Unchained Beauty (The Deadly Beauties Live On 5)

That’s a bit of a stretch, but the new technique is working wonders for my hope levels that one day I’ll have control. Plus, there’s this heartbeat meditation exercise that is actually quite genius.

Turning, I walk into the room, and I stumble over my feet when my eyes land on the bed. “What the hell?” I say under my breath, spinning in a circle as I take in the room.

Quickly, I turn and jog back down the stairs, just as Dice says, “Sure it’s your control that has had you howling from the woods.”

“Who picked that room for me?” I ask him urgently, causing his brow to furrow.

“Me. What’s the deal? We’re only going to be here a little while before things get real,” he says, sounding a little serious for a change. “Hey, can you give me a lift to see Karma?” he goes on.

A little creeped out, I decide not to go back up to that room just yet, since it looks exactly like the daisy-covered room I saw in that weird vision of Slade and I. The one where we were laughing and happily lying naked on that bed as we stayed lost in each other.

I thought I’d touched one of his fantasies somehow, and it broke my heart and warmed it at the same time. But how did that room come to be?

He had no scars in that image, so I know it’s not real. A dream, maybe? But how could he possibly have dreamed that exact room?

“Ella?” Dice says very seriously, eyes on me again.

I expect him to finish with something ridiculous, so I grumble, “Yeah?”

“I think something is wrong with my kid,” he tells me quietly.

My eyebrows furrow. “What? Why?”

He gestures at himself. “I’m an incubus. That kid will be half me. Karma is half demon half human. It means the kid will be one/forth of each to complete the other half. Karma looks more drained than Alyssa right now.”

Going over, I actually rub my hand over his back soothingly, and he clears his throat while blinking and looking away.

“Dray would have already told you if something was wrong with the baby, Dice. You know that.”

He nods almost absently. “You’ll see. Give me a lift.”

I dematerialize us to the safe home, landing inside a room and startling Shay—er, I mean Abigail—and Frankie.

“Where’s Karma?” Dice asks, immediately panicking.

“In here! Don’t you dare freak out on me again!” Karma shouts from down the hall.

I give Dice a weird look.

“She projectile vomited blood across the room,” Frankie tells me very quietly, and my stomach twists in a knot.

“Kya and Karma fused together when we were captured, and something has been wrong with my baby ever since,” Dice tells me, whispering as his eyes fill with—

“Damn it, Dice! Stop telling people this before they try to hurt our baby!”

For fuck’s sake, why am I listening to Dice? He’s a drama queen and I can never tell when he’s screwing with my head.

I hurry down the hall, glancing in on Mom to see her resting peacefully with Dad curled around her, his hand on her stomach. It feels a little weird to watch them sleep, so I move on and push open the door just as Karma’s sunken in eyes meet mine.

She really does look entirely too weak.

“Did Dice really make you come here to see me like this?” she snaps.

I suck in a sharp breath when I see her stomach as rounded over as Mom’s. Karma looks weak, her body almost a grayish color, as Dray sits at her bedside, his eyes meeting mine.

“What’s going on?” I ask him.

“This started happening right after the last visit you paid your mom. The baby began growing at an accelerated rate, and—”