Unchained Beauty (The Deadly Beauties Live On 5)

Then he asks about Lokies because he’s apparently been eavesdropping with his stalker mind. I suppose that’s how he showed up to start fighting Adam with me.

“What happened with Adam?” I ask instead.

“He’s thoroughly dead and pissed on, but I’m not sure what she did to turn him into that. I am, however, almost positive she sent him to target you,” he tells me, his grip tightening as his silver eyes come up and dart around the room.

I’m not sure what thoroughly dead and pissed on means, but I’m sure everyone is fine if Kya was in here focusing on a contagious spell.

Right now I feel oddly settled, which is an unusual experience after losing myself. My muscles are loose, and the headache is gone, staved off by his incredibly tempting blood.

“I think shifting actually helps tamp down the some of the darkness in you,” he says as he pushes off me, clearing his throat.

He gets up, and I let my eyes rake over his body as I roll over to my front and watch his back as he walks to the far side of the room.

“It’s harder to shift into lycan or wolf form,” I tell him, watching his ass as he bends over and picks some jeans up from the floor. “But I always feel freer when I shift. I fly a lot with Thad. Or did. We’ve been hypervigilant lately and not risking flight.”

He shakes the jeans, and I practically feel the magic buzzing in the room as he ensures the denim is clean and starts dressing.

“You’re not usually a commando guy, are you?” I muse as the jeans cover his bare ass.

“I’m not entirely sure what that means,” he says absently.

My lips twitch. “Never mind.” He grabs a shirt, repeating the process as he pulls it down over his head.

My eyes scan his cabin, since he’s not distracting me with hostility for a change, and I gauge some of the many papers of equations that have fallen to the floor.

“You like math, I assume,” I say as I gesture toward the ground when he turns back to face me.

His eyes drop to the papers scattered there, and he shrugs a shoulder.

“It’s a necessity. It’s actually science. I’m deconstructing the prison I made by reversing the equations that helped me create it.”

He manages to say that without sounding bitter, even though Alton stole his revenge by being too willing to take the punishment when the time came.

“You created that weird place using science instead of magic?” I ask, confused.

His eyes seem to spark with that new humor he’s recently found, and his lips tug up in one corner.

“There was a time when people believed a pot of boiling water to be magic. Magic is only for the unexplainable or a generic term of phrasing when speaking to other immortals who don’t understand there’s a logical foundation for our genetic makeup,” he says as he pushes off and goes to kneel to the ground, scooping up some of the papers. “Everyone has different equations and variables to sort through their abilities. It’s how I learned to control my abilities.”

Sitting up, I tug the sheet over me and lean against the wall, since he has no headboard.

“It’s a rather large leap from boiling water to expelling orbs from one’s hands,” I point out.

“Your mind is more advanced, and your body has different needs from humans. Benign molecules humans see as insignificant become fused together and volatile in the palms of our hands, because we know how to draw them forth.”

“Explain immortality to me then,” I say, admittedly a little entranced by how complex his mind is.

“Our bodies aren’t inherently immortal, and in truth, we’re never immortal. We just stop aging and are more resilient than humans. Because we were created from humans, they become the base of reference, but in no way are we like them, other than for appearance’s sake, after turning,” he goes on. “The aging stops when we turn, and the math gets rather complex. It’d take a few days to break down all the equations,” he says as

though he’s answered this question before.

“Explain my genetic makeup and why it’s royal,” I state a little quieter.

“Our entire existence revolves around the premise of our baser human instincts that have long been forgotten—survival of the fittest. However, we’re more evolved than savages, so we’ve adjusted and adapted, but there’s always one stronger. You come from a bloodline that is inherently stronger, based on copulations over the centuries. You could be replaced though. Make no mistake.”

I don’t particularly like that explanation.

He continues talking as he sighs. “Your mother is more witch-mannered than she is anything, and she relies heavily on those powers. Your father is more night-stalker mentally. You, however, seem to be more animalistic in instinct.”