Unchained Beauty (The Deadly Beauties Live On 5)

That was the last time I died.

She always came to life in his arms.

She always laughed at his tears.

She’s taunted him for too long.

I see it like I’m looking through a window of the past instead of a possible future that never came to pass. I see me as a person I’ve never met, but still know in so many ways.

But our very cores are so far apart, because we’ve loved two very different men, and have grown in two very different ways. She loved the soft, romantic, and gentle survivor who wanted to do everything possible to save her life.

I’ve fallen in love with a man who has ripped out half his soul just to siphon its power, suffered unimaginable pain because of his love, and has done everything possible to save me. Just as he’s stronger, so am I. Otherwise, I sure as hell don’t deserve him.

I throw back the last of the glass of vodka, drinking it down.

Thad startles me, causing me to look over my shoulder as he props up just behind me at the counter.

“Whatever you’re doing tonight, make it count,” he whispers.

“No idea what you’re talking about.” It literally took Roslyn five minutes to sell us out, and she wonders why we didn’t tell her.

“Can you kill Hannah?”

My lips tense. “Not without killing myself, so I can’t personally be the one to kill Hannah,” I tell him honestly, but decide to withhold the rest.

“Then don’t do it,” he tells me seriously.

“I have to try.”

“What good does it do if you can’t kill her?”

“The less you know, the fewer variables Kimber has to work into her weird math she calls science,” I answer.

He blinks at me, then turns and walks off, shaking his head as he goes.

I release the breath I’ve been holding and start to dematerialize, when there are suddenly two very familiar arms around me, spinning me, and lips crash to mine.

In a moment of weakness, my arms go around Slade’s neck, and I kiss him back just as desperately. I’ve been wishing all day that I could go to him, but knowing—

My back hits a wall suddenly after feeling like we’ve dematerialized, but when I open my eyes all I see is him. My lids flutter shut again, and I start trying to pull his shirt off,

feeling my heart beat so hard that it wants to explode as the first tear drops free.

He pulls back abruptly, his eyes shimmering in silver with such a sad expression. His forehead presses to mine as he cups the back of my head, holding me there.

“I’ve tried to reverse it. Tried to get my vision back the way I had it just so I could see if there was any other way,” he says so softly. “But long ago I realized this was the only path I could take, and I made it irreversible to keep me on the path when I’m weak. Like I am right now.”

My eyes burn with fresh tears trying to fall, and I keep him close, feeling his lips against my forehead.

“I’ve loved you in a thousand and two ways now,” he adds, just as my eyes land on a set of bars when I finally manage to take in my surroundings.

Panic flares in my chest. “What the hell?” I growl.

His journal is open in one hand, but he closes it before he puts it into his back pocket, and my eyes dart to his.

“Slade, listen to me. I’m not going to die,” I assure him, feeling his thumb swipe a tear from my cheek as his gaze searches mine.

“I know you’re not,” he murmurs, lips ghosting over mine. “Because I’ve worked too hard to be strong enough to die in your place to let you die now. I couldn’t change the event, but I could change the variable—the one detail that matters.”