“You learned things inside the cages.” Slade says, moving to the chains on her ankles. “I’ve learned things since then. I won’t be bound again.”

His eyes flick to Ella’s face, and his look hardens again.

“If I didn’t need you in the future, I’d fucking kill you right now,” he growls, looking over his shoulder at Xavier.

Xavier swallows hard again, and he takes another step back.

“Red jinn. Red jinn,” Ella hoarsely murmurs, coughing on her own blood, but then she passes back out.

Slade breaks the final chain that’s around her waist, and he lifts her with care meant for someone special. He cradles her against his chest, holding her to him as his eyes narrow to slits on me.

“This is your fault.”

“I didn’t do anything. This is your fault!” The words fly out of me, and the tears I wish I could find refuse to fall. I’m about to die and I can’t even cry about it.

He cracks

his neck to the side, and he looks back at Xavier. “This never happened. Do you understand? No one will ever find out I came for her.”

“Why did you?” the red jinn asks, but the he ducks as though he’s afraid of the backlash from that question.

“It’s not what you’re thinking. I don’t give a fuck about her. Understand?”

They just stare at each other, because everything he’s doing contradicts his words. Even the way he holds her betrays what he says.

“Do you fucking understand?” he barks again.

Xavier nods quickly, seeming more like a bobble-head doll than a scary killer now.

“Finish draining the other one and get lost. I’ll find you when I need you. Next time I tell you not to fucking touch someone, you do as I say. Or you’ll end up like him.”

He uses his head to motion toward Duncan’s lifeless body, and Xavier tightens his lips. It looks like he’s on the verge of tears, meaning Duncan was someone precious to him, and Slade just murdered him in front of his eyes.

For Ella.

To save her.

Bitterness and envy rises before hopelessness settles on my chest. No one is coming to save me. Marilyn is the only person who cares about me, and she thinks I’m taking a long vacation.

Ella’s non-broken hand runs up his chest, weakly clutching his shirt, but it’s a subconscious move because she’s still out of it. Her broken hand dangles loosely, and her blood continues to pour.

He holds her tighter and disappears from sight, and I watch in horror as Xavier loses it.

Curses spew from his mouth and he rips the table up and tosses it across the room. The metal bows and whines before crashing to the ground, taking several random things with it.

I can’t tell where we are. It looks like a cellar or dungeon or something. There’s only one doorway, and the chains on my wrists and legs are holding me to a wall.

Sobs wrack his body as he drops to Duncan’s side, stroking his cheek with affection. They spent centuries trapped together, and he just watched him die. At the hands of a friend.

As twisted as this all is, I actually feel some sympathy for him.

Until those teary eyes meet mine and a cold killer emerges within their depths again.

Shit.

“You,” he snarls.

I don’t even know why he’s freaking pissed at me. I’m chained to a damn wall after being kidnapped. By him.

Tags: C.M. Owens The Deadly Beauties Live On Paranormal
Source: readsnovelonline.net