Bitten Beauty (Book 3 Of the Deadly Beauties Live On)

by C. M. Owens

  Blowing out a breath, I massage my temples. The creak of the door has me jerking my head up, and Ella walks in with a knowing look and a sad smile.

  “He’s sending me away, right?”

  She nods. “Kane—my dad—just spoke with Slade. Well, Slade actually contacted us, and Dad made the deal for you. He’ll leave you alone if you leave him alone. I guess he changed his mind.”

  She studies me, but I don’t give her any expression to see.

  “You’re sad,” she states matter-of-factly. “Your aura is buzzing with sad energy. It’s the first time I’ve seen any piece of your aura. I was starting to think you knew how to hide it.”

  I don’t even know what the hell that means, and I don’t really care. I don’t know what I’m feeling, so I don’t know how she could know either.

  “You’re saving him if you leave. Zee wants to change you. Needs to. The longer you’re around, the harder it is on him. You don’t want to be changed. Thad was willing to risk a century in prison to turn Roslyn without her knowledge. Time doesn’t matter to him anymore. But Zee? He’s not old enough to not feel time yet.”

  Again, she’s talking gibberish. I just grab my bag and shove my things into it.

  “Are you supposed to escort me out?”

  “Out of town.” She frowns as I wipe away a tear I don’t fully understand. It’s just one tear, but I don’t know why it’s there. I’m not a crier; I’ve never once cried. That tear is almost a tease, because I don’t know how it got out.

  “Can we drive? That moving me around thing with the air made me sick when Kya did it.”

  “But not when Zee did it,” she says, still studying me.

  I don’t respond. Maybe it has something to do with me “resonating” or whatever. Doesn’t matter. None of it does. If I’m leaving this world, no explanations are necessary.

  “I have a car at my hotel. Unless they’ve towed it.”

  She nods, and I follow her out. We both walk in silence down the stairs. Zee is nowhere to be found, which isn’t too surprising. The others only give me awkward glances before looking away. It’s not like I know them, so no sad goodbyes are warranted.

  “I’ll be back,” Ella tells them, forcing envy to rise within me. No one is telling her what to do.

  “I’m coming with,” Kimber says before excusing herself from their group.

  Gage grabs her and kisses her, telling her to be careful.

  “I’ll be with Ella. No worries,” she promises, kissing him again before finally joining us.

  “I’ll drive,” Ella states.

  Without protest, I get in the back seat of a SUV with solid black tinted windows.

  When we reach my hotel, I groan. My rental car has been towed or Marilyn got rid of it.

  “It’s not a big deal. We’ll give you a lift to Shiloh. It’s a few towns over, which will hopefully be far enough away to keep Zee from coming after you,” Kimber says with an encouraging smile.

  I slink back in the seat, once again not arguing, as they drive us away from the town that shattered my world and made it seem so unimportant by comparison. Kimber and Ella try to start conversations with me, but I just continue staring out the window, watching the trees pass us by. There’s not much else outside the city limit.

  “Will you erase my memories?” I ask hopefully, finally breaking my silence, even though I still keep staring outside.

  The quietness that ensues answers even before Kimber says a word.

  “We can’t. Magic won’t work on you, and even if it did… It wouldn’t be smart to leave you unaware of your surroundings now that you’ve resonated. You could accidentally hurt someone. Or Zee could come for you and…”

  Kimber lets the words trail off, and my eyes finally dart to meet hers.

  “You think I’d kill him?”

  Her lips press together for a moment, like she’s searching for the right words. “I think you’d panic if you didn’t remember him. We’re leaving you with anointed weapons for your own safety. I think… I think we love Zee enough to be cautious. And I think you care enough about him to feel guilty if you accidentally hurt him.”

  My eyes shift back to the window where the woods seem far less complicated than the inside of this vehicle. The air is full of awkward tension, unwanted answers, and unasked questions, and it’s giving me a headache.

  Something flickers in the distance, and my eyes narrow. A red flash is all I see seconds before the car is spinning out of control. My stomach hits my throat, and my seatbelt latches onto me, painfully holding me in place with an iron grip, when the car flips and begins to roll.

