Unchained Beauty (Deadly Beauties Live On Book 5)

by C. M. Owens

  “She can’t control it,” I remind him.

  “She doesn’t have to. She just needed to learn to own it so she’d stop fighting her very nature. The same thing I once stood behind Alyssa on. I just forgot to evolve with Ella.”

  “Tell me all that when you’ve seen her die a thousand and one times,” I say as I stand and start to walk out.

  “I didn’t know her during all those times,” he calls to my back, and I stiffen. “I’ve only known her in this life, and it’s the only one that really exists. The Ella I know could blow this world all to hell before Hannah knew what hit her, and now I think she has the confidence and determination to do it.”

  I stalk out, journal in hand, just as my phone goes off with a message from Kane.

  “Or she’s got something else entirely up her sleeve,” I hear him say, and I turn as his brow furrows, seeming lost in thought. “That calculative little devil,” he adds before vanishing.

  I’m going to kill him for leaving that mystery in the air. I should have killed him for causing even a brief hesitation in my mind for what comes next. What has to happen next.

  This is the most important day of my entire existence, and so far, nothing is fucking going the way it needs to.

  Fortunately, Kane’s message helps with the most important part.

  Ella will forgive him.

  In the future. I don’t have to see it to know that much is true.

  I land in the hole in the ground where Alton has been squatting, and my eyes drop to the corpse near the entrance. One eyebrow comes up, and I glance over to see Alton staring idly at the remains of the dead dark user.

  “Is it time yet?” he asks me in a hushed whisper.

  “Almost.”

  “How much did you do to my mind?” he asks quieter. “I know you’ve done stuff, but I don’t know what.”

  He weirdly seems to have more clarity today than he’s had. I can feel his mind functioning stronger through our remaining link.

  “I’ve done far less to yours than you’ve done to mine,” I’m quick to point out.

  He nods slowly.

  “Is that a Trout?” I ask him, gesturing to the body.

  “They were a variable you didn’t see. It’s not something you could have seen. It was an unchangeable future that they’d ever come after us without masks or discernable scents,” he says quietly. “I wrote it down so I wouldn’t forget it, because I always forget things, and then I can’t remember what I’m forgetting. But I’ve been having longer moments to remember.”

  “Because I’ve read my journal more,” I say as I open it in front of me, causing his eyes to drop to it.

  “I assumed something similar,” he says, unsurprised. “Our link never really closed, did it?”

  “No. But it was also never as strong as you believed it was, so you’re not losing as much as you think.”

  “I’ve already lost everything else I care about,” he states flatly, eyes on mine. “Now I know there was never anything I could do to save you.”

  I slowly close the book. “But you’ll forget it soon. And when you die, you’ll die thinking you saved my life. Just like you, I make amends by giving you something you need, brother. Even when I hate you as much as you once hated me.”

  Speaking the words aloud to each other is different from anyone else, because we share pieces of our minds. It’s like having a conversation with myself, able to forget all the important parts.

  We just stare at each other as the memories slowly fade, until I forget what we’re even discussing.

  He clears his throat. “Tell me when to arrive.”

  “The second you see me close to Hannah. Just watch from a distance and stay safe until then. Siphoning the power before the last possible moment would be pointlessly suicidal.”

  “Understood,” he says. “After I do this, will I earn your forgiveness?” he asks me.

  I hesitate, staring at him. Ella has made it so fucking hard to cling to the rage I need for just a little longer.

  “I can’t ask more from you than your death in place of mine. If you fuck this up, I’ll never forgive you. But the second you show up, consider yourself forgiven. That way you have my forgiveness before your death,” I tell him as I turn and walk out, hearing him weep to my back like the sad, shattered man he is.

  “I wish I’d been as strong as you,” he whispers to my back.

  My fists clench as I dematerialize.

  Chapter 36

  ELLA

  “I planted flowers today. I’ve officially reached a new low,” Zee grumbles, his eyes glancing over me twice before looking away.

