Dark Beauty (The Deadly Beauties Live On 1)

“His girlfriend sent him to hell,” Dice drawls, sounding too damn amused.

Thad cocks a questioning eyebrow, but I don’t respond. Chaz tosses him a pair of pants.

“Cover that shit up,” he grumbles. “We have to go back out there and find Ella,” he adds, turning his attention on us.

“That won’t be necessary.” Ella’s voice causes us all to whip around and face the blond as she

fully appears in front of us, wrapped in a sheet and looking as exhausted as I feel.

Thad blurs to her when she staggers, and he supports her weight as she looks around the room.

“Call Kane and Alyssa,” Calypso says to Dice who already has his phone out and doing just that.

Calypso goes to inspect Ella, but she bats her hands away. “I’m fine. Don’t worry.” Her eyes meet Drackus’s, and then she looks over to me.

“Gage’s brother?”

“Still alive,” I say with a sigh. “What happened to you?”

She shrugs, clutching the sheet a little tighter. “No idea. I remember crashing through the barrier, and the next thing I know I’m waking up in an off-the-grid cabin. It took me a while to figure out where I was, but I know magic was involved. The bed I was on was pristine and clean. But the shack of a cabin was falling apart. Someone didn’t want me on a dirty mattress.”

“But apparently it was someone not involved with us,” Thad says, frowning. “One of the prisoners we released?” he asks thoughtfully.

“I don’t know. I never saw anyone.”

“All the prisoners got the hell out of there when we released them. Or at least I thought so,” I say.

Ella turns her eyes on me, her brow puckered in concern. “How’s Gage? I mean, I know his brother being the bad guy really has to be hurting him right now. Where is he?”

Ah, hell. I forgot she was out during Gage’s crazy turn. “Um… he’s sort of in hell, and I don’t mean that figuratively.” Her lips part to speak, but I interrupt, “Long story. We need to focus on Gavin. He’s hella strong. And now we’ve destroyed his rings. He’ll start collecting new slaves soon. How do we stop him?”

“That’s a damn good question,” Kane says, appearing out of nowhere and coming over to jerk Ella in a tight hug.

“Dad, can’t breathe,” she says, mocking a wheeze.

He doesn’t let her go, and suddenly Alyssa is beside her, hugging her as well.

“We have a few more problems,” Zee says, walking in with Sierra and Deke. “I snatched these when Kane took us back to the dark planes to look for Ella.”

He tosses down shackles with familiar markings; the same markings we use to bind Ella on the nights of the red moon. Otherwise she shifts and goes on a small killing spree. Even though she’s ridding the earth of people that hurt others, she doesn’t want to kill mortals and she can’t control it.

“They had creature gods in that place. Two of them,” Deke says. “Dray is coming over to help us. He had to help with healing a lot of the worst injuries.”

“This just gets better and better,” Chaz groans while nudging the shackles.

“Maybe they’re like us,” Alyssa says, sounding hopeful. “Creature gods are inherently good. They can only choose to be… monsters.”

Dray—the dark angel I haven’t seen in so long—appears in a haze of smoke before anyone can comment.

“Looks like I’ve been missing all the fun,” Dray says dryly. Then he looks around the room, searching the faces. “Where’s Gage?”

With that, I take another long sip of whiskey.

Chapter 19

GAGE

Breaking out of hell is officially my least favorite thing to do. It’s not like a typical plane where you can just dematerialize and shift through the threads. You have to find various places and follow a labyrinth to get out.