Unchained Beauty (Deadly Beauties Live On Book 5)

by C. M. Owens

  I look away from the pages, swallowing thickly and taking a calming breath. Then brave the pages again, as Kimber rubs a soothing circle on my back with her hand.

  When you need reminded the most, you’ll start to remember, and then you’ll come here to remember it all. You’ll also realize why you don’t want to remember it for long, because the variables have to stay in this position in order to execute the carefully laid plans you’ve put into action.

  You’ve loved her over a thousand different ways, but she can only know one. When the time finally comes, she needs to hate you so you can show her how much you loved her all along.

  By letting her live without missing you too much. Without the loss tearing her apart.

  And without her willing to risk it all to save you.

  You’ll make them believe you want Hannah dead for the rings. But if she possesses your mate, she’ll truly be able to rule the world. You’ve seen it begin too many times, as I’m sure you’re remembering right now.

  You’ll hide this journal. You’ll keep it safe. And you’ll find it when you find yourself questioning everything you think you know.

  The best way to ensure you succeed in killing the demon is to learn the important parts on your own, finding the insignificant details that actually carry great significance after all. You’ve pragmatically extracted the memories to seal inside this journal.

  You will not escape the prison, not until the appropriate night.

  All five times you find yourself able to escape, you will not. It likely results in your immediate death, because you never see yourself in her path again, and she has to die because you’re not there. There’s no way you wouldn’t at least be there with her when she faced her death unless you were dead already.

  “So all his visions centered directly around me, following my life from eighteen until I died, over and over, after he did whatever he did to tether his visions to me,” I say aloud, as though I’m finally processing that.

  “The concentrated power it would have given his visions is an important factor in being able to watch the same future play out in a multitude of ways, while actively changing things to try and directly affect the end result,” she agrees.

  You’ll wait until everyone can escape, and that’s the night you leave. Any sooner, and you won’t be alive or strong enough to stand in her place on the day she’s meant to die. Your torment ensures her future, and you’ll endure it for her.

  You’ll work alongside her, but not with her. You’ll fight the temptation, no matter how hard it hurts. You’ll help her along, giving her the answers you don’t even know you already have, letting her discover the paths you want her to find.

  She can’t know the truth.

  When you let people into your mind, they’ll see the manufactured truth. As far as they’re concerned, you’re a broken man in desperate need of a peaceful rest in death. It’ll give her just enough hope, without ripping her to shreds when the light is extinguished, because in the back of her mind, she’ll know this was how it always had to end.

  Your mind will continue to influence Alton’s mind, so long as you believe the truth you’ve created, instead of the truth you’re hiding.

  You’ve done all the math. This is her best chance of surviving.

  She’ll still love you, even if you manage to make her hate you.

  She always loves you.

  Don’t hurt her more than necessary when it happens. Let her at least enjoy it for the short time it lasts.

  Just don’t forget how hard she can love you, because if you let her, she’ll die in your place all over again, and all the wasted time you could have had with her after being freed will have been for absolutely nothing.

  I don’t have to tell you that you’d simply rather die. Make sure she’s not left with that same void by being a man she can’t love so hard.

  There will be two versions of truth unfolding all around you, but you’ll be the only one to know what really has to happen. You’ll be the only one who knows the true hopelessness of it all.

  If there were another way, you’d have learned it by now. Don’t waste time looking for other options. There aren’t any. You’ve exhausted that avenue of research thoroughly.

  She unknowingly spent centuries saving you. You only have to save her for a little while.

  The story you’ve manufactured about your bond with your brother—that you’ll die in his place so that he’s forced to live to keep your death from being in vain…the story you created that was never really about him. The story he thinks is true and will likely share…

  It’s a story for her to understand later.

  Like everything else, it was always about her. She’ll live so that your death isn’t pointless. She’ll live because of you. That’s all that’s ever mattered to you.

  Your death will have purpose. The only purpose worth dying for.

  You’ll be death itself, designed to eliminate any threat to her while you breathe free air.

  You’ll be the monstrous creature they never should have forged, because they underestimated just how far you’d go for her.

  You’re no longer the man you’ve known. You’re no longer the man she’s loved in a thousand future lives that have never truly happened. You’re no longer the man it would crush her to lose.

  You’re Slade.

  Slade’s the monster.

  She’s the princess.

  Reading this when you feel weak makes you start to remember why you needed to forget.

  You wisely removed these memories to remove the variable of hope.

  Hope is dangerous for a man like you, because you always end up watching her die when you start to hope. This is you breaking the cycle, and changing a future that has never ended any other way.

  This is you finally saving her the one time it matters.

  Now remember your plan. Stick to the plan. Only the plan.

  Because this is all for her.

  The rest of the pages are filled with formulas and random names, battle times, things we’ve already done that seem to have been added more recently. I’m not sure how I know it’s been recently added, but it’s as though I can sense it.

  Kimber is silent at my side, as tear after hot, scalding tear rolls down my cheeks. I lower the book, putting it face down on the bed with it still open, and just stare out the window.

