Lost Beauty (The Deadly Beauties Live On 4)

There’s not an ounce of good magic inside him.

“My birthmother was red jinn. In theory, she should have only birthed a red jinn. But, our world always, always has exceptions. Those other two things are those exceptions. My father was a blend of both, a creature who was left behind for not belonging in either of the other dimensions, and he had no idea he could impregnate her. Voila. Here I am.”

I swallow hard, still trying to process it.

“So you’re mostly red jinn?”

He shakes his head slowly. “Not how it works, sweetheart. Not when the other two are far more powerful than red jinn. It evens out into thirds, I think. I’m not really sure, to be honest. It’s not like there’s a guidebook.”

It doesn’t make sense that he’s been so close to the central circle of power, but has never attacked them, unless he truly means them no harm. It also doesn’t make sense that the three parts are nothing but bad, yet he claims to be good.

He studies my face, probably trying to decipher my expression, and I try to mask my features.

“If you tell Slade or anyone else what I am, it will distract everyone from what’s going on right now and leave us disjointed,” he goes on, making a damn good point. “I’ve killed to protect my friends and family. If you have any logic in you at all, you’d see it would be illogical for me to have done that if I wanted anything to happen to them.”

“How do you feed?” I ask immediately, considering red jinn thrive off the magic of others, and it often kills the one being fed on if they take too much.

“Dice,” he says with a hint of amusement. It almost makes me laugh. Almost. His eyes grow serious again. “And those fights. I take a little from everyone in there without them realizing it’s missing. They’ll replenish before they ever even knew it was gone. It’s why I show up to them.”

He presses tighter against me, and a breath hisses between my lips when I feel something hard against the V of my thighs. Something that should not be hard if his earlier promise is legit. The small amount of movement causes a surprising reaction from me, but I ignore it. Obviously I’m sick if this is turning me on.

He clears his throat while pulling his hips back, and his eyes avert mine. “I’m going to let you go, but we’re not finished talking. I can transport quicker than you can dematerialize, so don’t even think about trying to run. Got it?”

His eyes meet mine again, and I slowly nod. Transporting? I thought that was ancient magic long lost with... Oh yeah.

“Are there others like you?” I ask him as he loosens his grip on my wrists and inches back slowly, warily. He pulls off the mask, and that helps remove some of the threatening appeal.

Then again, we’re designed to make others let their guards down. Show someone the monsters we really are, and they run. Show someone something beautiful, and we’re drawn to it like mindless drones with the depth of a puddle.

As he eases back and sits on the ground, I take a look around, noticing we’re in the woods, near the lake somewhere. It’s dark, it’s isolated, and it’s doubtful screaming like a human would save me if I needed to be saved.

I could try to hit him with my magic, but it still feels subdued, even though I don’t know how he’s doing that.

“I don’t know,” he states as he watches me with a guarded expression.

“Do the others know what you are?” I ask him, pulling out all the information he’s willing to give.

“I have a question of my own,” he says instead of answering me. “How do you know what I am?”

That’s not a question I want to answer just yet.

“I don’t trust you,” I remind him.

He laughs humorlessly while dropping his head back.

“Which part?” he asks, bringing his head back down as his eyes train on mine and his jaw tics. “I need to hear you say which part you don’t trust and why.”

All those powers beam around him like a taunting aura no one but my kind can see.

“Karma doesn’t know?” I ask him quietly.

“She knows the red jinn. If she’s seen more, I’m not aware of it. She met a female red jinn in the slave rings.”

I wince at just the mention of the hell I barely survived, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

“I need to hear you say it, Kya. I need to know what you see... what scares you... how you even know what it is. Then you can go.”

I don’t know if I trust that or not, but my options are limited, and he could easily keep me here if he wanted to. He could also be using force to get info instead of simply asking questions. But what if I become a liability because I know?