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

by C. M. Owens

  “The hell is that supposed to mean?” he snaps.

  “It means you’re a fucking fake,” I snap back. Uncaring or stupid? I’m not sure which one is me.

  “There isn’t a thing about me that’s fake, little girl.”

  “Other than your actions. You want everyone to think you’re cold and unstoppable, but you’re not. You’re just as emotionally invested in this world as the rest of us. You just pretend not to give a damn. Like about Kya. Someone has to go after her, but you won’t, even if she is your friend. Possibly your only friend.”

  He grabs my arm and spins me around, but before he can speak or hit me, I continue.

  “At least the rest of us know who we are or we’re trying to figure it out. You’re too busy trying to forget.”

  I jerk away from him, and pull out my phone. It snaps in half in my hand, and I look up as Slade narrows his eyes.

  Somehow, he did that.

  “I’ve been tracking them. If you’d shut up for five fucking seconds, you would have heard me trying to tell you that. Kya is three miles north of here. They have them in a heavily barred area with impressive seals. I can’t break past the barrier, and I can break past anything.”

  A cold smile graces my lips. “Then I guess you need bait.”

  He tilts his head, probably expecting me to do something to trick him still. His history with my kind replays in my head, so I decide to show something I’m not supposed to.

  My eyes light up blue, and I watch as his jaw tenses.

  “I’ve chosen my side, Slade. I’m his. He’s mine. I’m about to risk my life so that no one else dies. There’s nothing for me to gain out of this. I think you know the anointed will kill me if they learn what I am. And if I was a part of them, I wouldn’t need help finding them.”

  I can see the indecision in his eyes, but he apparently decides the children and Kya are worth the effort. My eyes shift back, and he curses while walking faster. We’re practically a blur as we move in silence, becoming the most unlikely pair of heroes in the history of the world.

  Not too long ago, this sick freak was trying to kill me. But our issues don’t matter right now. At least he seems to agree.

  “Why are you alone?” I finally whisper, deciding to attempt to plan something.

  “Because this is a suicide mission. The last thing I need to do is risk people. There’s a much bigger—”

  “Bigger threat. I got it. You can only be sidetracked to take out revenge on someone who was never actually a part of what you want revenge for.”

  A growl emanates low in his throat, but we don’t have time to reconcile or share a heart-to-heart. Or fight to the death again.

  We stop on a hillside, and stare down at a heavily guarded, rundown building. Slade leans against a tree, staying engulfed by the shadows as his eyes remain dull instead of glowing.

  He looks like a nightmare waiting to strike, and for once, I’m not in the line of fire.

  “Once inside, you need to find a way to shut down their seals. I don’t even know what kind they are. But if you find Kya, she’ll be able to figure it out. However…”

  His voice trails off, and I look at him looking at the building far off in the distance. To the casual observer, it looks like an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of town. Nothing here is ever what it seems to be.

  “However?” I prompt.

  “I don’t think this is where they’re keeping the hostages. It’d be stupid. They’ll probably have them somewhere else. I’m assuming this is their command station.”

  Shit.

  “That’s not helpful.”

  “I still want you dead,” he reminds me.

  “That’s really not helpful,” I hiss.

  He glares at me. I glare at him. We stand there glaring like whoever blinks first is the loser.

  Idiots. Both of us.

  “Care to deliver something useful, or am I doing this alone? I have a plan, but I sincerely hope you have a better one.”

  He curses while running a hand through his hair, then he pulls the hood up from his black hoodie to make him even more of a shadow.

  “There’s no plan that won’t take days. You’d have to plant yourself in their grasp, and there’s no way you can earn their trust fast enough to find out where those kids are. The best solution is to break in, see if you can eavesdrop and get information about where they’re holding the hostages, then find Kya to break the seals. After that, I can bust in there and level all of them. All you have to do is not die before you find her.”

  I glare at him again, but he doesn’t glare back this time. He’s staring ahead at the old warehouse.

