Bitten Beauty (The Deadly Beauties Live On 3)

“I need more if we’re going to stay at it.”

“I’ll come with,” she says, grabbing her purse. “Nighttime is when things really seem to pop. Safety in numbers.”

She looks giddy, but I’m still stuck in my own head as we walk outside. After grabbing coffee, we walk around the seemingly harmless town. People smile as they pass. Several Wiccan type shops have lines wrapped around the corners.

This town is like a constant Halloween town.

“So, here’s an interesting fact,” Marilyn says, reading book as we walk under the streetlights. “A couple of decades ago, this town was littered with accounts of ghost sightings, wild animals running amuck, several power outages, and countless deaths. It all started on one bizarre night, but it took several years for things to calm down. Pine Shore has always been a point of random and unexplainable things that lean toward supernatural occurrences. It also has one of the highest rates for animal attacks and missing persons.”

“Why would anyone live here?” I muse, feeling distracted when I see one seriously scary looking guy lurking ahead of us in the shadows.

“Because it’s so cool,” Marilyn gushes, but I’m still too focused on the man lurking in the dark, though he seems oblivious to anyone else but where his attention is focused.

His eyes seem to be a glowing silver as he watches someone… another man. The man takes his magazine from a stand, and he walks away. The silver-eyed man stands and starts to follow. When the lights hit him just right, my breath catches in my throat.

Scars mar his face, and he’s tall. Really, really tall. At least 6’5 or taller. He’d probably be fairly attractive if it wasn’t for those scars.

Leisurely, he follows the man at a casual stride, as Marilyn rattles on more creepy facts about this town.

“What are you staring at?” she asks me, but I start walking faster, keeping up with the silver-eyed man and the guy he seems to be following.

“Something is wrong,” I whisper, crossing the street at a safe distance, keeping our impromptu tailing discreet.

The scarred man pulls a hood up and pockets his hands as the man he’s following ducks into a building. One second the scarred guy is in front of us, the next… he’s gone. Like disappeared kind of gone.

“Did you see that?” Marilyn hisses, stumbling into me as I stare in wide-eyed disbelief at what I just saw. Or didn’t see, rather.

My eyes dart around, but no one else on the street seems to have noticed that a guy just vanished into thin freaking air.

“Yeah,” I whisper shakily, staring up at the building where the other guy walked into. “Come on.”

She follows me without question, because Marilyn’s curiosity outweighs all else. I’m not normally too curious, but right now, I can’t help but wonder what the damn hell just happened. There has to be a logical explanation.

The door opens up to a quiet, dark, abandoned house—a very old house equipped with the typical creepy squeaks and creaks.

“Don’t you dare say ‘hello’ like they do in the movies. Someone always dies when that happens,” Marilyn whispers, gripping my arm tightly as she uses her other hand to tuck her book into her purse.

“Wasn’t going to announce our trespassing,” I whisper back.

We slowly walk through the darkness. Vague shapes become tables or chairs or walls when we get close enough to make them out in the pitch black house. Why aren’t there any lights on? That first guy walked in here. I know he did.

Light music startles us, but nothing but silent fear escapes. We remain quiet and stealthy as we creep through the house, following the sound of the sudden music.

“What did you find out?” a voice asks.

Marilyn grips my arm tighter, and we round a corner that has a faint glow coming from a room in the back. Two large doors are open, and we can see into the huge room with ease. Marilyn drags me into another dark room, and we peek around the door frame, watching like stalking psychos as a man circles another man.

“Nothing. If the queen is here, she’s not in the open. Maybe your sources were wrong,” the guy we followed in here says.

“Fuck,” the man in a blue suit snarls.

They both have an air of dangerously attractive. Marilyn even fans herself dramatically to state the silent fact while winking at me. The guy we followed is wearing street clothes, looking like an everyday sort of person. But the blue suit guy looks as though he’s late for Wall Street.

“Sorry, Liam. Maybe you were wrong. If the queen isn’t here, neither is the duster. Why do you want him dead, anyway? Shouldn’t your attention be on the princess?”

“Duster?” Marilyn mouths, looking at me like I have some clue what they’re talking about.

“No. I want the duster dead. It took me over a year to get back here after what he did to me.”