transition.” My eyes hold his as I add, “Instinct.”

  “I’ll be damned. Karma is really sleeping hard, and it’s the first time she’s slept in over a week,” Dice says as he peers in, relief on his face as he unknowingly interrupts. “What’d you do?” he asks me.

  “You have a hungry succubus on your hands,” I chirp vaguely as I stand and clap him on the shoulder.

  His eyes land on the belly, seeing Dray’s hand there, and he closes his eyes and inhales. “She’s feeding?” he asks incredulously, his eyes popping open and landing on mine. “That’s not good. Not this soon.”

  “All babies feed from the womb,” I remind him.

  “Not from others,” Dray stupidly points out. “This is a first for me.”

  “The baby is stronger than the mother can be, even with a dark angel at her side to help her body mend at accelerated rates,” I remind him. “There’s nothing wrong with her, because she’s doing all she can not to hurt her mother when there’s an alternative.”

  Dice is immediately on the bed. “We’ll talk about you knowing how it’s a girl after I try to give her some of my energy,” he growls. “I’ll feed my baby.”

  He sticks his hand on Karma’s belly, and Dray removes his. Karma stirs, almost waking up, and I pull Dice away, allowing Dray to put his hand back.

  “Why didn’t she feed from me?” Dice snaps, watching as Karma settles back down, never fully waking up.

  “Possibly because she’d rather suck dry someone other than her father,” I point out.

  I’m particularly glad Slade will no longer need Kya and Karma to fuse together and save his life against his will, since now I see with my own eyes that it could never happen.

  It’d turn the baby into a constant succubus, unable to shut it off. And she could turn into something like Jeremiah.

  I hope that’s not already the case.

&nb
sp; “I need to go. I’d suggest rotating. She’s only taking lust, and that taps out quickly.”

  “Not from me. I’m made of the shit, because I feed on it—”

  “Go feed,” I interrupt Dice, looking directly at him. “Let it rumble off you and see if the baby will take from you then. You look as exhausted as Karma.”

  “It’s hard to feed like normal when everyone is scattered so far and wide,” he confesses.

  “I really have to go now,” I tell him, then dematerialize from the room to land in the woods.

  “You left to get clothes and a book, and you return empty handed,” Slade says, pressing against my back the second I’m solid.

  A small smile tilts my lips when he starts kissing his way down my neck, slowly running his hands down my sides.

  “Had some family matters to attend,” I tell him, letting my head lull to the side as his lips burn a trail down the column of my throat.

  Then the daisies enter my mind, and I clear my throat, even as he continues to run his hands all over my body.

  “Did you know I was from the future?” I ask distractedly as he starts kissing across my shoulder, taking advantage of the spaghetti straps. “When you first started seeing me?” I add.

  His lips pause, and he moves to be in front of me, letting his eyes rake over my body as I step into him. His arms wrap around my waist, dragging me closer.

  “You wore pants instead of the customary, modest dresses women of my time wore, and had light switches. Yes, I knew you were from the very distant future,” he tells me absentmindedly, running his finger along my lips. “Why?”

  His silver eyes settle on mine.

  “Just curious if your fantasies every involved future settings, or if you fantasized about me in your time instead,” I state misleadingly, unsure why I don’t just tell him about that flash of a vision.

  “Bit of everything were in the fantasies,” he says with a smirk. “Lots of time on my hands in there. There was one particularly randy fantasy where you came in the cage and fucked me while I was still chained down to affect your dominance over me before freeing me,” he adds, forcing a small, unbidden growl out of me.