Lost Beauty (The Deadly Beauties Live On 4)

Roslyn sniffs the air, and I turn on my senses, finding them useless once again. They didn’t leave a trail. Not even a small one.

She releases a howl, and I rush to her, stumbling to a halt as my eyes widen in disbelief. Dice is on the ground, his body slashed and seared with dark, charred lines.

Roslyn whimpers as I drop to his side, hearing the steady beat of his heart. I’m not even sure how he’s alive right now.

Scrambling, I grab my phone, and I call Gage.

“Did you find them?” he barks.

“Dice... He’s in the woods close to the old battlefield

. Find us—”

He appears suddenly, and his breath staggers when he sees the bloody remains of our barely breathing friend.

“Get him to Dray. Now!”

He puts his hands on Dice, and they vanish together. How the fucking hell did he end up here of all places?

Just as Roslyn starts to charge again, something appears in front of me. It takes two seconds too long to realize it’s Slade... but that’s not what has me dropping to my knees.

Kya’s body is limp and lifeless in his arms. My entire soul feels like it’s being ripped out of me at the sight of her. She looks so fragile and still, no color remaining in her once vibrant skin.

Rage, grief, and pure fury burns through my veins as a roar slices through the air, emerging from something so deep inside me that I almost let it fully take over to avoid the pain.

My chest caves in as I heave for air, almost finding it impossible to breathe. Slade says nothing as he slowly places her in front of me, carefully laying her cold, still body on the ground.

At the first feel of something wet on my face, another roar shakes the ground, causing the trees to bend and groan with the force of the attack on their roots.

“Good. You’re pissed. Now find her.”

My eyes snap up as I ride the edge of feral and sane, barely holding myself together as my hands dig into the dirt, gripping onto anything to hold me in place, as though I’ll disappear if I let myself.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” I growl, slowly climbing to my feet.

He’ll finally die.

My fist slams into his face so hard and unexpectedly that he flies backward on impact, his body smacking into a tree with enough force to knock it up, pulling the entire thing out of the ground.

He curses as he pushes himself up, and fire flies from my hands. He disappears and reappears right beside me, slamming his fist into my ribs.

“Get mad. Get desperate. Find that point inside you that can find her and save her before it’s too late.”

I can barely see as the dragon’s vision shifts, turning into a heat signature that merely outlines his shape in red surrounded by blue and green.

“She’s alive,” he tells me calmly.

Those two words have my vision slowly coming back, and I shake my head, trying to understand.

“But she won’t be if she doesn’t have a body to come back to. Find her. Your instincts demand you claim her. You can find her before the she wolf. She left to possess, but whatever force called her won’t send her back to her body. She’ll likely be dead or lost forever if there’s nothing to be possessed when she comes out.”

Every fiber in my body becomes attuned with her scent, and the beast inside me lets out a low, dangerous growl that vibrates everything around me as the world seems to stop moving around us.

Leaves freeze mid-drop, the air silences, and the creatures of the forest halt as time and space seem to cease in existence.

Echoes of screams find my ears, distant but not too distant. I lift her into my arms, breathing her in deeper, hearing the screams become more pronounced. My head jerks to the right, and I shakily exhale.

“You made me think she was dead. I should kill you.” I cut my eyes toward him, but he doesn’t even flinch.