Bitten Beauty (The Deadly Beauties Live On 3)

“We’ll go grab supplies while you read over that. I need some air,” Ella says while walking out with Kimber.

Gage is quickly behind them, wrapping his arm around Kimber’s shoulders. Thad and Roslyn head upstairs.

“Back in a bit,” Thad says with a wink.

“Hope those reinforcement spells work. I hate it when they wreck the house,” Chaz grumbles.

“Why’d you hide from Kya?” I ask him quietly. “Slade can see through you too, if what Leah heard was right.”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” he lies.

“It’s just us. Leah is fast asleep.”

After he glances over his shoulder, he looks back at me. “Leah said Slade can do what Karma and Kya can, but he can’t. He has the same power as Ella, Kane, and Alyssa. They can see through to a person’s core. He’s just learned to look at what a person really is by honing those same abilities. But he has to look. Karma and Kya just see. ‘The eyes are windows to the soul’ and all that jazz. Kya is several times stronger than Karma, and Karma saw a part of me.”

“Part of you?” I ask, confused.

“Yeah, Zee. I’m even more of a freak than you. Get over it,” he says dryly. “Slade isn’t looking at me. He thinks I’m a duster and has no reason to strain himself to see differently. It’s better that way. In case you haven’t noticed, he doesn’t like anyone he perceives as a threat anywhere close to Ella. Dude is fucking psycho around her.”

“I actually didn’t notice that. I just thought he was psycho in general.”

He snorts derisively. “Maybe he is. I just notice the way he freaks out about her safety. Maybe I’m wrong. It might have something to do with the fact she reminds him of someone or something. He sure as hell doesn’t act like he wants to fuck her. In fact, he acts like he’s scared to touch her. I don’t know what his deal is, but the more attention he pays her and everyone else, the less he notices me.”

“Why would he care what you are?”

“Because half of me would be perceived as a threat. If not all of me. Hell, Karma only saw the best side and still freaked out. I’m hoping she doesn’t get strong enough to see the rest.”

“Half? Mixed breeds couldn’t happen until purgatory was opened.”

“Unless you were one type of fey,” he says with a shrug. “I have a very rare bloodline. One that shouldn’t even exist.”

When he grows quiet, I nudge him with my shoulder. “I don’t give a fuck what you are. I’m not old enough to have a biased opinion.”

He looks like he’s relieved, and he opens his mouth to speak, when Leah emerges from the bedroom looking like sleep and sex.

Fuck me.

Chaz smirks when he sees me looking at her, and he stands to give her his spot. I scowl at him as Leah takes a seat beside me and picks up the book I was about to read. After Chaz finally revealed his damn secret.

Now the mystery is even more annoying than it was before, because I was seconds away from learning the truth.

“This is what I’m supposed to be?” she asks quietly, skimming the pages.

“Yeah. The Aquarius bloodline.”

“You know it makes her a target,” Chaz says.

Actually, I hadn’t thought of that. Motherfucker.

“What?” she asks idly, still flipping the pages.

“The ones we’re trying to take down want blood from all the firsts. That includes the first anointed. If you’re in their bloodline, you can be turned into whatever it is they’re trying to recreate.”

“But you don’t know what that is.”

Her eyes lift up, searching our expressions, and she goes back to what she’s reading when we don’t answer.

“It says we were pure.” She leans into me like it’s a natural reaction. “The other lines were tainted because of diluted views and impure bias. The Aquarius was the only true line chosen by the lokies to balance out the power they’d created. One species was designed to destroy humans. One was designed to protect them.”