  “I killed a deer several times and robbed an immortal prison,” Kya tells him, causing my eyes to widen.

  She sits up like she realizes her mistake, then clears her throat and looks around. Why doesn’t she start whistling and make it even more obvious, for fuck’s sake?

  “I still win,” Zee says, alarmingly unsurprised. “We need to meet Kane at the rendezvous point in ten minutes.” His eyes flick to me and away again.

  He’s acting suspicious. Or I’m paranoid.

  Our plan has to work without a single hiccup, or we could all die. I’ve never been so sickeningly nervous in all my life.

  “Who’s a pretty daddy’s girl?” Dice asks, as Karma rocks their daughter, distracting me from my own scary inner thoughts.

  The baby sneezes and a few bulbs burst around the house.

  “I’d say the daddy’s girl is going to be a lot stronger than is natural. I thought we were keeping her isolated until we knew for sure she wasn’t going to suck our souls out,” Thad tells them, looking pointedly at Karma.

  “She’s a good girl. She only likes freshly dead immortal souls. So just don’t die in front of her if you don’t want her taking yours,” she says dismissively.

  “Souls? As in more than one?” Chaz asks incredulously as he comes into the room.

  “Well, there were these prisoners earlier, but they were going to be killed anyway for their part in the slave rings,” Karma says indifferently.

  “Unbelievable,” Thad says, groaning as he scrubs a hand over his face.

  Kya snorts. “I can’t believe I used to think you were the do-gooders of the crop,” she states dryly.

  My lips twitch, and I eye my empty glass, staring into it like it’s going to show me the outcome of this fight. Do we save the day? Or does Slade die to accomplish what we can’t? Is it all for nothing?

  “This is where someone usually gives the ‘we’re not human, we’re immortals; it’s survival of the deadliest for a reason’ pep talk to alleviate that little flicker of guilt,” Dice states. Then looks at baby Kicera and adds, “Oh, yes it is. It sure is,” in his very annoying baby-talk voice.

  “That kid will be so fucked up before she’s even five,” Zee says almost in a trance as he stares at the doting, soul-feeding mother, and the hashtagging incubus who thinks it’s cute she’ll fart seduction when she gets immortal soul indigestion.

  “I need a drink,” I say as I stand and get the vodka.

  Roslyn intercepts me just as I reach the bar, eyes narrowed. “I’m literally the only girl who got left out,” she says on a hushed whisper.

  “Only because you tell Thad everything.”

  “They all told their men too,” she tattles, causing Leah to stumble on her way by.

  Then Leah starts walking a lot faster like she’s trying to get away from me.

  “If Zee knew, he wouldn’t be calm,” I whisper so that only she can hear.

  “They told the guys you have a plan,” she whispers back. “That’s all I would have told Thad.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, meaning it, since I never expected her to be so bent out of shape.

  “It’s fine. Kya gave me a role to play and filled me in on all the details.”

  “How’d you find out—”

  “Dice made fun of me and Karma for not hanging with the cool girls,” she says, shrugging and looki
ng away like she’s pretending not to be miffed. “Karma didn’t care, so that means I’m the only one left out.”

  Karma wasn’t left out, but I don’t bring that up. Seems stupid to do. Besides, it makes me feel even guiltier for not including Roslyn.

  Then an unnatural quiet settles over the room.

  A chill slithers up my spine, and I know we all feel it. Roslyn even hisses in a breath as she takes a step back and looks around like she might find a physical source of the power.

  There’s almost a buzz of energy crackling, something far more intense than the last cosmic setting Hannah tried to use. I’ve never felt anything like it before.

  The sun is setting, and the Gemini constellation is rising in the stars on a night when it shouldn’t, in a place we shouldn’t be able to see it, and on a night when there shouldn’t have been any stars at all. It marks the start of where Slade came up with the name for his legend.