  My head flops around, and I grab the door, trying to stabilize myself more. My screams are the only ones to fill the air, and I taste blood in my mouth when something heavy from the floor pounds me in the face.

  We finally skid across the road on our hood, and sparks fly out from the screaming metal. I dangle and try to see something other than a harsh blur of motion, but it’s pointless.

  The metal groans and the vehicle rocks when it slams into something that forces us to stop abruptly, jarring me even more. To twist to see Ella and Kimber, I have to pull my hair back like a curtain, since I’m still hanging upside down.

  They both look… asleep? Their seatbelts are on, holding them in place, and they’re not bleeding like me. Neither of them was wearing a seatbelt when we left. Neither was I. At least I don’t think so.

  I thought they were immortal? Why the hell are they passed out?!

  I can’t get my voice to work, possibly because it’s too scared and stunned to cooperate, so I can’t yell at the sleeping beauties up front.

  But voices do fill the silence around us, and a queasy sensation slams into me.

  “You could have killed her,” a voice hisses. “We need her alive.”

  “I can smell her blood from here. She’s alive. She’d better be as strong as promised, because I need the fuel. It was stupid to use that much energy when we’re still so weak.”

  “We’re not supposed to touch her escorts. We don’t need to be making enemies with Slade. This was the safest way to take her without a fight.”

  “We have to hurry. That witch we spotted has an ambush set up just twenty miles down the road. She’ll be wondering where they are soon.”

  “What do we do with the other two?”

  I keep my silence. Not even a breath escapes me.

  My eyes frantically search for a weapon, but the wreck has shoved everything around. The only things I see are random candy wrappers, books, and useless other things.

  My window is shattered, so I might be able to—

  “She’s awake!” one barks, and panic slams into me, forcing me into action.

  I grab the buckle of my seatbelt, and curse when I drop hard to the ceiling. I don’t feel so damn powerful right now, because a grunt passes my lips, and I gasp for the air it has been knocked out of me.

  Scrambling frantically, I crawl through the small space, but a scream rips from my lungs when two arms grab me. With one hard slam, I crash my elbow into the guy’s ribs, and something cracks upon impact.

  “Fuck!” he roars, and I start running the second he loses his hold. My heart is thudding painfully in my chest, as I look over my shoulder.

  One. There’s only one back there. Where’s the other one?

  I turn around too late to see the arm that comes out, and my throat feels like it collapses when it connects. That asshole just clotheslined me.

  Dark spots dim my vision, but I stay awake, heaving for air that I can only catch teasing wisps of as I watch the blurry images of two silhouettes moving around the distant SUV.

  “Send them back to their place.”

  “No. That’ll alert them to what we’ve done. We’ll just veil them from sight in case the witch comes here. Kick the vehicle out of the road.”

  My fingers curl, digging into the ground as I flip onto my stomach and uselessly try to crawl. The voices sound hollow and distan
t, and my shallow, barely-there breaths make my vision dim all the more as I slowly suffocate to death.

  “Wait! Look at that one,” one says, excitement coating the echoing words. “I can almost taste her power from here. It’s so strong. Even stronger than the anointed.”

  “We can’t. Slade said only the one. These two can’t be touched.”

  “Slade isn’t our fucking boss.”

  “He’s our friend, and he saved our lives. We wouldn’t even know about the Aquarius if he hadn’t informed us. Her power is enough to recharge us completely.”

  “He didn’t fucking tell us she was immune to magic. And he said one would escort her. Not two. It took a lot of energy to knock them both out. We need more. Slade won’t care. He doesn’t care about anyone. Just take that one. Toss the other one aside. We’ll consider it a compromise.”

  It’s the last words I hear before my vision completely loses a grip on reality, and the short breaths steal my consciousness.

  So much for escaping before this world kills me.

  Chapter 13

  ZEE

  It’s almost like my breath is stolen when a wave of panic hits me. Again, it’s not my panic. My skin crawls with dread, and I grab the phone to call Ella, when suddenly the panic is gone.

  An easy breath slides into my lungs as I sit back, half wondering if I’m imagining things. My finger hovers over the call button, but I decide against it since the panic is gone.