  “That won’t work,” I hiss. “You’ve seen me fight. They’ve been training. I have not. You almost killed me with very little effort and minimal damage to yourself. There’s no way I can do this!”

  He growls at me—literally—and he steps into me.

  “You’re designed for this. Be stealthy and be quick.” He points to a scaffolding type thing against the side, and he motions from it to a window that is about six feet above its highest platform.

  “Use that and go through the window.”

  I know I look at him like he’s lost his damn mind.

  “Do I look like the kind of person who can pull that off?”

  He throws his hands up like he’s annoyed with me. Unreal.

  “You’re fucking useless.”

  “Well I’m so damn sorry that I didn’t grow up with Jason Bourne as a father!” I whisper-yell.

  “Who the fuck is that?” he asks, and then I remember he’s been locked up for centuries. Right. It’s doubtful he knows an old set of movies.

  “No one,” I mumble.

  He turns and walks away from me. “Where are you going?”

  “To find someone useful,” he grumbles, never turning back around before disappearing from sight.

  “But I have another plan!” I whisper-yell to the nothingness.

  We don’t have time to waste. My plan really sucks donkey balls, but it’s the only plan available, considering no one has taught me to be a badass.

  By the time he finds someone else who can walk through a magical barrier that not even he can penetrate, people could be dead.

  I’m not letting anyone else die because of me.

  Time to do what I do best.

  Get caught.

  Become a prisoner.

  Be a victim.

  Only this time, I should be able to break free. I’m not just an anointed anymore.

  Chapter 29

  ZEE

  “Stop me when you start to feel something,” Chaz tells me, still slowly feeding off my magic while flipping through some surveillance pictures Thad brought us.

  Gage hacked the computer systems, searching all the times for people coming in and out of the club earlier this week.

  Ignoring his comment, I motion to the pictures. “Facial recognition got nothing?”

  “It’s still running. It started local, now it’s expanding into different states. I like to have physical photos in front of me.”

  Maybe if we have some faces to go with our killers, we can piece together where they may be.

  Ground work blows.

  “Sushi is on its way,” Dice says as he walks in, making a weird pelvic thrusting motion for no particular reason. “All-nighters deserve sushi. And rice. Rice, rice, baby,” he says, singing the words like he’s Vanilla Ice. “Rice, rice, baby.”

  He laughs while walking back out, and Chaz shakes his head at the same time I do.

  “I wonder if he knows that he’s only funny ten percent of the time.”

  Rolling my eyes, I try to concentrate, but the fucking real lyrics to that damn beat are playing in my head. Ice, ice, baby… Ice, ice, baby…

  “Stuck in your head too, isn’t it?” Chaz asks, groaning, and we both curse Dice even though he isn’t in the room anymore.

  I glance around the side, noticing Leah as she stands precariously
close to the door. She stares at nothing in particular, but I can see the tension in her body. Turning back around, I watch Chaz.

  “Leah’s family?” he asks in a whisper. “What do we know about them?”

  “Nothing. Her mother was one, but she died in a mental hospital,” I whisper back, barely even keeping it loud enough for him to hear. “She doesn’t know her dad or anything about him.”

  “So her family isn’t this group? Should we show her the photos?”

  I shake my head. “All she has is an aunt. They age, and there is only one woman in these photos.” I point to the redhead standing in front of my club entrance, appearing to be their lookout. She’s also in front of the fight club’s entrance. Both the times coincide with kill times, so she’s a definite suspect. “She’s not old enough to have raised Leah, since they look the same age.”

  “We should still have her look at them. Hell, we should have been looking at them already instead of just waiting on facial recognition to kick in. Lots of driver’s licenses to go through. None of them have ever been arrested, so there was no ping from criminal records for facial recognition.”

