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

by C. M. Owens

“Around back. They left it vulnerable for attack. They’re probably ready with an army and weapons. We need to wait on reinforcements.”

  “And do what?” Dice demands. “Walk in without knowing what’s going on? They have knowledge about our world that not even we do. I hate to point this out, but that book Slade gave us informed us of a lot of shit we didn’t have a clue about. We need a much better plan than seek and destroy.”

  I move forward, but Dice blocks me again.

  “You can’t go in and try to level the place. The damn girl and children could get hurt. Do not make me be the rational one. It’s not my color.”

  He glares at me, but I vanish, reappearing right in front of the main entrance. Everyone wants us to come in through the back. They don’t realize there’s nothing stopping me from walking right through the front.

  I don’t hesitate before kicking the door in, and a sea of black-clad militant men panic as I launch myself at them. My hands fly out, but no power forms. My eyes go wide, but I dodge the hurricane of bullets that fly at me, even though I have no fucking idea how.

  I dive and roll, grabbing a gun for myself and snapping the neck of the man who is holding it. I’ve never even fucking shot a gun before.

  The warehouse is lined with old crates and random conveyors, and bullets ricochet and resound as they fly by me. The wood splinters and dust stirs over the top of me, and I curse while figuring out how to fire the damn gun in my hands. Apparently pulling the trigger works just fine.

  Rolling my eyes, I hold the gun up and just fire blindly, not risking letting them put a bullet in my head.

  Something explodes outside, and screams ring out. Ella… Fuck. If she loses it, she’ll bring this whole place down no matter how heavily it’s sealed.

  Another explosion rocks the warehouse, and a guy falls right in front of me. I grab his face and snap his neck with a flick of my wrist, then grab his gun. Never thought I’d have to fight humans with guns.

  “She’s stronger than we thought!” a man yells, just as another explosion rocks the warehouse.

  Ella… They know about her. Motherfucker! She’s the damn target!

  “Damn it!”

  Grabbing my phone, I quickly text Gage.

  ME: Ella is the target. Get her the fuck out of here.

  I fire blindly again, feeling my phone buzz in my lap as I search for where Leah might be. In this chaos, it’s hard to concentrate like I need to in order to sense her.

  “Fucking shoot her! She shouldn’t be that close. Not there. She can’t do that!” someone barks.

  GAGE: Too late. No one can touch her right now.

  Fuck!

  I leap up, running through the chaos, and desperately seeking out Leah. Another explosion forces the roof to crack and threaten to collapse. The children are all still mortal. Their bodies won’t be indestructible yet.

  Bullets whizz by my head, and I continue to spin, duck, and dive as my heartbeat thuds in my ears. The last thing I need to do is lose control, because Ella is already lost. The two of us combined will destroy this place and everyone in it.

  Leah’s presence taunts me, letting me know she’s close, and I follow the unseen force that finally points me in the right direction.

  “Fucking shoot them! Stay inside the perimeter! The others can’t seem to use their magic! Snipers, take her out!”

  I feel torn between saving Leah and saving everyone else, when I suddenly hear a louder explosion that rattles the ground.

  “It’s him! That scarred-face motherfucker! Kill him! Now!”

  Slade…

  My skin crawls with dread, but I know why he’s here. Ella…

  As much as I hate him, he’s stronger than me, and he won’t let anyone touch her.

  Kicking the door open, I watch as the lights below flicker and hear a small gasp. My decision is taken out of my hands as my instincts kick in, and I leap over the stairs, landing below with a loud thud.

  “Zee! No! You have to go,” Leah’s voice screams, and my head snaps up to meet her wide, terrified eyes. My jaw ticks as I stalk toward her cage, and my eyes drop to her shackled hands.

  The warehouse vibrates again, but it’s not enough to bring it down. The seals are just strong enough to hold it up for a while longer, but Ella’s power only gets stronger the more she lets herself go.

  My hands curl around the bars of the cell door, and I jerk it hard. The damn thing doesn’t budge.

  “Go, Zee. Listen to me. You have to get out of here,” Leah pleads, but I ignore her.

