Bitten Beauty (The Deadly Beauties Live On 3)

The scent of the blood is almost overwhelming. To know witch blood, you’re supposed to have tasted it before. I’ve never had witch blood, so how the hell can I tell the difference on just a breath? What did that sick fucker do to me?

Dice’s sharp intake of breath slices through my own straying thoughts, and I turn around as he lifts the head of the second victim for all of us to see.

“Is that who I think it is?” I ask, confused.

“Hashtag, the dead man walking is officially dead. So which one of us killed him?”

It’s no secret that we’ve all been plotting the death of Liam since the day Alyssa was forced to let him walk. He broke no damning fey laws, but he almost destroyed Ella. As queen, Alyssa had to lead by example by showing mercy instead of unjustifiable death.

“We’ve all been letting the dust settle before killing him,” Thad growls. “Chaz sent him to rot inside a friend’s dungeon not too long ago, just wondering if anyone would notice him missing. We knew he’d escaped, but we didn’t expect him to be so close.”

“The last thing we need is his death tied to us right now,” I groan. “Alyssa is having problems keeping people in line as it is. More and more are taking matters into their own hands instead of trusting her. There will be anarchy soon. Not to mention chaos. The council has lost all credibility since the release of all the slave-ring prisoners was done without warning the communities. They think we’re just doing whatever we want and to hell with the consequences.”

Liam barely looks like he’s been dead for longer than a few minutes, but the blood around him looks like it’s been getting spilled for hours at different intervals.

Dice snaps a picture and starts texting. “Might as well find out if it was one of us or if Liam had someone else that hated him as much as we do.”

His phone is immediately bogged down with numerous messages, and I prop against the wall, trying to slow my breathing and hide the fact I’m struggling to be in here without drinking. It shouldn’t be this hard.

“Don’t tell Ella yet,” Thad says idly, still studying Liam’s shredded body.

“Wasn’t gonna,” Dice says, distracted. “Looks like she’s the only one not accounted for, though. Everyone else says their hands are clean.”

He puts his phone away, and he frowns. Just as I’m about to speak, a faint whimper catches my ears.

Roslyn’s head snaps up with Thad’s, and the three of us exchange a look. They heard it, too. Thad holds his finger over his lips, and he walks silently down the hallway.

Everyone follows except for Dice, who is still talking to an empty room, unaware we’ve left him behind.

The problem with all the freshly spilled blood is that it has been masking another scent I’m struggling with… One that I wouldn’t have even considered being here.

But it’s like I’m being punched in the face with it the second I walk into a dark room. Thad flips on the light just as Roslyn flings open the closet doors with nothing more than a flick of her wrist.

And there she is. Wide-eyed and terrified as she gazes into my eyes, wearing the same surprise I feel, it’s her. Another whimper escapes the woman clinging to her, and Dice walks in behind us, as everyone stares in absolute silence.

“You,” my temptress whispers hoarsely, seeming rather composed next to the crying wreck beside her.

“You,” I say back, still shocked and confused.

“I take it you two know each other?” Thad asks, but my eyes are locked on the terrified green ones that won’t leave my gaze.

Before I can answer, Dice asks a question I didn’t even consider. “Don’t suppose you two are the ones who carved up those

lads in there, are you?”

The writer doubles over, retching loud and brutally, and the stench immediately helps to eclipse all the more delicious smells amongst us. It’s sick that I want to thank her for having a weak stomach.

My temptress hisses out a breath and grabs the other woman’s hair, holding it behind her, as the woman continues to purge the contents of her stomach.

“I’ll take that as a no,” Dice says, wrinkling his nose in disgust.

“If they’re not the killers, then we have some witnesses to solve the mystery,” Thad says with a shrug. “Let’s take this back to Gage’s house before someone sees us here.”

Chapter 5

LEAH

“She’s nothing but a freak,” Henry Leonard taunts, laughing at me. “She needs be locked up like her mother.”