Unchained Beauty (The Deadly Beauties Live On 5)

I say nothing. I simply turn and walk back inside. Kya has grown as distracted as the rest of them, planning a future that may not come to pass if Hannah the demon wins this war due to a lack of commitment to bringing her down.

No sooner do I get the star charts laid out in front of me, I feel the familiar sensation in the pit of my stomach. The feeling of being called to by power far too strong to ignore.

I close my eyes, seeing her the second they’re shut, just as always. I can’t even sleep anymore without seeing her.

Her silver eyes are flickering to black as energy blasts from her hands, so many colors of energy she shouldn’t have. Blue. White. Red. Yellow. It’s all there, a rainbow of destruction blazing from the most uncontrollable source.

Blonde hair whips in the wind that violently cyclones around her as a dark grin emerges and plays on her lips. She’s losing herself quickly. Too quickly. It seems to only get worse instead of better.

Fucking princess. Why does she continue to use her powers with no control?

I hear someone shouting my name, causing me to snap my eyes open. Groaning, I walk over to the door, watching as Kimber races toward the house.

“Slade!” she shouts again, her dark user appearing just behind her, his eyes trained on me like I’m the motherfucking threat she’s running toward.

“What now?” I ask dismissively, pretending as though I don’t already know.

“We got into a fight with some of the Harbingers of Death, and Ella lost it when we got outnumbered. She’s going to implode if you don’t do something!”

The panic in her voice and the shaking of her body, all paired with her wide, terrified eyes tells me how badly Ella scares them. They’re worried about her, and they’re desperate enough to come to me for help.

Time and time again.

Bloody fools. All of them.

“I’m busy trying to find out when the next portal can be opened so that we can actually stop it this time. Feel free to do something other than hinder me,” I tell her with an unconcerned wave of my hand.

“But—”

“Forget it, Kimber,” Gage growls in interruption, grabbing her at the waist when it looks like she’s going to follow me.

I just smirk at him as I prop against my doorway.

“He’s pointless,” the dark user goes on.

Kimber’s scathing glare has me rolling my eyes. A visionless visionary/gatekeeper doesn’t worry me in the least, and that’s all she is. Gatekeepers are pointless if you don’t need a gate opened.

As soon as they disappear, I shut my door, mutter a curse, and close my eyes again, sensing that confounding princess and where she is. The second I’m locked in, I dematerialize and land right in the middle of a fucking storm.

The trees are bending and groaning, threatening to snap, as Ella’s eyes stay fully blacked out, dark laughter slipping out of her like an ominous melody. The black eyes are a rather new development.

She moves her hands like an orchestra conductor. The few harbingers she hasn’t cut down are dancing like puppets on strings to the movements of her hands.

That’s also new.

And a little twisted, even by my standards.

The second her dark, eerie eyes land on me, I push away from the tree I’m leaned against, and her storm falters. Distracted by my presence, her smile morphs into something predatory.

Same smile I always get once she’s wasted high on her power and lost to darker instincts.

She fumbles for footing, moving toward me as the storm she’s created slowly dissipates. With one snap of her wrists, the remaining harbingers start thrashing around in agony.

Again, that’s new.

Her power seems to be growing daily. But her control is less than ever before.

Screams of anguish give rhythm to her own little psychotic steps as she sways to them like it’s all just music, moving lithely toward me.