  She struggles to move closer, but the shackles around her ankles are too close together and make it hard for her to move without falling. Little by little, her panic starts to form, and the monster inside me threatens to emerge.

  The cell door starts to give way, and a small gasp from another cell distracts me only for a second.

  I jerk harder and harder, each time getting it to give a little more. The monster beats against the walls of my insides, begging to be unleashed every second that Leah begs me to stop.

  Suddenly, someone shouts my name, and Leah screams as her eyes widen and her struggle grows. Her panic clenches my heart as she screams louder, but it sounds like a distant echo.

  The taste of my own blood fills up in my mouth as something paralyzes me in place, and my eyes slowly drop to where I feel a dull pain to see a blade sticking through my chest.

  The tip is stained with blood… My blood. Something inside me burns, and I weakly try to bring my hands to the blade as I stagger, but a force from behind me shoves it in deeper. A searing hot pain shoots through my body as the blade pushes out farther, and the hilt slams into my back as someone’s breath coats my neck.

  My legs give out first, feeling numb and useless, as my veins slowly start to turn black. Leah screams harder, and begs someone to stop. Yelling and arguing ensues, but I can’t hear the words. My body falls to the side, feeling frozen in place, and more blood chokes me as my eyes meet Leah’s.

  “No!” I see her screaming, but the words are drowned out by the endless echo of nothingness in my mind.

  I can’t move, breathe or feel anything anymore, and someone steps over me, looking down as he stays within the shadows. Seconds before my eyes close, I see the face of the man from the picture, and I know what just happened.

  I failed. The one time it mattered, I failed.

  Chapter 32

  LEAH

  Something overhead rattles again, and I beg Zee to wake up. His eyes flutter open for a few seconds, and tears fill my eyes at the apology I see within their depths.

  “I’m so sorry,” I choke out, fighting as hard as I can against the chains.

  “They can’t get it if you seal it up! Take that fucking bitch out, or I’ll take all of you out!” Victor roars, leaving his sword planted through Zee’s chest.

  His eyes cut back to me just as something hot streams down my cheeks, and surprise fills his features. Quickly, the surprise is covered with fury.

  “You. You nasty bitch. Him? One of them? You’d shed tears for this animal?” he snarls.

  Slowly, my hands lift up, and I touch the burning wetness against my cheeks.

  Something hot and furious inside me stirs when my eyes drop back down to Zee. His breathing has stopped, his eyes are glossed over, and his veins have turned black with poison.

  My arms burn, and something spreads over them as I continue to stare in disbelief.

  He loved me.

  He came for me.

  He… He died because I’m weak.

  I choke on a sob, but it only powers my fury as the burning sensation continues down my arms. Glancing down, I see the black ink spreading, mimicking the same pattern on Zee’s arms, and the glow in my eyes doesn’t stop.

  Victor’s breath catches in his throat as my glare turns on him, and a thunderous growl emanates from my chest.

  “Better run, Victor,” the cold voice of a woman next to me taunts. “Aquarius don’t cry.”

  Metal s
naps and falls away from me, and Victor trips over the body of the man I love. The man who died because of me.

  He takes off running just as I grab the cell door, and it flies off its hinges with barely any effort. A dark haze fills me, and Zee becomes all I see as I drop to his side. Self-loathing fills me. Darkness consumes me. Hatred burns harder than it ever has before.

  And the tears keep falling as I look down into his lifeless eyes.

  My fault. This is all my fault.

  “Leah,” a familiar voice says, but I don’t move. All I can do is run my hands through the soft hair that slowly loses that beautiful color in the tips and all of it turns black.

  My breaths are coarse and painful, feeling like sandpaper grinding along the insides of my throat. I feel like I’m sucking against a vacuum for each new breath after a while, and a heaviness settles in the pit of my stomach like a gnawing, insatiable creature is preparing to tear me apart from the inside.

  His black veins and cold skin only serve as a sick reminder of the brutal and undeniable truth. His heart is quiet and still under my fingertips, and I sob harder as I cradle his head to my chest, letting his hair play across my lips. I’m so numb that I barely feel the tickle of it.

