Lost Beauty (The Deadly Beauties Live On 4)

Ella looks like he just struck her, and Slade’s eyes narrow like he’s challenging her to argue.

“Alyssa could use more protection. Just in case,” Gage says quietly, looking to Ella.

Her lip trembles, but she masks her expression so quickly that I almost miss it.

“Right. Let’s do what he says, since he’s never once given us a reason not to trust him. I’m your strongest—”

“You’re their gravest weakness,” Slade says, cutting her off. “Everyone wants to protect you, and you try to kill them all when you get high on the power. Be smart, princess. Tonight’s not the night for trite mistakes.”

Ella vanishes without another word, and everyone glares over at Slade.

“I’m just saying what you’re all too weak to say,” he drawls unapologetically.

“Ella is our strongest. You better not be getting rid of her just so you can—”

“If you genuinely felt she was your strongest, you would have defended her. You know as well as I do that she’s pointless until she gets her power under control. Now you can stand around here with your dicks in your hand all day, or we can go fight. Personally? I’m not in the mood to play with my dick.”

He disappears with that, and I blow out a breath.

“That’s because his dick probably stays limp,” Dice says unexpectedly. “Hashtag—Impotence breeds psychos.”

My eyebrows go up, but he’s studying the map, acting like he didn’t just say that.

“We’ll take the north,” Gage says, motioning to him and Kimber. “Dice, you’re with us.”

Dice nods.

“Calypso and Drackus are staking it out now. They’ll be southwest.”

“We’ll take the south,” Thad announces, his fingers lacing with Roslyn’s before he kisses the back of her hand, exhaling a shaky breath.

“We’ll take the east,” Zee adds as he hands Leah another sword. The girl is packed to the guild with weapons.

Demon magic hurt her. They managed to trap her in the barrier with us with witch magic.

Her Aquarius blood isn’t stopping them. She was supposed to be our strongest weapon against them.

“That’ll put us at the west,” Chaz says, his hand clamping down on my hip.

“The others will remain with Alyssa and—”

“We’ll join Zee and Leah on the east,” Sierra snarls as she storms in, her eyes red-rimmed and tearstained.

Deke nods. “This one is for Amy.”

“For Amy,” Dice says on a quiet breath, tossing a tack into the map to signify where he’ll be. “And for what they almost did to my girl and my unborn child.”

“For all those scared, lonely children,” Kimber murmurs, sticking a tack beside Dice’s.

“For my niece,” Zee says, adding his own red tack.

“For Morgana and my brother,” Gage says, choking back any emotion as he stabs the map with his black tack.

“For my sister and me, and all the other slaves who were tortured,” I say, sticking my tack in.

A silver tack appears on its own, and my heart aches. Slade is still in here. He’s hidden in camouflage, but he put in his own tack, marking his own pain.

I don’t look around, not letting him know I just saw that. No one else seems to have noticed, and he’d hate it if anyone did.