  “Was there a formula in there for the way he shows people the memories in his head? Like he did with Kya and Gavin?” I ask, my voice quiet.

  “I think so,” she says, sounding a little confused. “But even if you managed to channel his memories, you’d only see what he’s allowed himself to see for no telling how long. Ella, this is something he started long before Calypso even existed, if some of those little numbers in the corners are dates. It’s a huge—”

  “I don’t want to see the memories he’s carrying around,” I tell her, clearing my throat, lightly tapping the journal’s hard cover. “I want to see the memories you said were infused with these pages.”

  “I’m not even sure if you can do that unless you manage to tap into your own dormant visionary powers, assuming they even exist, and—”

  “Not me. You’re going to show them to me, because you’re the smartest person I know, and I need to see this,” I tell her, my eyes meeting hers. “I can’t understand unless I’ve seen what he’s seen.”

  She looks at me with those pitying eyes again, but no growl forms to warn it off this time.

  “Ella, you’re asking me to duplicate something a master at vision has done. Slade literally narrowed his ability to only see things pertaining to you, and limited what he was able to see. He siphoned off the rest of the magic and somehow channeled it to advance his more offensive powers so he could grow stronger. Then he did it again,” she says like she’s explaining something crucial.

  “You were a child prodigy visionary,” I remind her.

  “And now the closest I get to a vision is a migraine,” she snaps. />
  “I’m not asking you to see the future. I’m just asking you to use everything you know about the power you’ve thoroughly studied, and put it to use right now. Channel those memories to me. Just like he does when he shares memories.”

  “You’re asking me to walk down a road that is intriguing me too much. I couldn’t stop reading that journal even as I begged you to. I’m already close to being obsessed with this.”

  “Good,” I say, causing her to groan. “If you’re obsessed, then we’ll be on the same page. I need answers, Kimber. You’re the best person I know at getting answers, and there are answers here.”

  I pat the back of the book again, emphasizing where here is.

  “If you want my help, I need to know everything that got you to this point, Ella. Tell me what’s been going on, because you’ve been as much of a mystery to me as Slade since he first arrived all those months ago.”

  I don’t hesitate to tell her everything, starting with how familiar he seemed from the very beginning, just his voice and his presence, even though I’d never met him before. I tell her a lot of things I shouldn’t, including Karma and Kya raising Dice from the dead, and how hungry it left the baby after the joining.

  I tell her about ripping myself to pieces with my shifts, and how I’ve spent months thinking I was on the verge of challenging Mom, which results in her eyes almost popping out of her head.

  “All of that was because of him,” I explain. “It was my instincts screaming for me to save him, but since I felt wrong for wanting that so much, my beasts rebelled against me, I think,” I go on in a broken whisper.

  Angrily, she snatches up the book, muttering a few curses, and starts flipping through it.

  “Who am I kidding? I’ve been obsessed since you said it was Slade’s journal, because we know nothing about him, and you’re getting your rocks off daily with him now,” she confesses petulantly.

  It’s possible these equations might have the answer to restoring her own visionary side, but I don’t bring it up, because I’m worried that she’ll become fixated on it, even if it’s not possible.

  She can fixate on things with answers and be okay, but not things that never end with anything but more questions.

  She grabs a sheet of paper and starts writing.

  “What are you doing?” I ask, confused as she scribbles over something and starts over.

  “Science disguised as math, or so I’m told,” she deadpans, throwing my words back at me. “I’m recreating his formula with my personal specifications, hoping I’m doing something as delicate as transferring memories from those pages to our minds, a feat I never even thought possible before this moment. And the math has to be exact, or I could accidentally throw one or both of us into a coma for an indeterminate amount of time. And I’m doing this tedious, absurdly difficult task with you quite literally breathing down my neck.”

  I glance down, realizing her neck is directly in front of my mouth as I peer over her shoulder, and I clear my throat while backing away and trying to give her some space.

  I’m not sure how long it takes her. I’m not sure how long I simply stare out the window, envisioning what kind of man goes through something like this for a girl he’s never even met.

  It’s not the man who introduced himself to us. Not the man who instilled fear and commanded dread. He reinvented himself into the man capable of what he is now with the partial purpose of shoving me as far away as possible, and I still had to fight with myself to stay away from him.

  For so long I’ve been in denial.

  In retrospect, it makes sense that my powers got wilder, stronger, and more unpredictable in his presence. It was all those buried instincts I ignored realizing what I didn’t want to see.

  I thought I was a horrible person for wanting someone so vicious and cruelly unapologetic. Someone who openly stated how badly he wanted to kill two people loved by two other people I loved.

  Someone who put Leah in a box and beat her until he almost killed her. Left her for dead. Someone who truly wanted me to hate him, so he only allowed in the rage for centuries so he could harness the power only anger and fear provokes the fiercest.

  All along, he wanted the rage that consumed him to allow him to do whatever it took to ensure I stayed away.

  I felt torn, and I felt like I was betraying everyone.

