Dark Beauty (The Deadly Beauties Live On 1)

“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?