Lost Beauty (The Deadly Beauties Live On 4)

My breath comes out in a rush, seeing how close I was to being in the path of that.

Chaz doesn’t even glance down at me before turning again, and I try not to think about the fact there’s a bit of someone else’s guts on my side where his hand was holding me.

My eyes force themselves away from his back as the red shoots from my hands and slices through one girl who is racing toward me. I spin around and slam my booted heel into the chest of another.

Slade is suddenly beside me, and I know that look in his eyes. It’s not a look I like.

Ella is whirling through the masses that seem to be never-ending. She also looks to be on the verge of losing herself to the power she can’t control. If she loses it, we’re all fucked.

Maybe Slade is right; they have plenty of power but no control.

Zee is already out of it, barely coherent as the darkness consumes him. Gage will be the next to break. Chaz is unpredictable at this point, already being twice as brutal as he’s ever been, to my knowledge. What if he’s losing it too?

“You need to get the hell out of here,” Slade tells me, still releasing power as he fights through the ones coming in through the south tunnel. It’s like a beehive full of buzzing bees, only the bees are vicious demons on a mission. Oh, and they’re wearing night stalker skin.

“You can’t take on this many demons on your own. Not even you’re that good,” I point out, narrowly dodging a stray streak from Zee.

Damn him.

“I want you out of here. I don’t plan to take them all on. We’re not prepared for this fucking shit. I just want to take out as many as possible before getting the hell out of the battle zone.”

“What about them?” I ask, wincing when my arm burns from a streak that grazes it. I was trained to endure pain, but that doesn’t mean I

don’t still feel it.

Slade cracks his neck to the side. “Leave the princess. Get the others out.”

He spins away before I can try to argue how impossible that will be. I tuck and roll across the floor, landing next to Leah before I scramble back up to my feet.

“Please tell me you know a shut off switch for Zee,” I tell her, throwing up a shield in front of us just in time to stop a blast.

“I can get him out if that’s what you’re asking, but he’s not turning on us, so we’re good!” she shouts, distracted as she throws two knives into the heads of the demons running straight at us.

Her definition of good certainly doesn’t align with mine.

“Get him out. Slade is about to go thermonuclear.”

Her eyes widen, but she nods before diving away and slamming into Zee’s back. He turns and his eyes slowly start to fade from black back to his color. I blow out a breath that their connection is stronger than the uncontrollable power.

In less than a blink, they’re gone, even though he’s not fully lucid when they leave. Chaz is fighting next to Gage, and I rush over to them.

“Time to go!” I yell, then duck behind Gage when an onslaught of red energy pounds against his shield.

“Kind of busy!” Gage snaps.

“Now! Slade is going to give us time to get out of here, but you don’t want to stick around to see how.”

“Shit,” Chaz curses. “Grab Ella,” he adds to Gage.

“Leave Ella. She’s already drunk on the high from using too much power. Slade can handle her.”

“Like hell,” Gage snarls. “Kane doesn’t want her around that son of a bitch.”

“His mother was actually a good woman, based on what I’ve gathered,” I point out, then roll my eyes when I realize he doesn’t mean that term literally.

Gage doesn’t comment on that. Instead he says, “We can’t—”

His words die when Ella turns her wicked gaze on us, and a dark smile curves her lips as her hand shoots out. My breath is slammed out of me when an invisible force collides with all three of us, launching us back so hard that we crack the wall behind us on impact.