Dark Beauty (The Deadly Beauties Live On 1)

She laughs while looking up. “I had a bottle of vodka on the way here. But I didn’t say that because I’m drunk. I said it because you need to know it.”

She’s drunk. Just great.

“Oh? And how do you know she wasn’t the love of my life?”

I’m not sure who she’s referring to. I have a horrible track record.

“Alyssa and this Elaine girl… Neither was the love of your life. Couldn’t have been. The love of your life may care about someone else, but they never truly fall in love again. And they love you back. It’s earth-shattering, and there’s nothing strong enough to keep you apart for long. You lose your breath, your sanity, and your ability to even think. If they chose someone else when there was nothing stopping them from having you, then they weren’t the love of your life.”

That has me laughing bitterly for so many reasons. “I take it you’ve learned this from Alyssa and Kane?”

She smiles weakly while looking away. “Their love is powerful and it does set a bar for what most people should expect, but I was talking about Drackus and Calypso. They only gave each other up to keep their daughter safe. But Drackus would slaughter a village and start a war just as a distraction to keep Calypso safe.”

“Romantic,” I mutter dryly, wondering how I let myself get sucked into this conversation.

“In its own twisted way, it is.” When she smiles fondly, I realize she has spent way too much damn time with Drackus.

I can’t help but puff out a laugh while shaking my head. “You might seriously be a blood Devall.”

She snickers while leaning back and taking another sip of the already almost empty bottle. Then she reaches over beside the bed and picks up another bottle I never saw her bring in. She definitely came prepared.

Then her smile falls. “I don’t remember my real parents, but I’d like to think they would have loved me just as much as Drackus and Calypso have. If not, then I don’t want to know about it. The illusion is sometimes better than reality. I want to believe the illusion.”

With her badass guard down, she looks vulnerable. It’s a look that I really don’t need her to have, because I’m barely refraining from doing something stupid. She settles against me comfortably, and without thinking, I brush a stray lock of hair from her cheek.

When she sucks in a breath, I stupidly fall prey to her blue eyes, unable to break the eye contact. But then she leans in, and those pretty blue eyes fall to my lips. Her aura assaults me with too much lust, and I take a shaky breath while looking away. It’s almost painful to not turn back.

“Keep the illusion,” I tell her at last. “It’s safer and smarter.”

She sighs while sinking against my side, and I groan internally while looking up to the ceiling and taking another breath.

“Tell me something about you that no one else knows,” she finally murmurs.

My lips twitch upon hearing the request. “Fine. I’ll bite. I’m fascinated with… birds.”

Her confusion is followed by disappointment, and I can’t stop myself from laughing when her brow gets a cute little wrinkle.

“What’s wrong, Kimber? Expecting some major insight into me instead of a random admission?”

She looks up, and once again, I find myself staring without the ability to break the contact.

“What about birds?” she muses.

Well, I hadn’t planned on her actually showing interest in that. But it’s a far less probing subject than my past.

“Birds are beautiful, graceful, and fierce when they have to be. They fly in flocks, and they fly in formations that look to have been created by an artist. They don’t break the formations, they keep their bodies separated enough for flying, and they shift directions as a united unit with one mind instead of as a commanded unit that is being led. It’s an effortless trust and uniformity unlike anything that doesn’t exist anywhere else in nature. In all other species, there is a clear and distinct leader. But not with birds. They just fly and trust.”

Her head settles against my chest, and her finger starts tracing the lines of my enchanted ink. What the hell?

“How are they fierce?” she asks, her lips brushing my pectoral muscle.

My whole body tenses when she does it again, and I’m forced to clear my throat before speaking.

“What are you doing, Kimber?”

She grins against my skin, then she presses a delicate kiss on the spot her lips have been brushing.

“Just keep talking. How are they fierce?”