Bitten Beauty (The Deadly Beauties Live On 3)

I shift uncomfortably, and Leah’s lips twitch.

“In less than erotic circumstances,” Chaz goes on, rolling his eyes. “Keep reading. We need to know as much about you as possible. I’ve researched anointed bloodlines, but I’ve never heard this much description. Most of the books treat them like they didn’t exist.”

“Why?”

“Fey pride,” Chaz and I both say at once.

“Okay…” She lets the word trail off as she continues reading silently, then finally reads aloud again. “The Aquarius was most feared because of their immunity to most all magic. Only certain forms of magic could penetrate them, such as a hexer’s power. Hubris became their downfall when a powerful hexer by the name Adonia hexed the entire line for their vicious, brutal, and merciless crimes against innocent fey.”

She frowns as she looks up. “Slade can’t use magic against me, but he’s a master of all creature powers. This is his book. So he knows I can be hexed?”

“Hexes aren’t easy. Even some hexers can’t hex. If he could have done something to you, he would have by now. Besides, hexes are born and powered by genuine emotion and heart. Pretty sure he doesn’t have either,” Chaz explains.

“What was the hex placed on your line?” I prompt, feeling like she left me on a cliffhanger ending.

I hate those.

“Apparently fey had evolved by this time, since the book refers to them as innocent.”

“What was the hex?” Chaz asks, sounding as impatient as I am.

She flips the page, and starts reading again. “Love and hate draw a thin line. Crosses are bared, hearts now entwined. Blood will cease unless it’s given away. No longer will the Aquarius forget who they slay.” She frowns again, and all I can think about is seeing what that frown tastes like.

“What?” Chaz prompts, reminding me we’re actually supposed to be learning something.

“The rest is in some foreign language I can’t read.” She hands the book to me, but it looks like gibberish, so I pass it along to Chaz.

His brow furrows as he studies it, and then he coughs like he’s strangling. That’s not good.

Ella suddenly appears, and Leah squeals while hopping into my lap the rest of the way, grabbing her heart like hell just snuck up on her.

“Sheesh. Don’t you people just use doors sometimes?”

“I used the door when I left,” Ella states, trying not to smile. “I came back to give you a phone. Your friend Marilyn has been posting pictures of you all over town. She thinks you two were drugged, since you never came back and we wiped her memories. You should probably call her.”

Leah’s mouth falls open, and she scrambles off my lap. “Shit. I can’t believe I forgot about her. I thought you were going to put warm and fuzzy things in her brain.”

“The process got interrupted, considering all hell broke loose. Roslyn didn’t get to go back and finish, and well, we forgot, too.”

Leah takes the phone and heads into the bedroom, and my eyes meet Chaz’s.

“What does it say?”

He clears his throat before glancing at the bedroom door then back at me. “Essentially, it says the bloodline stops unless the Aquarius finds a fey mate.” He shrugs. “I guess locking the anointed calling into purgatory halted that from happening.” He looks back down. “On the bright side, the reason you want to sire her is because she apparently chose you, even if it was on some subconscious level. This is the dead language of the hexers, so it’s hard to quote the exact words.”

“Great. So you’re not even sure what it says?”

“I somewhat know. Different dialects are used, so the words had different meanings based on regions back when this was an active language. I’ll know better if we research the hexer and her origins. Let me hold onto this and see what I can find out.”

I nod before leaning back. “Give me your best guess about the rest of what it says.”

“Paraphrasing, it says it’s something that shouldn’t be taken lightly, because once it’s consummated, the two are bound. It even mentions something about psychic links to each other happening before and after the consummation. You two fucked, didn’t you?”

I groan before dropping my head back. “Yes. What does ‘bound’ mean exactly?”

“Don’t know. Doesn’t say. But it does say if the bind takes, she’ll feel a flood of heat when… you know.”

“When what?” Ella asks, confused.