  “I don’t want to involve her right now unless we have to. She’s torn up enough about it. Her family was small. Just her aunt. Her aunt had friends that dropped by when they were in town, but it sounded like a bunch of rednecks. Not seasoned, professional killers. Her life was fucked up, but not criminally insane fucked up.”

  He frowns, but Dice is suddenly beside us, plucking the photo from my hands. He whistles as he examines the killer, and he grins down at the picture.

  “Hashtag, Rump-o-smooth-skin. Hashtag, shake that healthy butt. Hashtag, baby got back.”

  I roll my eyes, but another voice has the incubus going ramrod stiff.

  “I’ll keep that in mind when she’s trying to kill you,” Karma drawls, grabbing something from the cabinet while cocking an eyebrow.

  Dice swallows hard, and Chaz clears his throat, covering his smile with his hand.

  “My anaconda don’t want none,” Dice says robotically. “Hashtag, promise.”

  Karma rolls her eyes, and Dice runs after her, flipping us both off as his girlfriend contemplates letting him become an anointed pin cushion.

  Chaz starts laughing, and I glance around again to see Leah is gone. I start to go look for her, but I see a picture that draws my attention.

  “Hey,” I say, grabbing it and handing it to Chaz. “This guy was hanging out in my club a lot. He liked being bitten.”

  “He’s among the dead, so he’s not a suspect.”

  My brow furrows. “Think they started killing anyone who they thought welcomed us?”

  “Possibly. Even if they did so unwittingly. Those people in my club never had a clue they were playing a real game. They just thought it was fake fangs and real blood.”

  He sorts through some more shots, tossing most away. It’s easy to rule some out because we’ve been here long enough to recognize the old-school locals who own shops, have families, permanent roots, and things like that.

  Just as he starts to toss one into the “maybe” pile, I snatch it out of his hand, feeling the color drain from my face. “What?” he prompts.

  “Leah!” I bark, twisting around to look for her.

  She doesn’t come or answer, but I race up the stairs with Chaz on my heels. The door crashes down when I go through it instead of opening it, and I stumble into my bedroom, grabbing and opening the drawer of the nightstand on Leah’s side of the bed.

  Chaz keeps talking, but I’m too busy ripping the drawer out and scattering everything in it onto the bed. The second I see what I’m looking for, I grab it, seeing the picture of Leah with her aunt, then I run back down the stairs.

  Dice is downstairs when I go to get under the brighter lights to get a better look, and sure enough, I’m right.

  “What?” Dice prompts, at the same time Chaz says, “The hell, Zee?”

  “This. This is one of them,” I say, handing it to Chaz.

  Dice looks over his shoulder, and a smug smirk spreads. “Always a fucking crazy bitch.”

  “Not her,” I say, pointing to the man in the background while handing them the surveillance photo from a bakery down the street from the club. “Him.”

  “Hashtag, creepy photobomber,” Dice says, shuddering for effect.

  Chaz’s eyes lock with mine, and I nod slowly. “This group… They know Leah.”

  “Then why the bloody hell didn’t they just get her when they knew where she was?” Dice asks, getting a little more serious.

  “Because Leah didn’t change until under duress. Not until she touched the blade of an Aquarius when she needed to fight,” I tell them. “It’s impossible she never touched one before that day if she was living with hunters. She probably just didn’t realize what she was touching. I think she was activated by the survival need and the blade combined.”

  I look in the living room again, still finding it empty, and squint, looking through the glass to see if she went outside for some air. She likes the lake beach when her head is hurting.

  “Has she been fucking lying to us this entire time?” Dice asks, confused.

  I growl at him, and he holds his hands up. “Down, Spike. Not trying to piss you off. Just looking for answers.”

  “Her mother was institutionalized?” Chaz asks.

  I nod. “For seeing monsters.”

  His eyebrows go up, but then he looks confused again. “Aquarius blood… That makes their minds stronger. Not weaker. She wouldn’t have been so fragile as to reject the truth. She also wouldn’t have been weak enough to have been held captive.”