  “Leah, it’s Aunt Masie. Please, sweetie, you have to snap out of it.”

  A carnal, bone-chilling roar pounds the walls as something tears at my throat, and it takes a second to realize the sound is coming from me. My eyes fall back down to the motionless man in my arms, and my sobs come out harder as each breath turns into a hiccup and a labored wheeze.

  “I’m… so… sorry,” I try to say, but it’s a blubbering mess. No. No. NO!!

  He remains still in my arms, and the gnawing feeling in my stomach almost makes me retch. I start rocking while holding him, feeling the pain ebb as fury unfolds inside me.

  “I love you,” I whisper as more tears fall, scalding my cheeks as Zee refuses to wake up. “I love you so much. I’m so sorry.”

  The words end on a choked sob just as the heavy footfalls of more soldiers fill the basement. My eyes snap up, finding that murderous son of a bitch gone, and gunshots fire hard and fast.

  My hand flies up, and all the bullets pull to me like I’m a magnet as I draw them in, wanting them to destroy me so I can be with Zee.

  The bullets slam against my chest, shatter, and fall to the ground in tiny pieces. My heart fills with hopelessness, and I growl louder as they stumble back on their heels. Something inside of me snaps, and my vision slowly turns into a tunnel.

  Grabbing the sword that asshole shoved into Zee’s back, I gently pull it out, feeling the heat of more tears as the metal slides free.

  They’ll all die by the blade they used on him. No one walks out alive.

  “Leah! Get me out so I can help you!” that woman screams, but I ignore her. She’s not like me. She’s one of them.

  There is one like me, and I kick down the cell door where she is.

  With a few hard yanks, the chains land in a heap on the floor, and I turn to walk away, glancing back her way. The girl with a swollen eye looks at me with concern, and her eyes flick over my shoulder as she slowly crawls out of the chains that no longer hold her down.

  “What do you want to do, Leah?” she asks softly.

  “Kill them all.”

  Chapter 33

  ZEE

  My breath slams into my chest, and everything on me aches at once as my vision slowly returns.

  “Finally!” a woman hisses, and I cough on the air flooding my lungs as my eyes flick to the dirty woman in shackles.

  Panic sets in, and I try to sit up, but it feels like someone is standing on my chest, forcing me back down.

  “Get me the hell out of here right now!” she barks. “Before my girl gets killed. You have to kill me to destroy the seals. It’s the only way any of you will survive.”

  The cage Leah was in is now a mangled mess, and she’s nowhere in sight. My hands fly to my chest, and I feel around for the sword that was sticking out of it.

  “The fuck?” I hiss, trying to sit back up.

  “She bound you, asshole. Which means you’re the one who also bound her. It means no anointed can kill you. The hex had a lot of side effects, and that’s one of the many. The second she pulled that sword out, the poison started draining, and her bond healed you. Now get me out before she dies, because not all those men up there are anointed. Some are just human, and ironically enough, they can fucking kill her. Slice my throat, snap my neck… Just make it quick.”

  Who the hell is this insane woman?

  “Where’s Leah?” I demand, trying and failing to sit up.

  Blood sprays wildly as a man is tossed down the stairs, and I look over to see a growing pile of bodies just like his. At least ten are lying there, and all of them look like they lost a fight with a chainsaw massacre.

  “She’s crazy. Whatever you are, it’s apparently not normal. Something happened to her arms, and the next thing I know, she went Incredible Hulk—minus the green skin and bulging muscles—and broke out of here like a possessed woman. She wouldn’t listen to me. I was trying to tell her you weren’t dead, but I didn’t want Victor to know it.”

  “I’m not dead,” I state flatly, feeling my chest again. The black veins have turned back into my normal ones, and slowly, the aching starts to fade.

  “She had to pick a dumb one,” the woman groans. “Obviously you’re not dead. You’d be a walking pin cushion full of bullet holes if an anointed could kill you. It was his physical touch that found the loophole and certain blades too, but it only lasts as long as the blade is in you. The second she withdrew the blade, the poison receded and the healing began. How many times will I have to repeat this? Get me out of here, or everyone up there will die.”

