Dark Beauty

by C. M. Owens

  “Then fey are also breeding with other fey, unaware most of the time that they’re creating other half breeds,” the girl interjects. “And they are ending up in the rings. Young, scared, and impressionable, they’re being molded to fight a war. Believe me when I say they tried to fuck with my head. If you’re lucky to find an old mentor to teach you the true way of the world, then you keep your sanity. If not, then you end up brainwashed and ready to kill for beliefs you don’t really have.”

  “Holy fucking shit,” Gage says on an exhale, still holding me up with his strong arm while running his free hand through his already disheveled hair.

  “I need to call Alyssa,” Dice says while walking away, keeping his back to us as he heads into the back room.

  I’m numb. This is my fault. I opened those gates, even though it wasn’t by choice. Thad could have fought them if he hadn’t been worried about keeping me alive. He could have escaped, but he knew they’d use me and drain me if he wasn’t there to save me. They would have tried their damnedest to only use one gate keeper, and I would have died failing.

  He should have let me die instead of allowing those damn gates to be opened. There’s no telling what else escaped.

  “How could we not have known this?” I ask hoarsely.

  Just this morning, I thought I knew more about this world than most ancient ones. Being oblivious was not on my fucking agenda.

  “Because the fey world elders wouldn’t have tolerated such abominations to exist,” the girl says with a shrug. “My kind were condemned for lack of purity in the old world. But more importantly, we interrupt the balance, and in a lot of ways, we’re better versions of the true fey. There are countless combinations of fey that can be created. Sheila told me most of this. She was my mentor.”

  It would have been really fucking nice if she had told me. I thought this girl was an anomaly, not the makings of a new era.

  “So they want you because you can sense fey?” Gage asks, trekking on in the conversation while I still try to steady my reeling mind. He’s forced to hold me up as dread consumes me.

  “That and the fact that I can possess any fey, whereas true demons can only possess fey if the fey is extremely weak. My flesh ties bring me closer to the breathing world because I have true existence on this plane as opposed to having a true existence in hell.”

  “Guess we’re getting some new tattoos,” Dice says while rejoining us, warily eyeing the girl who just confessed she can possess any fey.

  “Why not try to possess us instead of using your doll toys when we got here?” Gage asks, clearly suspicious of this girl’s claims.

  “Because I said I could do it. I never said that it was pleasant or easy. It hurts like a motherfucker to possess fey, and it is a little time consuming. It’s not like I can leap into your body and control it effortlessly. It would take me days to even fully control you. I’m still young, jackass. How badass were you when you were new to immortality? The second I could split the planes over a year ago, I broke out of that prison. They never knew I hit the change, and Sheila wasn’t the only one who was my friend.”

  “Did any others escape?” I ask, finally managing to find my voice.

  She frowns as a painful glaze covers her eyes. “I wish. I didn’t have that sort of control, but I had to leave before they realized I had hit the change. They would have started selling me or using me. If I’ve hit my change, so has my sister. That’s why I have to find her.”

  “And what happens if we find her and she’s no longer the sister you once knew?” Dice asks, sounding uncharacteristically serious.

  The girl says nothing for a moment, and my breaths slowly find a normal rhythm again. “Then I’ll save her again. I’ll help her change back. No one touches her, or I swear I’ll show you how painful it is to deal with a pissed off half breed demon.”

  Gage nor I say anything. If the twin is a threat… I don’t want to think about it. Besides, it’s not for certain we’ll find her.

  “I have contacts, other slaves who have been freed. Let me make a few calls, and we can leave,” the girl, whose name I still don’t know, says.

  “Sheila never gave me your name. She only referred to you as little one.”

  The girl smirks before turning around. “It’s Karma—my name is Karma.”

  Just as she disappears from sight, Dice says, “It makes perfect sense why they call Karma a bitch now.”

  Gage groans when the smartass incubus resurfaces in place of the unusual seriousness he had just seconds ago.

