Changing Beauty (The Deadly Beauties Live On 2)

His eyes soften, and pity rests in the depths of them. I hate that pity. I hate the monsters who fucked up my head even worse.

“We need her chained up for what we have in mind. That’s why I don’t want you in there.”

“Because you don’t think I can handle it?” I ask him, wishing the tremor wasn’t in my voice.

He brushes the hair away from my face before kissing me on the forehead, while everyone else vanishes

into the woods.

“Because I don’t want to see if you can handle it. I won’t be able to do what’s necessary, and it’ll be me doing the heavy lifting. When it’s done, I’ll come get you.”

Which means he’ll be the one inflicting the pain.

She’s part of the rings. She deserves it.

Taking a deep breath, I nod. I guess I only thought I was ready for revenge.

Gage appears beside us in the deserted forest line. I don’t even know where the hell we are. Thad kept me distracted for the entire, long trip. I know we’re hours away from Pine Shore, though.

Thad’s lips are on mine one second, and they next they’re replaced by the breeze. When I open my eyes, there’s no sight of him or Gage, meaning Gage just dematerialized them to wherever they needed to go.

Sighing, I turn around, still feeling the hum of energy left behind from so much of Thad’s blood. After waiting around for thirty minutes, something weird gnaws at me.

There’s a familiar presence close by—one I didn’t notice until now because of the strong pull Thad’s blood has over me. My stomach twists in knots when I realize whose blood it is, and everything crashes down on me at once.

Chapter 30

THAD

Sadie barely picks herself up off the floor as I shift back into human form. She’s bloody, messy, and on the cusp of death.

“Any time you feel like telling us the truth, you let us know,” Gage says, crossing his arms over his chest like he’s unaffected. I don’t have it in me to do any more. I’m not cut out for torture.

I was always a killer, but never a brutal, merciless son of a bitch.

Kimber walked out after the first slash I made with my claws. She’s not cut out for this either. But Gage wants justice for what was done for his girl.

I just want to prevent my girl from ending back up in their grasp.

“I don’t fucking know anything,” Sadie wheezes.

I turn away as I pull my clothes back on, feeling my flesh fully reinstated as all the fur recedes. Really glad Roslyn isn’t around to see this if I can’t even stomach looking at it.

“Don’t lie to me,” Gage says, bending down so that he’s eye-level with her.

Her chains rattle as she tries to escape, but they hold her in place with magic too strong for her to overcome. Zee took Kimber’s place, and he has helped with the torture, enjoying it a little too much.

That’s not the Zee I know. It makes me wonder how much Gavin actually changed him.

“I think it’s my turn again,” Zee says, a wicked, gloating tone to his voice that also isn’t like him.

Deciding I’d rather be beside Roslyn than listen to Sadie sign her death certificate, I open the door. “I’m going to—”

Before I can finish that, the entire house rips apart, startling me so much that I jump back before the house crashes down. When one of the walls collapses on me, I catch it and launch it away, slinging it into the woods that are now exposed.

Zee curses while fighting off the collapsing house, all of us confused bigger than fuck. It’s stripped bare until all that remains is the floor beneath us and, leaving us surrounded only by the forest.

But the thunder rumbling overhead sinks my stomach. We should have just killed her instead of wasting time torturing her.