Lost Beauty (The Deadly Beauties Live On 4)

Kimber isn’t in here, I notice. Neither is Roslyn. Where’d they go? When did they leave?

Leah’s hand goes to her hip where a dagger rests, but Zee pulls her back, wrapping a hand over hers.

“How did you get out?” Thad asks him when Gavin just continues to wear that infuriating smirk.

Chaz slowly lowers me to the couch, putting his body in front of me until I’m forced to lean around him to see.

I just used my sister’s body to obliterate an army of hard-to-kill soldiers, yet he’s shielding me from one man.

“Well, after that last little visit, I was finally able to shake that damned blood oath. Funny thing about chains and such, when you work with them long enough, you know how to escape. I was just staying until I was finally free. Thanks for the help.”

“Morgana is the master,” Karma grinds out.

Gavin flicks a disinterested gaze over her before rolling his eyes. “Morgana is not the master. Morgana is a victim. I’ve spent so long trying to free her, even took the blood oath as a means to stay close enough to one day end this.”

My brow furrows.

“You had this all figured out. Why are you now so certain the girl you never suspected is now the evil mastermind you’ve been trying so hard to discover?” he muses, as though this is all just a game to him.

“Morgana is anything but a victim,” Karma says, jerking to her feet. “She stared into my eyes and coldly announced what was going to—”

“She’s possessed,” I say, standing and stepping around Chaz.

He immediately jerks me back to him, like he’s ready to get me out of here if need be. He’s a little too protective right now. He forgets I’m a warrior.

Gavin winks at me, and Chaz growls. “Smart girl. Though really, this has already been assumed.”

“Morgana is possessed by the master, because the master is also a demon.”

Gavin’s jaw tics as that bored carelessness melts away. “That was my fault. I should have given her a permanent anti-possession mark. She just didn’t want any more marks after what we’d been given.”

He points to his neck where his own marks rest.

“Oversight on my part resulted in a new type of slavery after barely a taste of freedom. But I can lead you right to them, if and only if you all offer a blood oath that Morgana will be de-demonized and unharmed.”

“We can’t make that kind of promise,” Gage growls. “How do you even force a demon out?”

“Well, I can tell you there’s no magic excerpt to read that pushes them out. But you have two half breed demons. The only way to force a possession out is to possess anew. One of your demon hybrids can go in, fight the master until she sees it fit to jump out, then voila. I get Morgana, you get your bad guy, and we all live happily ever after. The end.”

“No,” Chaz says coldly. “Sending them in could get them killed.”

“The easiest way to kill a demon is to kill the host,” Slade says, and I resist the urge to slap them both.

“Figured you’d say that,” Gavin drawls.

“Do you have any idea what’s at stake?” Gage barks. “If they open a portal to whatever it is they’re after, they could destroy all of us.”

Gavin shrugs.

“You know my offer. Take it or leave it. I can tell you everything you need to know about the master and her plan.”

“Her? You’ve referred to a woman twice. You know who the demon is,” Gage says.

Gavin’s eyes narrow to slits. “So do you, brother.

You killed her once. Guess you did a shitty job at making her stay dead.”

Gage seems to pale, and he slowly lowers to the bed next to Dice as though standing is an impossibility.