  “What?” Dice asks innocently. “You know I had to say it.”

  Gage laughs humorlessly before turning his attention to me. He’s still holding me against his body, and now that the shock has subsided from the unexpected revelation, the heat between his touch and mine becomes incredibly distracting.

  “You okay?” he asks sincerely, his eyes on me like I’m a child in need of affection.

  I don’t want him looking at me like that. I prefer him being pissed at himself for finding me tempting. The last thing I need is for another one of Alyssa’s old friends looking at me as though I’m nothing more than a kid.

  “I’m fine,” I say calmly, shrugging as though I didn’t just have a moment of embarrassing weakness.

  Karma returns with a large duffel bag over her shoulder, and she grabs a doll to shove inside it.

  “You’re bringing the bride of Chucky?” Dice asks, looking a little pale now.

  She grins mischievously while eyeing the incubus.

  “Scared of a little doll?” she asks mockingly.

  He recoils as she walks by, and Gage motions for me to lead the way. I walk in front of him, but I become overly aware of his eyes on my back. I just wish I knew how he was looking at me right now.

  No. No I don’t. There are far more important things than some very distracting dark user right now.

  “You know what this means, don’t you?” Dice asks Gage from behind me, sounding weary now.

  “That there are numerous fey creatures out there that we didn’t know could exist,” Gage replies, sounding exhausted just from the thought.

  “Well, yeah. That too. But I was talking about the obvious. I’m going to have to bag my junk no matter who I’m fucking now, because I’m not knocking up a girl.”

  “You’ve had almost twenty-two years of not bagging it up,” the demon hybrid girl says loudly in a singsong, proving her hearing is as good as an immortal’s.

  “Oh bloody hell,” Dice groans. “I need to start a list and make sure there aren’t any little Dices out there. How much data space does your laptop have? It’s a rather long list.”

  Why the hell did I invite the perverted incubus?

  Chapter 5

  GAGE

  “Stop pissing me off or I’ll do this on my own!” Kimber yells at me, acting as though she could actually do something to me if she wanted to.

  Stupid, infuriating, stubborn, insufferable girl!

  We’ve been arguing for the past two hours while waiting for Thad’s ass to show up. I’ll need his help, and he needs to be aware of the fact we have a big motherfucking problem. Drackus is no help when it comes to Kimber. For some reason, the powerful warlock seems afraid of this… helpless girl. He refuses to come help me wrangle her into safety.

  “You’re not coming, Kimmy. Sorry, doll.”

  She snarls at me, and… Is she growling at me? Damn that’s hot. No the fuck it isn’t. Keep your head on right, you stupid son of a bitch.

  I really need to screw someone and see if that doesn’t help tame the beast within that really wants to feel Kimber underneath me. I bet she’d really enjoy some of my piercings. Well, I know she would because—

  “Call me Kimmy or doll again, and I swear you’ll regret it.”

  The challenge in her eyes is evident, not that I’m even a little bit intimidated. Does she honestly think she’s scaring me? You can tell she has spent way too much time around Drackus and his heinous ego. Somehow, ev
en though they’re not blood related, she managed to take on his stubbornness and his temper. How is that possible?

  “I’ll call you Kimmy any time I want to, doll, and there’s not a damn thing you can—”

  My words end in a yelp as my body folds and a suctioning force envelopes me, jerking me away from the breathing plane against my will. I try to vaporize, attempting to escape the unknown hold, but I’m fucking powerless as I’m tossed into another plane.

  I land with a thud, searching the blackness that is encompassing me for any sign as to where the hell I just ended up. It’ll be easier to maneuver through the planes if I can figure out which one I’m on right now. What the fuck just happened?

  Oh shit! Kimber. She’s defenseless, and whatever this is was just powerful enough to pull me through the planes—oh fuck!