  Because the first time he changed the future, there was a second night for a portal. He saw this cosmic night, but didn’t know the exact date, wouldn’t allow himself to know until the time came.

  Until he learned it all on his own all over again, picking up the small pieces of information, using them like he never did in those other timelines, and doing a ripple effect of things that have already changed the future, even though he hasn’t seen it.

  “I guess it’s time. She’s going to hit us with everything she has. We may blow the entire town to hell this time,” Zee says as he stands abruptly.

  “Wouldn’t really be the first time. Real estate just keeps plunging around here, and more immortals keep moving in,” Dice says. Then looks at Kicera, adding, “Oh, yes they do. They just keep on moving in,” in that baby talk voice again.

  “Real glad this is the conversation we have right before going off to face a woman who can’t seem to fucking stay dead,” Chaz says before vanishing from the room.

  I’ve just been listening and sipping vodka, hearing but not really hearing. My mind is taking in the world around me on autopilot, because all I can do is continue to run each possible scenario of our really, really desperate plan. A plan that relies solely on instinct, the very core of our being and the most reliable, resilient thing we know.

  Leah’s the one who pointed out it’s the most reliable, even though the plan seems shaky on the surface. She’s the most logical one of us, and she’s cold logic right now. She’s also the most sure this is all going to work, despite the fact she has the riskiest role.

  My eyes close, and I take a deep, calming breath as everyone’s heartbeats echo in my mind. I’ve walked through the camps full of our soldiers who’ve lined up, familiarizing myself with the signature beats of their own hearts. Every immortal has their own signature.

  Slade used this for mediation.

  I’ve used it for training.

  I’ve smelled harbingers all in the air.

  I’ve watched a thousand and one of my deaths on repeat all day long, reminding myself how strong Hannah is. Seeing her as it happens.

  “Ella, don’t!” I hear Slade shouting when Hannah tosses him aside like he’s an insect.

  Panicking, I stumble, just as the cosmic blast rattles in the sky, shaking the ground and causing the portal to explode.

  Every time that blast comes, it pulses and scatters the stars, destroying that portal, and I finally know why. It’s not Hannah’s variables like Slade thinks. The portal doesn’t open because it’s sealed, but that’s not why it explodes.

  Science doesn’t play a part in that equation. It’s simply magic.

  It’s almost ironic, really, the reason that explosion happens. It’s almost killed me in some of the timelines, yet I felt stronger too. It’s not a piece of our puzzle, nor does it matter in the fight, and I spent so long searching for its cause before I figured it out.

  It’s amazing the things you notice when you stand back and watch things play out in thousands of ways.

  I’ve seen everyone killed, with the exception of Dice and Slade. I’ve never had to watch him die. He always survives to see me die. Well, so long as he was in the visions.

  I’ve seen this version of the present he’s spent so long creating, versus the alternate future it could have been, and he hasn’t just saved me; he’s saved everyone.

  But the thing that has killed me the most to watch is Slade breaking in a thousand and one ways, sobbing and roaring in pain as he holds my lifeless body. It’s broken my heart over and over, and I’ve made myself watch it every time.

  It’s reminding me why I can’t fail him tonight. It reminds me what he’s gone through for so many painful centuries. It reminds me of the promise I’ve made to myself.

  I won’t do that to him. I can’t.

  Wiping away a tear from my eyes, I clear my throat, letting myself remember one more time.

  “Ella, no!” he shouts, diving to me too late, holding my limp frame until suddenly there’s laughter in the air, and Hannah looks at Slade with my eyes.

  He drops her and scrambles back, as the skies turn black and the laughter rises. She steps over a witch’s lifeless body, the body she used to grow stronger in before she found the new one she wanted—needed.

  I can almost see it in her eyes—my eyes—that she no longer even cares about the Lokies. She tastes my untapped power, feeling so much stronger than she expected.

  She’s not in a witch who felt weak when she took her over. She’s not fused to just her mind anymore.