  If Leah is still with them, calling is a bad idea. Hearing her voice would just piss me off, because I’m fighting with all I have to keep from going after her. Every instinct is being denied and overridden by willpower that weakens every second she’s gone.

  “Any word from the girls?” Chaz asks, drawing me out of my thoughts.

  I shake my head, sighing as I put my arms behind my head and stare at the ceiling with my phone still clutched in my hand.

  “Not yet. They said it might take a while because of a rental car thing.”

  Just to rid myself of the temptation, I crush my phone in my hand, letting the pieces fall behind the couch. I’ll have Gage fix it later.

  Chaz cocks a quizzical eyebrow. “Hope having her far away lessens your psycho need for her.”

  I grab a drink, wishing I hadn’t ever laid eyes on her. More than anything, I wish I had never touched her. Just her taste… The feel of her… The way her eyes held mine…

  “Zee?” Chaz prompts.

  Shaking my head, I look away, toying with the frayed pieces of my jeans like they’re fascinating.

  “She could always change her mind about wanting to be—”

  Before he can finish that terrible sentence, Kimber is suddenly walking through a portal, and my entire body goes stiff. Her clothes are ripped and she looks like she just left a fight.

  “What the fuck?” I bark, leaping to my feet as a sick feeling crawls across me.

  “I don’t know,” she says, wide-eyed and shaking. “Where is everyone?”

  “Out. What happened?” Chaz demands, grabbing her shoulders.

  She staggers, like she’s too weak to even be standing. “I… I don’t know. One second we were driving, and the next I woke up hanging upside down with my seatbelt on. I never wear a seatbelt. I’m immortal, damn it. Ella and Leah were gone when I came to, and Morgana… I heard her. I know it was her talking in the distance. They were looking for the ‘human girl.’ I barely got out before they noticed I was in the vehicle.”

  “Damn it,” Chaz hisses, but I can barely stand, so forming words isn’t easy.

  “Ella,” I say, shaking my head as I search for hope. “Ella must have gotten her out.”

  “And left me?” Kimber asks. “She wouldn’t have left me there unconscious and defenseless. Morgana sounded surprised and pissed. She sure as hell didn’t sound weak and timid like she acted when Gage granted her freedom. I don’t even think she knows what Leah is, but it sounded like she was after her. Why?”

  My jaw ticks as the taste of regret pools in my mouth.

  “Because Morgana is trying to get to me,” I growl. “She must have found out about Leah.”

  “She doesn’t know she’s an anointed. She only referred to her as human. Some of the orders she was barking out sounded muffled, but I could tell that much.”

  “She’s not after her because of what she is,” I tell her, hearing my neck crack to the side as I try to rein in my temper. “She’s after her because of who she is to me. She has to know I want to sire her.”

  “Fuck,” Chaz snarls. “We should have killed her when we had the chance. Next time she’s spotted, fucking do it. No hesitation.”

  “That will be really fucking soon if she has Leah and Ella. Where was the wreck?”

  Kimber shakes her head at my question. “It wasn’t her, Zee. They’re a problem for another day. Someone else took Ella and Leah. Someone strong enough to leave without a trace. It doesn’t even look like there was a struggle.”

  “How? No one is strong enough to take Ella on. She would have leveled the place if they had pushed her to use too much power,” I counter, but realization slams into me at the same time Chaz curses.

  “That fucking son of a bitch. Looks like Slade is finally a problem worth dealing with,” Chaz growls, grabbing his phone. “I should have known he was showing too much interest in Ella. I just didn’t think he’d fucking take her after saving her damn life and handing her over.”

  The second I hear Kane’s voice on Chaz’s phone, I take the phone away from him.

  “Don’t tell Alyssa anything.”

  “Okay… I’m not within earshot of her. What’s going on?”

  “That Gemini bastard took Ella and Leah. We need to go after him. Now. And we’re going to need our own creature god to handle him.”

  Kane is suddenly appearing in front of me, and the pieces of his phone crash to the ground as his eyes glow silver and feral. “Where? How? When the fucking hell did this happen?”