  I curse and growl when I hear the buzzing, and I start trying to vaporize too late. They’re all over me, slowing down the disassembly of my molecules as I struggle. Tiny little squeaks irk my ears, and small but sharp fangs tear at my clothes, as their incredibly small bodies blur around me too rapidly to keep up, their wings moving ten times faster than a humming bird’s. Stupid. Fucking. Pixies!

  I really hate pixies.

  Tasting their dust, I start spitting, doing what I can to hold my breath and keep that disgusting stuff as far away from my nose and mouth as possible. It seems to take forever, but the glue they use to hold my body together finally separates enough for me to vaporize, and I split the planes, traveling through the thin fabrics that separate each one, and not giving a damn where I end up as long as it isn’t back in that hell—or in actual hell. That would be bad.

  The next plane has warped lights zooming in streaks, and I breathe out in relief to realize where I am. How the hell did I end up here, though?

  Vaporizing one last time, I shift through the planes, diving low and peeling through the last shard of fabric before materializing back in front of my home where I stupidly brought that stubborn, helpless girl that will now need me to save—

  “What the damn hell?” I bark in surprise when I see Kimber still here, idly picking at lint on her too-tight shirt while leaning against my car.

  “You have a protection spell blocking uninvited fey from going into your house without your permission,” she says, acting as though that’s the question I was asking, still keeping her focus on her mindless task as though nothing bizarre just happened. “Dice warned me,” she adds.

  Then it dawns on me, feeling as though a pile of bricks are being dumped over my head.

  “You did that?” I ask in disbelief, still reeling from the preposterous conclusion.

  She looks up, and I swear I’ve never seen a smile so smug. “The next time you call me Kimmy or Doll, think about how terrible you look covered in pixie dust.” She runs her eyes over me from head to toe, and then she grins bigger. “It really should be called pixie ash, considering that’s what it truly looks like.”

  It’ll take me thirty minutes to wash this shit off, because magic doesn’t repel it. The water from this plane is strong enough because it’s not found in the pixie plane, but it takes a while.

  I really, really hate pixies. And right now, I hate the blonde beauty grinning at me with triumph even more. Apparently no one bothered to mention the fact that her gatekeeping abilities could be used as an offensive weapon, one that I won’t soon be underestimating again.

  In a blink, I’m on her, caging her in as the menace gathers in my eyes. She tries to remain stoic, but I catch her shiver against me. Good. She’d better be fucking scared. I’m not some pansy she can boss around or play these games with.

  “The next time you think about tossing me into another plane, think about the fact that I’m not like Kane, or Deke, or even Thad. I won’t let you walk all over me just because you’re a damn girl. If you want to fuck with me, then you’d better have more than a few pixies at your behest. I chose dark magic for a reason. And I chose it a really long time ago, Kiddo. My powers have evolved more than you can even fathom.”

  She shivers again and swallows hard, but she continues to stare at me with a firm glare. “Add Kiddo to the list of pet names I won’t allow you to call me. I’m not a kid, Gage. Stop treating me like one. And I’m not made of glass either, so you don’t scare me in the least. Go find someone weak to bully.”

  She tries to move, but I keep her pinned between my body and my car. She shudders again when I press against her, pissed about the fact that my damn cock is betraying me and showing her that this is turning me on. I choose to ignore it, especially when she sucks in a sharp breath, because it’ll make thinking too damn hard right now.

  “You’re scared, little girl. You’re light, you’re vulnerable, and you’re shivering. But if you’re determined to do this, then fine. I’ll let you, but only until you get in my way.”

  It feels good when she tries to move again, because her body presses more solidly against mine, and her breaths grow husky, making her all the more tempting. Damn those lips are really starting to get to me.

  “You’re the one getting in my way, not the other way around.”

  Leaning back quickly, I smirk at her, especially when I see her sway a little upon my abrupt withdrawal. Crossing my arms over my ashy chest, I measure her. She’s definitely trying to prove something, but she’s too damn eager.

