Bitten Beauty (The Deadly Beauties Live On 3)
“Fucking shoot them! Stay inside the perimeter! The others can’t seem to use their magic! Snipers, take her out!”
I feel torn between saving Leah and saving everyone else, when I suddenly hear a louder explosion that rattles the ground.
“It’s him! That scarred-face motherfucker! Kill him! Now!”
Slade…
My skin crawls with dread, but I know why he’s here. Ella…
As much as I hate him, he’s stronger than me, and he won’t let anyone touch her.
Kicking the door open, I watch as the lights below flicker and hear a small gasp. My decision is taken out of my hands as my instincts kick in, and I leap over the stairs, landing below with a loud thud.
“Zee! No! You have to go,” Leah’s voice screams, and my head snaps up to meet her wide, terrified eyes. My jaw ticks as I stalk toward her cage, and my eyes drop to her shackled hands.
The warehouse vibrates again, but it’s not enough to bring it down. The seals are just strong enough to hold it up for a while longer, but Ella’s power only gets stronger the more she lets herself go.
My hands curl around the bars of the cell door, and I jerk it hard. The damn thing doesn’t budge.
“Go, Zee. Listen to me. You have to get out of here,” Leah pleads, but I ignore her.
She struggles to move closer, but the shackles around her ankles are too close together and make it hard for her to move without falling. Little by little, her panic starts to form, and the monster inside me threatens to emerge.
The cell door starts to give way, and a small gasp from another cell distracts me only for a second.
I jerk harder and harder, each time getting it to give a little more. The monster beats against the walls of my insides, begging to be unleashed every second that Leah begs me to stop.
Suddenly, someone shouts my name, and Leah screams as her eyes widen and her struggle grows. Her panic clenches my heart as she screams louder, but it sounds like a distant echo.
The taste of my own blood fills up in my mouth as something paralyzes me in place, and my eyes slowly drop to where I feel a dull pain to see a blade sticking through my chest.
The tip is stained with blood… My blood. Something inside me burns, and I weakly try to bring my hands to the blade as I stagger, but a force from behind me shoves it in deeper. A searing hot pain shoots through my body as the blade pushes out farther, and the hilt slams into my back as someone’s breath coats my neck.
My legs give out first, feeling numb and useless, as my veins slowly start to turn black. Leah screams harder, and begs someone to stop. Yelling and arguing ensues, but I can’t hear the words. My body falls to the side, feeling frozen in place, and more blood chokes me as my eyes meet Leah’s.
“No!” I see her screaming, but the words are drowned out by the endless echo of nothingness in my mind.
I can’t move, breathe or feel anything anymore, and someone steps over me, looking down as he stays within the shadows. Seconds before my eyes close, I see the face of the man from the picture, and I know what just happened.
I failed. The one time it mattered, I failed.
Chapter 32
LEAH
Something overhead rattles again, and I beg Zee to wake up. His eyes flutter open for a few seconds, and tears fill my eyes at the apology I see within their depths.
“I’m so sorry,” I choke out, fighting as hard as I can against the chains.
“They can’t get it if you seal it up! Take that fucking bitch out, or I’ll take all of you out!” Victor roars, leaving his sword planted through Zee’s chest.
His eyes cut back to me just as something hot streams down my cheeks, and surprise fills his features. Quickly, the surprise is covered with fury.
“You. You nasty bitch. Him? One of them? You’d shed tears for this animal?” he snarls.
Slowly, my hands lift up, and I touch the burning wetness against my cheeks.
Something hot and furious inside me stirs when my eyes drop back down to Zee. His breathing has stopped, his eyes are glossed over, and his veins have turned black with poison.