Unchained Beauty (The Deadly Beauties Live On 5)

His words cut off when Karma kicks him, then cries out as she drops to her back like it hurt her to do that. A lone tear rolls down her cheek.

“My baby is just growing faster,” Karma tells him, lower lip trembling.

“Why hasn’t anyone called me?” I ask, going to drop by Karma’s side as my hand goes to her belly.

I can feel the power coursing through the womb, almost as though the baby is collecting all it can.

“What could you possibly do?” Karma says on a broken whisper. “The fewer people here to see me like this, the fewer people will think there’s something wrong with my baby,” she adds angrily, glaring past me to Dray.

“I need to get some supplies from the back. Stay here with her until I return,” Dray says to me as he vanishes in a puff of smoke.

My eyes return to Karma’s, and I stand to shut the door, seeing Dice at the end of the hallway, his eyes imploring me for answers I don’t really have just yet.

“I almost feel like I should ask S

lade if he’s ever seen anything like this, but I’m afraid he’ll try to kill us if it’s something bad,” Karma whispers so softly that I almost don’t hear it.

“He’d never kill a pregnant mother,” I assure her, though that’s about all the assurance I feel as I sit down next to her, hand going to her womb again.

Karma’s eyes flutter shut, and my brow furrows more.

“This started after you joined together with Kya and raised the dead, right?” I ask her.

Karma’s eyes fly open as she gawks at me.

“Kya told me. Dice is still himself despite dying, other than the fact he’s not hashtagging right now because he’s worried out of his mind about you,” I go on, feeling the baby actually sucking my own energy right from my palm.

Holy shit, the baby is—

“The baby is part succubus.”

“Yeah.”

“You feel the baby sucking at my power right now, right?” I ask.

“That’s new. My angel must need more than I can give,” she says, sounding so tired.

I’m not sure I’d call a demon/incubus spawn an angel, but…

“Karma, it’s like you’re not powerful enough to feed the baby on your own. This baby is more powerful than you, and I think it’s because you and Kya might have increased her appetite after using the power it would have taken to raise Dice.”

Her eyes bounce open and dart to mine. “My baby was in my body. Kya joined me in my body, and I don’t know what I did to my child when that happened. I didn’t mean for it to happen, but—”

“I think joining with Kya made the baby even stronger, because your life force is connected to hers. Don’t ask me to explain all this, because unlike Slade, I just know it’s magic, and it gives me more imaginative answers.”

She blinks at me. “I’m Karma. Not Kya. Why bring up Slade? The only reason I don’t hate Slade right now is because he took care of my sister, but that doesn’t mean I want to sit around discussing him, and I certainly don’t want him knowing anything about my baby.”

The baby sucks a little harder, like she’s not getting enough from me, since I’m not exactly experiencing strong emotions right now.

“Dray hasn’t said anything about this,” she goes on, even as the baby continues to draw from my energy.

I barely feel it, but it’s like Dice when he’s siphoning our lust straight from us to fuel himself. Most of us don’t notice, but I do. At least I have over the past few months.

Please don’t be a Type A succubus, baby Dice.

That’s not supposed to be an issue until immortality hits and they feed too much. But as babies?

“Babies don’t normally feed like us, but she is. I think it’s because her powers demand it, since she got a taste of it. Kya fused with you. The baby siphoned off the two of you while you were a combined powerhouse, and now she’s stronger and possibly has to stay stronger.”