Unchained Beauty (The Deadly Beauties Live On 5)

irt, needing him closer. But the fabric simply tears in my hands when I try to use the shirt to pull him closer, and he smirks down at me.

“But you won’t claim me,” I remind him, almost feeling caught in a haze.

“You’re drained from the day, Princess,” he whispers, putting his lips near mine. “When you’re fed, rested, and thinking clearer, you’ll be thankful I won’t claim you. Because you hate me. Remember that.”

He starts to pull away, but my hands move up, grabbing onto his back and digging my barely-there claws into his skin hard enough that he’s the one to hiss out a breath of pain as he glares at me.

When he growls, I smirk.

“You like to break people down to small pieces of diluted information. You’ve done it to me countless times. But what about you?” I ask, drawing a wary look from him as I continue to hold him in place.

“You killed him because he touched what was yours, and you stole my own revenge from me when I was getting closer to finally having it.”

“Trust me, I deserved his death more than you did,” he growls.

“You save me because you can’t bear the thought of someone else ever hurting me again,” I go on, keeping my voice soft even as his expression grows more murderous. “Because I’m still yours. You’d kill any man who tried to touch me.”

He snorts derisively.

“You think much too highly of yourself, Princess. In case you’ve forgotten, your father and mother were mates who weren’t mated when she was with Gage, but she still—”

“My father and mother don’t count. Their situation was completely different, because my father’s instincts were dampened by a hex,” I quickly point out.

His hand slides down my body, moving with the curve of my leg until he’s gripping my thigh. In this intimate position, I half consider just using my magic to make us naked and see if he can refuse me then.

“They stole your light,” I whisper, lifting my head until my lips brush his. “Like he stole mine. You killed him because he did to me what they did to you, and you had to watch it.”

Locked in a stare, we both hold still, the sounds of our breaths the only thing breaking up the silence in the air.

“But you want to die, so you’re waiting on the right time to mate me and sever the final bond, doing limited damage to me when you kill yourself for whatever prophecy calls for a Gemini twin.”

Only he’s not doing it to punish Alton, the way his brother thinks. Slade doesn’t want anyone seeing his suicide as weakness.

Slade’s eyes narrow, and the lusty spell is broken when he grabs my hands and shoves them above my head.

“You’re going to tell me who you’ve been talking to, Princess. Or—”

“You’ve already admitted you can’t hurt me,” I remind him.

His eyes narrow. “If you’re hiding my brother, I’ll kill everyone in your family. Do you doubt that?”

When my heart starts hammering in my chest and fear finally replaces the last of the stupid arousal, power flies out of me, slamming into him and throwing him off me so hard that he’s launched at least thirty feet away.

He lands hard, and immediately starts laughing when he jumps back up to his feet. His torn shirt fall off in tattered pieces, and even in the dark, I can see all the brutal scars all over his body.

Scars that must have caused so much pain to be formed.

Scars like no other immortal has ever had because our skin heals too quickly and cleanly.

They stretch all over his torso, shoulders, arms…everywhere. The protective symbols are inked all over him—so many more than I’ve ever seen on anyone, and the scars rise through them, making them all the more obvious in the places where there are markings.

When lightning strikes despite a clear sky, it illuminates him. He looks like the devil waiting to collect another soul.

“Threaten my family again, and I’ll show you how easy it is for me to really lose control. We’ll find out who’s stronger when I’m not on a leash.”

“Princess, you couldn’t fucking kill me if you lost it. You only want to claim me when you lose it.”

“Liar,” I say as I stalk closer.