Unchained Beauty (The Deadly Beauties Live On 5)

“I’ve got names. Lots of fucking names. Who feels like taking a day off from training and finally reaping some debt?”

Eyes look around, all of them lighting up with eagerness, and everyone faces me again as a chorus of affirmative sounds raises in the air.

I toss the papers in the air, and they all land at the appropriate feet. They begin pairing off.

“Don’t go in alone, and don’t let them out alive. You’re the ones hunting them this time. Make it count. Be smart. Use your training. Assess your surroundings. And if you have to travel long distances, drink the drop of blood you’ll find in a vial on your person.”

Everyone starts patting themselves down, finding the gift I’ve given them, and without question, they drink it down.

Simone and Hank stand off to the side, not speaking or joining in. I walk over, a sheet of paper in my hand, and give it to Simone. Her eyes drop to it, and then they bounce up to me.

I gesture to it. “It’s from the time period you were locked up. Kya’s time starts within the same frame, even though she came much later on. The funders overlap in a lot of them. Get her before you go there. Don’t let her new royal family see you. Understood?”

They both nod, and tears drip from Simone’s eyes.

“This isn’t forgiveness,” I tell her, narrowing my eyes. “This is just your own chance for your personal redemption. Enjoy it. It’s the only gift I’ll ever give you.”

She doesn’t need to be told twice. Hank dematerializes her, and they’re gone.

I straighten, looking back down at mine, and I curse as I go to the woods where I found Alton that night. Then decide I simply can’t give him this. Not after all he took from me, so I start to leave.

“I don’t want revenge,” he says from behind me, causing my spine to stiffen. “It’s all yours. Revenge is for a man who still has fight left in him.”

I turn around, cutting my eyes toward him as he stands there, looking so small in the grand scheme of things.

He was a pawn.

A toy.

A weak idiot who cost his mate her life, effectively shattering whatever was left inside him that used to be my brother.

“All I want is the death promised in the prophecy, Slade. I have nothing left to ever offer you but that. I can die, and be with her again, if there’s any mercy in the universe at all. And you can stay here with Ella,” he goes on.

I doubt his mate has forgiven him even in death, but for whatever stupid fucking reason, I can’t force myself to tell him that.

“We were more than the Gemini Twins once,” he goes on, his voice cracking. “We were best friends, Slade. We were brothers—”

“And who destroyed that?” I roar, turning and slamming my fist into his face.

He stumbles backwards before collapsing to the ground, blood running from his mouth as he peers up, simply exhausted.

“They promised to kill me if I showed them Ella, and I wanted my death. I couldn’t show them. You protected her. Be with her and leave me to die, brother! It’s all I’ve wanted since she was killed!” he shouts.

I dematerialize instead, feeling myself push through the planes at warp speed, thanks to the dragon blood. I land at the address I tore off.

The coven home is far larger than the one they had then.

All this time, I thought the only ones to have betrayed us were the Aquarius, never once thinking it would be the family of dark users under my father’s protection who aided in our transportation.

This home was paid for by our blood, our broken minds, and our torture.

Fields of green stretch out, the wind breezing through as I walk forward. This is a Scottish heaven they moved to, while my family was tore apart in another country and another time so they could have it.

Power runs off me, stabbing into the ground, as I turn their home into a prison.

My eyes lift, and a dark smile finds my lips as my mind blanks, forgetting absolutely everything else for a brief, freeing second.

John walks out on his porch, his eyes scanning over me dismissively for a second until widening in recognition. I can see the panic when he realizes he’s stuck, unable to dematerialize.