  Getting up slowly, I go to jerk on the cell door, but it doesn’t budge.

  “Get pissed and yank it off,” the older woman demands, glaring at me like I’m an idiot.

  “I just died,” I growl.

  “You’re alive now, so act like it. My niece depends on it.”

  Niece… Leah’s aunt. Holy shit. This dirty, haggardly lady looks nothing like that picture Leah has.

  “Don’t look at me with those eyes. You’re going to have to kill me to save everyone else. For all I know, Victor has the seals buried in concrete. Once all your people are inside the perimeter, he’ll lock them in. The magic that is creeping through right now will be lost, and they’ll all be as helpless as humans. It’s probably already happened by now. You’ve been out for a while. Understand?”

  “How is he controlling the seals if they’re made of your blood and hidden in concrete?”

  I jerk the cell door harder, and it budges.

  “Do you want a school lesson or do you want to fucking survive today? Once I’m dead, all the seals will lose their power, and the fey children will be able to break free on their own. Understand? My death means a lot of lives will continue.”

  I can’t fucking kill my girlfriend’s only relative.

  Leah’s scream has my heart in my ears, and the bars bow in my grip.

  “Hurry. They’ll kill her if a human stabs her or uses too much electricity on her. No more blasts mean your people are now locked in here and defenseless.”

  The door snaps off in my hands, and I toss it away before grabbing her shackles. She cries out in pain when I jerk them, but they don’t break.

  “Fucking kill me! Do I have to spell it out for you?”

  Ignoring the psycho, I tug again, and one of the shackles breaks.

  “The bullets won’t hurt you, neither will arrows. But the blade in the hands of another will definitely hurt you and Leah. If they decapitate either of you, you really are dead. Understand?” I nod while she takes another breath. Getting frustrated, I frantically try to free her. “Now kill me,” she goes on.

  “No,” I growl.

  “Great. A monster who can’t kill,” she groans.

  “I’m not a monster,” I w
hisper to her and me.

  “Victor is a monster, and as long as I’m alive, he’s the monster in control. For all you know, all your people are dead.”

  My eyes meet hers, and I snap the final cuff, freeing her completely.

  “I’m not a monster,” I repeat, and I run toward the stairs, leaping up them in one bound.

  It’s chaos and mayhem on a silver platter. Ella is covered in blood, but it’s not her own. She’s ripping through hordes of never-ending soldiers like it’s playtime. A bullet grazes her cheek, and she never even blinks.

  Gage is firing rapidly with a gun, trying to keep them off her. Everyone is fighting, including Dice, who sees me first. His eyes widen and he turns a little pale, apparently having thought I was dead.

  I see Kya close to him, firing into the masses as well. The warehouse is thousands and thousands of square feet, and it’s overrun with men dressed like tactical soldiers who want blood. Our blood.

  We’re in a motherfucking fishbowl.

  My eyes land on another I forgot about. Slade grabs a man off Ella, and he literally rips his head from his shoulders like he’s tearing a tag out of a shirt.

  I finally find the one I’m looking for, and my head thunders with a thousand thoughts at once.

  Leah…

  Her eyes are black and she’s painted red by the stains of the blood she’s spilled. She looks like Carrie in the middle of the bloodiest prom ever.

  Her eyes are solid black, and bullets keep crashing against her, leaving her unscathed as she tears into one man after another with a sword so stained by blood that you can’t even see the true color of it anymore.

  Slade finds me, and his eyes narrow. I guess he thought I was dead too.

  “Leah!” I shout, but my voice is lost amongst the masses.

  Something pops me in the leg, and I look down as a few fragments of metal land on the ground. I really am fucking anointed-bulletproof.

  Leah’s like a machine, bringing the blade down and spinning, killing anyone and everyone that steps into her path. Blood sprays like a warning to anyone who dares to get too close, but one does charge her with a blade in his hands.