Unchained Beauty (The Deadly Beauties Live On 5)

With that, he’s gone, and it’s like a tub of ice water is poured over me.

Oh, that twisted, insensitive son of a bitch just used supercharged incubus powers on me right after what I went through? All to make me stupid enough to accidentally slip and tell him my information source?

Shit. Now he knows I’m in contact with Alton.

I also know he’s not stupid enough to target anyone in my family. Again.

Cursing, I sit down and stare at the woods, feeling stupid and gullible and…

Huffing out a breath, I take a good long look at my whiny self.

Tomorrow, things have to change. I can’t be this way one more day.

I can’t be a danger to my family. And I think I just figured out a way to restore the piece of me that was stolen when that bond snapped and betrayal flooded me so intensely that I was sick and feverish for the first three days of my new immortal life.

I just have to really piss Slade off in order to succeed.

Then I have to make him sort of hate/love me enough to bind us and all that. If I’m right, then I’ll be able to hold onto my sanity long enough to kill Hannah and her army of damnable creatures, stop the portal from opening and releasing whatever hell it is she intends to unleash, let Alton play whatever part a dead Gemini has in this whole ordeal, and save the day.

> Piece of cake.

So long as I’m right…

We’re all dead.

Chapter 9

SLADE

Staring at myself in the mirror and working damn hard not to blink just so I don’t accidentally linger and let myself see her right now, I clutch the sink until it breaks and sends porcelain fragments scattering across the floor.

The door to my bathroom flies open, and Kya poises at the door like she’s ready to tackle a bathroom bandit. She relaxes when she sees me.

“I take it something went wrong?” she asks.

Before I’m forced to answer that rhetorical question with a deflective answer that doesn’t let her know I damn near just made a fucking mess of things, I hear my name being called.

Stalking past her and out of the front cabin door, I narrow my eyes on Simone and Hank, who have just made it back with our two missing females in tow. Both of them are out of breath.

The two dazed females sit quietly as I rein in my own anger that has me wanting to kill Simone and Hank—when we’re not in front of everyone.

“It was all a distraction,” Simone growls. “The princess was sent to the forest, because her family knew you’d be distracted. They captured Gavin again, but Hank and I lost them when they realized we were following.”

Everyone looks at me. Everyone waits for me to give them the order they think I’ll give. Kya’s eyes are wide from the steps, and a few people cast her suspicious looks like they’re worried she’ll run to warn them if I make the call.

Her family knew I’d be distracted by Ella.

Simone just fucking announced it to everyone here, and now her eyes are narrowed in challenge like she’s begging me to deny it.

Ella is the bane of my existence at this particular moment.

Instead of reacting as they expect, I smirk. “I killed the Type A incubus you left alive, even though he was imprisoning hordes of women, two of which are our own,” I drawl, watching as her pupils dilate.

Hank stiffens beside her, and a lot of accusatory eyes swing toward Simone and Hank.

“I killed him, even though the princess—who you left to remain imprisoned, even though she freed all of us—ordered me not to. Do you really think me a puppet, Simone?”

She swallows thickly, no longer looking as confident in her defiance as she did seconds ago.