  “Thad told me once that opening the gates weakened him. That’s why he rarely uses his abilities. Obviously you’re using the gates of the planes to maneuver from place to place so quickly. And you just sucked me off this plane. Yet you seem unaffected.”

  She rolls her shoulders back and levels me with her sternest glare. Even though I know she can knock me off this plane with little effort, she still doesn’t scare me. Next time I’ll be prepared.

  “That’s because I don’t use the gates. Considering my visions went weak, I needed to hone my only other power or be left vulnerable to the poachers who already took me once. It took a while, but I discovered a way to open portals. It’s easy to maneuver one person through them. Any more than two, and I have to open the gate.”

  That’s definitely impressive. “So you can just throw any fey into another plane?”

  “I can throw any fey or any thing into another plane, but it doesn’t always hold them for long. Time moves differently—faster outside the breathing plane. You were gone for less than two minutes, but it feels like hours on the planes.”

  This girl… “You think I need to be educated on time differences?” I ask, amused.

  I’m rewarded by the glimmer of embarrassment that crosses her eyes as she bristles and turns a little pink. Instead of answering, she looks toward the house, as though she’s waiting for her invitation. But I’m not through grilling her just yet.

  “So these portals you open, do they work on a vast level or just on occasion?”

  Her eyes return to me, and she shifts uncomfortably, as though she really doesn’t want to be talking about this.

  “Both. I can use them for myself easier than I can use them against others because I feel the fabric when I’m inside. I’ve used them as a weapon many times. However, using them too much at once does weaken me, because I eventually have to exert the same force as opening a gate, and I’m still young. But that doesn’t mean I’m a kid.”

  Reaching over, I thumb her bottom lip, unable to keep my fucking hands to myself, and her breath hitches the second I touch her. Without meaning to, she loses control of her aura, exposing the colorful flames of seduction.

  She wants me just as much as I want her, and that’s not a good thing to know. Not. At. All. As if my damn dick wasn’t already aching to be inside—

  “You two just going to stand out there eye-fucking, or shall I tell you where we’re going?” Karma asks from my porch, her voice like ice-water dousing the blazing inferno between our auras.

  Kimber jerks away hastily, her eyes going from a lusty haze to an angry glare. She apparently doesn’t want to want me
any more than I want to want her. Well isn’t this just as screwed up as shit can get? Why me?

  Groaning internally, I follow her up to my front porch where the half demon girl passes through my threshold without my consent.

  What… the…

  “By the way, you should probably upgrade your spells. Half breeds don’t fall under the category of needing permission for a fey protection spell,” Karma says in answer to my unspoken question.

  “But I still need permission,” Kimber says quietly, her eyes cast downward like she’s afraid to look up and meet my gaze.

  “Kimber can go in,” I mumble under my breath, not looking as she passes by me and heads inside.

  We always knew other shit escaped from purgatory, but we had no idea what. It’s hard to search for things when you don’t know what you’re looking for. Old magic was so much stronger back when humans believed. Their fears fueled us. The earth—where our magic is mostly derived from—was healthier, making spells so much more powerful. They managed to extract the intangible and lock it away as easily as a flesh-and-blood being.

  In one day, my world has been turned upside-down. Now there’s a half demon in my house—something that shouldn’t be in the realm of possibility. There are countless combinations out there who are just coming into their immortality, along with so many others—who knows how many—that will be turning immortal. And then there’s Kimber… Damn her. She refuses to bow out, and she’s slowly growing to be an enormous distraction for me.

  Kimber takes a seat on the couch, her eyes averting mine, and Karma is leaned against my bar that splits the kitchen and living room. She has a phone… My phone. What the hell?

  “I didn’t have a phone, so I had to borrow yours,” she says, once again answering a question that was spoken only in my mind.

  “Can you read minds?”

  She laughs while shaking her head. “Don’t be ridiculous. I can just feel when people are staring at me, and I can usually figure out why they’re staring. After spending years with eyes on you for various reasons, you grow adept at deciphering stares in order to stay alive. And untouched.”