  “Unless she wasn’t Aquarius,” Dice points out.

  We both turn to look at him, and for once, the damn incubus makes sense.

  “Two anointed having a child? You think that’s possible to happen by accident?” I ask Chaz.

  “With the way this world works? I think it’s very possible. Coincidences are just fate’s twisted little toys for the most part. It would explain why Leah is definitely skilled, even though she doesn’t have the killer instinct she needs to survive. It would also explain the huge target Slade put on her back. If he pieced this together before us…”

  “Fucking Slade,” I growl, wishing I had—

  “Don’t get sidetracked, Angel. Buffy’s peeps are in town, and we need to deal with them before Slade.”

  “Call me Angel one more time.”

  Dice opens his mouth, and the smile in his eyes says he’s about to, when my eyes flash blue. His smile dies as he swallows his retort, and he backs away.

  “You’re no fun since you became unpredictable,” he mumbles, pouting.

  Turning away from them, I head outside, looking for Leah.

  “So this is her family after all?” Chaz asks, following me out.

  “Leah?” I call, confused when I don’t see her outside.

  “Zee, answer me.”

  “It’s a guy named… Vic… Um…” I put my head down, trying to remember. “Victor,” I say, snapping my fingers as the conversation comes back to me. “He and his redneck friends were hunting for…”

  My words trail off as everything slowly falls into place. “Fuuuuck.” A groan follows the drawn out word, and my head falls back.

  “So the rednecks weren’t hunting deer, I’m guessing,” Chaz says under his breath, crumpling the picture of Victor in his hands while tossing Leah’s picture to the side.

  “Motherfucker! Damn it,” I growl, slamming my hands against the deck railing. “I’ve been so wrapped up in her that I didn’t even fucking consider that shit.”

  “Dude, it’s not like any of us pieced it together. She never alluded to anything like that, and she was genuinely shocked by who she was. My question is… Why wouldn’t they tell her?”

  My eyes dart back and forth at nothing as my mind works, and I curse again.

  “Because her mother’s mind was too fragile to handle it. She broke and ended up i
n the mental institution. If her aunt genuinely cared about her, then she wouldn’t risk it with Leah. She’d shield her from the truth until she knew for sure that she was anointed and could handle it.”

  I jerk the door open and stalk back in, while Chaz grabs the picture of Leah’s aunt again and goes back to the stack of photos. Dice comes downstairs with several other photographs, and a lot of Leah’s personal things that we had shipped out here through a friend of hers that lived in her apartment building.

  “Did Leah give you those?” I ask him, but he shakes his head.

  “We’re past the point of personal boundaries now that we know she’s tied to them,” he says unapologetically. “Maybe something in here can help us figure out where they’d take the children. Names would be great. We could run property searches.”

  “I only know the one,” I tell him. “Leah!” I yell, growing impatient and irritated now.

  “She’s not up there,” Thad says around a yawn as he walks down. “Roslyn and I are about to do a run and see if she can get a scent of anything. They couldn’t have gone too far. They’d want to stay somewhat local so we can ‘give in’ to their demands.”

  “Leah!” I bark, completely ignoring Thad as I open and close every door after putting my head into each room.

  Chaz circles back around, his eyebrows pinching closer together as he thinks.

  “You don’t think she’d…”

  He lets his words trail off, and I shake my head. “No. Hell no. She wouldn’t even know where to find them.”

  “Unless she’s been working with them all along and was just gathering information,” Dice interjects. “Hashtag, bitches be crazy.”

  He’s two seconds from an ass-beating when Thad jerks me back. “Ignore him. Listen, we’ll go look for her. You stay here.”

  “The hell I’ll stay here.”

  “The last time you went looking for Leah, you turned black-eyed crazy and made it rain,” Dice says, smirking at the last part. “Hashtag, make it rain, bitch. That’s a good one.”

  I glare at him, and he shrugs. “Coping mechanism. Get off me.”