  “Kimber can explain the details later. They’re not important. Where’s Roslyn?” I ask, glancing over at Chaz.

  She and Thad appear as if on cue, laughing lightly as they walk in. But their light moment ends the second they see the looks on our faces.

  “What happened?” Thad asks, tensing as he studies us.

  “You can still track Slade any time, right?” I ask Roslyn, ignoring Thad.

  She nods warily. “Yeah. I’ve had his blood. But it’s suicide.”

  “I’m just as strong as he is,” Kane snarls.

  “No,” Roslyn counters, stepping closer. “You’re not. You’re strong, but he’s Gemini. He’s a whole different breed of creature god. Ella is stronger than you, and she might one day be a match for him, but she’s not in control yet. But as for you… Believe me, I’ve seen his power and yours. I know the difference. I’m not trying to step into a pissing match, and I’m certainly not trying to be disrespectful, but as long as he’s leaving us alone—”

  “He has Ella and Leah,” I cut in.

  Her eyes widen, and Thad turns a scary shade of red.

  Roslyn swallows hard before nodding, and the sound of clothing ripping sounds as she shifts, dropping to the ground. Before she hits the floor, she’s a white wolf and racing out the door.

  ***

  ZEE

  The cabin is deserted and quiet. Everything is quiet.

  Chaz whispers, “I’ll go check around back.”

  Kane just nods to him, and we take silent steps through the wooded area, searching for any trail.

  Roslyn sniffs the air, and she turns her autumn-burning eyes on me, seeming confused. It’d be nice if she could talk right now, but she keeps her wolf nose in the air, searching and seeking.

  She yelps suddenly, and she drops to the ground. Thad rushes to her side, but he curses when he slams into something invisible.

  Fucking shit.

  “Trap,” Kane growls, looking around us. He throws out a red orb, and it crashes into the invisible wall,
radiating and spider-veining a pattern across it.

  We’re encircled by it.

  “Think I’m stupid?” Slade’s voice is abrupt, and I look over just as he appears at a tree, leaning against it with his arms casually crossed over his chest.

  “Pretty fucking stupid,” Kane snarls. He slams his fist into the invisible wall, but it doesn’t break. It does bloody his damn hand up, though.

  “Where are they?” I snap, losing my patience with the games.

  Slade smirks as his eyes glow silver. His hand darts out, and I hear a strangled curse seconds before Chaz becomes visible with Slade’s hand on his throat.

  “Don’t tempt me, duster,” Slade says coldly, then he tosses him through the wall we’re trapped in.

  Chaz lands with a grunt, and his eyes turn solid gold before flecking back into duster flakes of gold. What the—

  “It’s one way,” he says, pointing at the wall. “Nifty little trap, if I do say so myself. Don’t worry, it’s only strong enough to hold you for a few hours. But this is your only warning. As you see, I’m a lot stronger. Don’t fuck with me. Let it go. She’s not worth it.”

  “We won’t let this go, you stupid, arrogant son of a bitch!” Kane barks. “I will kill—”

  “Save your threats. They don’t exactly scare me,” Slade says with a smirk. “I’ve gone through more than you can even dream up, so there’s not a lot that scares me anymore.”

  “Just fucking tell us where they are!” Chaz roars. “Now. I really thought you fucking gave a damn—”

  “About what, duster?” Slade interrupts, his cold smile still intact. “About the anointed stray you tried to collect? I let the wolf live, and now you’re using her against me. I’m really not a nice guy, so keep pushing me, and I’ll take her from you as well. But the Aquarius has to die.”

  “Why?” Kimber demands, moving closer.

  The cold smile turns into one so bitter and deadly that the leaves around him begin to wilt in his presence.

  “Do you know how the rings started? It was the Aquarius.”

  Kimber sucks in a breath, and Slade winks. “Yes, little visionless visionary. The Aquarius wanted to learn all the best ways to kill us. Obviously it evolved and had a change in management, but they used the notes and findings from the Aquarius to learn all of our weaknesses. They used those secrets to trap us. To hunt us. To imprison us… And you want to host one because your night stalker has a sweet tooth for her? Pardon me if I don’t really give a fuck.”