Unchained Beauty (The Deadly Beauties Live On 5)

“How much longer?” she asks, frowning. “I need to be ready real damn soon if we’re going to stop Hannah from opening that portal.”

“I’m going to stop her from opening the portal. You won’t be able to master control soon enough for that, but you will have a tool at your disposal that will keep you from hurting anyone you don’t want to hurt.”

“Oh?” she muses. “I thought I had that tool already. You.”

Fuck. She has no idea how frayed my control is at this point where she’s concerned.

“Can you take this seriously?” I ask her, glaring down at her in a way that has her clearing her throat and removing her hands from me.

“Sorry. You’re right.”

Pushing away from her, since it’s my damn fault we’re this close to begin with, I exhale harshly.

“You can clearly summon just pieces of your shift, so do that. Summon the claws, give your instincts free roam—”

“I don’t want to do that, because they’ve weirdly been soothed since we spent twenty-four hours skin-on-skin, and this is the first day I’ve felt like myself in months. My instincts, as you recall, almost had me try to dominate a dragonite I had very little information about. I could have started a war, even talked the others into it, and I was positive I was right to—”

“Summon your instincts, Ella,” I bite out as she starts to glare back at me. “Trust me. And the only one of your friends you talked into it was the incubus. The others went straight to Kane to find a medium ground.”

“You,” she volleys while gesturing toward me. “You were the medium ground.”

“It worked, didn’t it?” I point out curtly.

“I want to go back to bed so you can say sweet things like how you don’t want to close your eyes and shit,” she grumbles, stepping back as my lips restrain the smile I shouldn’t give her.

Her jaw grinds for a second as she growls a little, then she closes her eyes. I glance over my shoulder, seeing everyone outside.

“It’s dormant right now,” she says as she opens her eyes.

“Figure out a way to provoke it,” I say as I turn around. “I need to check in on the camp while you work on retrieving it.”

She fortunately doesn’t argue, and I walk through camp, spotting Kya with her pet off his leash, since dragon eyes are swirling and fire is blasting from his hands.

“Will his fire destroy the earth?” I ask her, causing her to startle and her brow to furrow.

>

“What?” Chaz asks, confused.

“The dragons have to plant some fucking flower because of the way their power destroys the earth. It’s what happened to their home whenever that flower was no longer able to grow.”

“A flower?” Chaz asks incredulously.

I swing my impatient gaze to Kya, and she shrugs. “Doesn’t seem to be an issue. The ground chars, but fresh, pure soil is underneath. Maybe it’s because he’s not full dragon?”

“I remember a time when you were more definitive in your answers. It was before you had him,” I tell her, gesturing to the daft fool who takes a threatening step toward me, eyes narrowed in challenge.

“Please tell me you’re just stupid enough to do it,” I say to him dismissively.

“I really expected you to be in a better mood,” Kya states flatly. “It almost makes me miss my Polly attire.”

Damn her.

When my lips struggle with the effort it takes to keep a straight face with that image in my head, she grins like she’s achieved something. I point a finger at her.

“They ruined you.”

She just continues to smile as I walk away.