Dark Beauty (The Deadly Beauties Live On 1)

“Don’t worry about that,” he says under his breath. “Her parents will put her on lockdown the second I give them a warning.”

Ella curses him, but he ignores her. My eyes fall back on Kya. “If we find them, do you think they could help?”

She frowns while shifting uncomfortably. “No. They won’t be together. The rings turned them against each other. One shut out the other’s pain, making him endure it on his own and twice as much. That creates bitter ties. You should go. I won’t be here much longer. It’s too dangerous to stay in one spot right now. They’ll be scrambling to replace all the power they’ve lost.”

Karma goes to her again, but keeps a respectable distance.

“Come with us. We’ll protect you.”

Kya’s eyes water, but she straightens her back and clears her throat. “I have friends that need me, and I don’t know you. They don’t know you. I realize you think because we’re related that we can just fall into being sisters, but I can’t. I’m sorry, but…”

“But we are sisters,” Karma says.

Thad tugs my hand and Ella’s, too. He’s right. This is private between them. We walk outside, and Dice follows, running a hand through his hair and looking truly distraught. I’ve never seen the incubus show concern until Karma.

“I need to get Ella out of here,” Thad tells me, and I nod in agreement.

“You can’t be serious,” Ella growls at me.

“You’re my sister. I don’t want you hugging a corner one day the way Kya just was.”

Her eyes shift from anger to something else, and in a blink, she’s hugging me almost painfully tight. I hug her back, and we just stand there that way for several long minutes.

“You’re just as rare, Kimber.”

“If they wanted a gate opened, they wouldn’t have been paying special attention to creature gods. Your ass is too valuable,” I say jokingly while sniffling and laughing at the same time.

She pulls back, and then she slaps Thad’s chest. “I’m only doing this for her. You couldn’t force me to go. I can kick your ass, you know?”

Thad smirks. “Yes, princess, I’m perfectly aware of the fact you could hand my ass to me any day of the week, considering you’re twice as tough as Alyssa. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t have given it my best shot.”

She smirks before turning back to me. “Be careful. Call me if you need me.”

I promise her I will, even though we both know I won’t, and Thad leads her away just as Karma comes out of the cabin. Furiously, she wipes away her tears.

“I’ve spent my entire life searching for her. I was tossed in the rings and all I could think about was finding her. And she doesn’t want to have anything to do with me,” she says through a hoarse, rasp breath.

Dice goes to her, but she shrugs him off. “I just need to get some rest. This is exhausting,” she tells him, walking over to my car, and Dice mumbles something under his breath about women and drama.

But I know he’s deflecting. This is probably killing him, just like it’s killing me that Gage is pushing me away.

Chapter 21

GAGE

“You going to just throw her away?” Drackus growls while appearing in my living room.

I sip the scotch, not bothering to look up and meet his snarl.

“I didn’t throw her away,” I mumble halfheartedly. Even though we both know it’s a lie. “I’m keeping her safe.”

“She was safer with you, dumbass. Now she’s out there doing this alone! She won’t let us help, because she wants us watching Ella. I’m having to catch all the information they’re gathering through Thad and Chaz instead of hearing it from my own daughter.”

She won’t get close to Gavin, no matter how hard she tries. I’m not worried abou

t her stumbling onto a lead. But I’ll make sure she stays away from this. Gavin is too smart to be caught by someone as young as Kimber.

“Do you really want her around me after what you saw?” I ask him, standing up from my couch and pushing aside the scrolls I’ve been reading over tirelessly since the ring raid. “Because I’ll have to go to that place again, Drackus. It’s the only way I’ll be able to kill my brother. You saw her. She wouldn’t leave. She wouldn’t fucking leave. Do you really want her around me when that happens?”