  She killed my soul, and took a body meant for a different monster with the power to rule.

  Everything changes, and I can barely glimpse it before the memory fades, his loop restarting on my eighteenth birthday.

  That was the last time I died.

  She always came to life in his arms.

  She always laughed at his tears.

  She’s taunted him for too long.

  I see it like I’m looking through a window of the past instead of a possible future that never came to pass. I see me as a person I’ve never met, but still know in so many ways.

  But our very cores are so far apart, because we’ve loved two very different men, and have grown in two very different ways. She loved the soft, romantic, and gentle survivor who wanted to do everything possible to save her life.

  I’ve fallen in love with a man who has ripped out half his soul just to siphon its power, suffered unimaginable pain because of his love, and has done everything possible to save me. Just as he’s stronger, so am I. Otherwise, I sure as hell don’t deserve him.

  I throw back the last of the glass of vodka, drinking it down.

  Thad startles me, causing me to look over my shoulder as he props up just behind me at the counter.

  “Whatever you’re doing tonight, make it count,” he whispers.

  “No idea what you’re talking about.” It literally took Roslyn five minutes to sell us out, and she wonders why we didn’t tell her.

  “Can you kill Hannah?”

  My lips tense. “Not without killing myself, so I can’t personally be the one to kill Hannah,” I tell him honestly, but decide to withhold the rest.

  “Then don’t do it,” he tells me seriously.

  “I have to try.”

  “What good does it do if you can’t kill her?”

  “The less you know, the fewer variables Kimber has to work into her weird math she calls science,” I answer.

  He blinks at me, then turns and walks off, shaking his head as he goes.

  I release the breath I’ve been holding and start to dematerialize, when there are suddenly two very familiar arms around me, spinning me, and lips crash to mine.

  In a moment of weakness, my arms go around Slade’s neck, and I kiss him back just as desperately. I’ve been wishing all day that I could go to him, but knowing—

  My back hits a wall suddenly after feeling like we’ve dematerialized, but when I open my eyes all I see is him. My lids flutter shut again, and I start trying to pull his shirt off,
feeling my heart beat so hard that it wants to explode as the first tear drops free.

  He pulls back abruptly, his eyes shimmering in silver with such a sad expression. His forehead presses to mine as he cups the back of my head, holding me there.

  “I’ve tried to reverse it. Tried to get my vision back the way I had it just so I could see if there was any other way,” he says so softly. “But long ago I realized this was the only path I could take, and I made it irreversible to keep me on the path when I’m weak. Like I am right now.”

  My eyes burn with fresh tears trying to fall, and I keep him close, feeling his lips against my forehead.

  “I’ve loved you in a thousand and two ways now,” he adds, just as my eyes land on a set of bars when I finally manage to take in my surroundings.

  Panic flares in my chest. “What the hell?” I growl.

  His journal is open in one hand, but he closes it before he puts it into his back pocket, and my eyes dart to his.

  “Slade, listen to me. I’m not going to die,” I assure him, feeling his thumb swipe a tear from my cheek as his gaze searches mine.

  “I know you’re not,” he murmurs, lips ghosting over mine. “Because I’ve worked too hard to be strong enough to die in your place to let you die now. I couldn’t change the event, but I could change the variable—the one detail that matters.”

  “Listen to me; you can’t leave me in here,” I tell him. “You changed the future in more ways than you realize—”

  “I only care about one,” he whispers, lips still teasing mine.

  He isn’t even listening, even as I cling to him and he just lets me, while the tears start falling from my eyes. “I know, and I wouldn’t do that to you. I swear. I gave up on the forest when Kimber couldn’t figure out a way for me to survive the internal nuking. I won’t die in front of you this time. Just please, please trust me to try to save you,” I go on, my tears falling harder.

  His eyes are so soft, so different from the usual rage festering there. And for a brief moment, I just know he’s going to say yes.