  Now I feel like I’ve spent months betraying a man who literally let them cut him to pieces, and stayed conscious so he could only allow his body to heal enough to survive. He was so determined to live that he survived a death sentence over and over and over, all so he could die in my place.

  The vast majority of his life has been dedicated to the sole protection of me, and it almost feels selfish to risk dying just to protect him as fiercely as he has me.

  “Are you okay?” Kimber asks softly, as I wipe away the last tear I intend to let fall until I decide what I need to do.

  “Yeah,” I say distractedly. “You figure it out?”

  She gives me a look that doesn’t exactly appear confident, but it’s close enough.

  “Okay, so theoretically, this is going to feel like a memory bowling ball.”

  “A what?”

  “A memory bowling ball exploding in the central cortex of your brain, to be more precise,” she adds, not exactly helping with the confidence factor. “To me, it won’t be so bad, but considering you’ve never dealt with visions, it’ll hurt like hell. Do you still want to—”

  I give her a look. “You read what he went through for me. I can handle a bowling ball explosion.”

  She nods, then says, “So the ball of memories will slam through your head like a jerky pin-ball machine, and that’s when it starts hurting. Then the memories will pretty much explode inside your head, flying at you in dismembered fragments, before sealing together like a vacuum, which will be the most excruciating part.”

  “Just do it,” I tell her, then prepare myself mentally as I close my eyes and hold out my hand.

  “I’m not sure why you’re holding out your hand, but I need you to understand something before I do this.”

  Lowering my hand, I peek open one eye. “I can handle the pain. It’s the least I can do, don’t you think?”

  Her face stays straight and she hesitates. “The memories will feel like they’re happening if you don’t force yourself to focus and remember that it isn’t real. It’s second nature after doing it for a while, but in the beginning, it’s easy to get lost and forget. Okay? Just remember it isn’t real, even if you have to say it aloud like a crazy girl on a horror film.”

  I nod, just ready to get it over with.

  “Okay,” she says on a harsh breath. “I’m sorry in advance if I accidentally suspend you in a state of nightmare delusion instead of transferring the memories. Don’t worry, I’ll fix it if I do. Just remember it’s not real,” she says quickly, and my mouth opens just as her hands land on my head.

  Pain shoots through me like a live wire of electricity, and it feels like I’m seeing a thousand lives play out in front of me in one burst of surrealism. From a thousand ways he could have loved me if he’d remained the man he used to be—the man before the rage and bitterness he affected just to save me.

  Us falling in love in a thousand different ways.

  A thousand and one to be exact.

  Then I’m pummeled by pain so intense that I feel like I’m convulsing as the taste of ash causes me to gag. For a brief moment, I’m seeing through blurry eyes as someone digs into my chest, tearing me open.

  But it’s not me. “It’s not real.”

  Far more than a thousand and one times, it’s not me they’re ripping apart. It’s not me enduring this agony. It feels like I’m stuck, unable to move, unable to fight back, and a pained roar vibrates in my ears.

  My breath comes out in a rush as I vomit, my hands digging into the ash and dirt beneath me as I stagger to my hands and knees, pushing up. Disoriented, I cry out, seeing a low, blurry sun instead of the cage
and the harbinger who was just digging into me.

  And then I vomit for a whole new reason.

  Slade. I was in Slade’s head. In his old memories of him siphoning that extra power while his body tried to heal, transferring it, growing stronger as they tore him apart.

  My eyes dart around, finding pieces of flickering ash floating around, and I quickly stagger to my feet, wondering where the hell I am.

  Then realize I’m in the center of a forest, and for at least a mile in a perfect circle around me, there’s nothing.

  Nothing but me and a pile of ash.

  My heartbeat starts hammering as fear claws its way up, but then Kimber pops her head out of a portal like she’s checking on me, and I collapse to my knees, relief filling me when I see she’s okay.

  She climbs all the way out, warily watching my eyes. “I got you out of the house when you started convulsing. Are you okay?”

  The fresh memories still ripping through my mind allow me to be anything but okay, but I suck it in. I begged for this. I needed answers. Now that I have them, I’m more confused than ever about what to do.

  “In the back of my mind, I’ve had Kya and Karma as a failsafe plan,” I whisper, my mind still stuck on the memories. “Selfish motives even had me starting a feeding chain for the baby so the baby would be strong enough to survive without draining Karma after the rejoining.”

  The pitying look she gives me has me fighting back the tears.

  “Hannah possesses me every time, no longer content with sharing a body with someone, since she can’t move into the Lokie dimension and go forward with that plan,” I go on so quietly. “She destroys my soul from the inside because I fight her so hard for control of my body and mind, but she’s stronger.”

  A vague, almost ridiculous thought crosses my mind for a brief second, and I store it away.

  “She hasn’t ever destroyed Morgana’s soul because she’s not planning on keeping that body, and her soul might fuse with it if there’s not another already tethered to it,” Kimber states on an annoyed huff. “It’d make her a hell of a lot easier to kill if she was fused to a body.”