Changing Beauty (The Deadly Beauties Live On 2)

Ella turns around, looking a little dazed as she glances back over her shoulder to make sure they’re really gone.

Something crunches in the grass nearby, and I turn around just in time to catch sight of a blurry figure. I start to point it out when I see a second figure blurring around. Fuuuck.

“Ella, look—”

Before the words can leave my mouth, Ella gets tackled to the ground by something moving so fast that it almost looks like a shadow. Gage lunges before I can, ripping the thing off, and I rush to knock Kimber away from the second shadow before it can reach her.

Unfortunately, I don’t manage to miss the wrath of a pissed off, blood-starved, psychotic night stalker.

“Motherfucker!” I roar when the vicious thing latches on and tears a hunk of flesh away from my shoulder before I can get my hands up to defend myself.

A surge of power hits me hard in the back, knocking me down to the ground with the stupid son of a bitch still latched onto me.

“Sorry,” Zee says quickly, apparently sucking at his magical fucking aim.

“Get it the fuck off me,” I growl, but then I shift, tearing through my clothes and turning into the first big-ass thing that comes to mind—a bear.

My body stretches, the skin sliding over the cracking bones, and my own growl turns into a beastly one as the bastard on my arm loses his grip. I turn as a roar drums out of me, deafening and terrifying the creatures of the woods.

Blue eyes are stained red, and they meet my eyes without fear. Pale, sickly looking, and freakishly fast, the wild night stalker attacks again, but this time, I manage to dodge him. The razor sharp claws of my paws shred through flesh, and a howl of pain erupts from his lips, sounding more animal than anything else.

Before I can do more damage, a flash of white light zips through, and the creature screams before becoming pinned to the ground, shaking and gurgling on blood.

I look over in time to see Ella stalking forward, her eyes bright silver as she sentences death. Roaring because I can’t speak, I try to get her to stop, worried she’ll go too far. She doesn’t have enough control yet to keep from losing it.

“Ella!” Kimber yells, but suddenly Ella’s eyes lose their silver color, sinking back down to normal.

My eyes go back to the night stalker, but there’s not much left of him. Quickly, I whip around, only to see Gage has taken down the other with the same merciless fate. Fuck. Now we can’t ask them how many are out here.

“Get that look out of your eyes, Yogi Bear,” Gage says, mocking me when he knows I can’t speak back.

I growl, and he laughs.

“They can’t speak,” Dray explains, walking toward me as I slowly start the shifting process. Motherfucker, my shoulder really hurts right now.

“Why?” Kimber asks while I bite back a string of curses that would only sound like garbled animal chatter in this phase.

I watch as skin slowly takes the place of the white fur, taking longer because of the pain in my shoulder. Damn it.

“Because they’re savage now. The only thing they do is kill. The fact that they’re working together concerns me. There could be more. I expected them to be too mindless to work together, and I also would have thought they’d be territorial. Unfortunately, this means we could be dealing with a pack mentality like werewolves or something.”

“Just what we need,” I say as I finally finish shifting back into myself. Ah, hell. I glare down at my tattered clothes. No use in trying to put those pants back on.

“At least they’re easy to kill,” Zee says on a sigh. Not that he did anything besides take me down. Jackass.

“Anyone else a little freaked out that we were just attacked?” Ella asks, eyeing us all like we’re being too casual.

I arch a brow at her, then remember how young she is. It has been a much tamer world that she’s lived in, since Alyssa took reign.

“I’m more worried they’re about to attack again. Their teeth are sharper than a normal night stalker’s,” I point out, looking down at my fucked-up shoulder. That all happened so damn fast.

“Let me try to heal that,” Dray tells me.

I stand still while his magic swarms me in a puff of black smoke, but nothing happens. We both exchange a look of confusion before our eyes shift down to my shoulder that still has a gaping wound.

“The hell?” Dray asks, confused like me.

He tries again, and though I can feel the tingles of his healing power trying to work, they don’t actually have any success.