Lost Beauty (Deadly Beauties Live On) Read online

  Lost Beauty

  A Deadly Beauties Live On series novel by

  USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR

  C.M. Owens

  Copyright 2016 by C.M. Owens

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without express written permission of the author. This eBook is licensed for your enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people.

  The story in this book is the property of the author, in all media both physical and digital. No one, except the owner of this property, may reproduce, copy or publish in any medium any individual story or part of this novel without the expressed permission of the author of this work.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Lost Beauty (Deadly Beauties Live On)

  Chapter 1 | KYA

  Chapter 2 | CHAZ

  Chapter 3 | KYA

  Chapter 4 | CHAZ

  Chapter 5 | KYA

  Chapter 6 | ELLA

  Chapter 7 | CHAZ

  Chapter 8 | KYA

  Chapter 9 | CHAZ

  Chapter 10 | KYA

  Chapter 11 | CHAZ

  Chapter 12 | KYA

  Chapter 13 | The eyes of another...

  Chapter 14 | CHAZ

  Chapter 15 | CHAZ

  Chapter 16 | KYA

  Chapter 17 | CHAZ

  Chapter 18 | KYA

  Chapter 19 | CHAZ

  Chapter 20 | CHAZ

  Chapter 21 | KYA

  Chapter 22 | KARMA

  Chapter 23 | KYA

  Chapter 24 | CHAZ

  Chapter 25 | KYA

  Chapter 26 | CHAZ

  Chapter 27 | KYA

  Chapter 28 | CHAZ

  Chapter 29 | KYA

  Chapter 30 | CHAZ

  Chapter 31 | KYA

  Chapter 32 | MASTER

  Chapter 1 | ELLA

  -Unchained Beauty

  For more information on C.M. Owens, turn the page. :)

  This is a work of fiction and completely derived from the mind of the author. Any familiar names or places are just coincidences.

  As always, this is dedicated to the amazing readers who make writing mean so much to me. I couldn’t do this without the incredible people who take the time to read. I love the hell out of you.

  ~Christie

  Chapter 1

  KYA

  Blood sprays as a guy in a white mask nails an ogre hard in the face with a right hook. Beautiful form, but sloppy footwork. That could cost him.

  I can’t see his eyes from this angle, so I have no idea what he is. I can see the blond hair creeping out from the bottom of the backwards hat he’s wearing, though.

  He’s leaving himself exposed, and all it would take is one hard hit from that ogre to—

  That predictable punch lands in the unknown guy’s side before my thought can be completed, but he doesn’t even flinch before hitting the ogre again, forcing the beast of a man to fall into the ropes.

  Holy fucking shit. Who is that guy?

  The crowd roars, chanting something about fury, and I try to push my way around to see his eyes. I want to know what he is.

  The ogre pushes up from the ropes, and the white mask guy slips around him, punching him in the gut again. The ogre flips forward, and just when I get to a better angle, the guy in the mask turns his back to me again.

  Damn it!

  “Fury! Fury! Fury!” the crowd continues to chant.

  The fight rings have recently been reopened. I’ve never come to one before, but I kept hearing about this guy who is destroying everyone. We could use him on our team before we face the Master, even if Slade doesn’t realize how badly we still need more muscle and power.

  It’s then I realize they’re calling him Fury. He definitely seems to have a following, and no one has ever even seen his face, according to the gossip. I’ve only heard him referred to as the ‘guy in the white mask’ until now.

  He’s shirtless, and my eyes slowly travel up all the contoured lines of muscle and ink that stretch across his back. Most of the ink is protective symbols to ward against various things. For some reason, the placement of the tats and the body look very familiar.

  A fist seems to clench inside my stomach when I realize where I’ve seen that body before.

  No... That makes no sense at all. There’s no way in hell that can be him.

  I’ve studied everything about them—all of them—making sure I knew how to take them on if they ever hurt my sister. But I have to be remembering wrong, because Fury can’t be Chaz. No freaking duster can fight like that or take a punch from an ogre without even flinching.

  Hell, I don’t know any creature who can, besides maybe Slade.

  More blood sprays, and the ogre drops to the mat, unmoving as his eyes roll back in his head. The duster couldn’t have knocked out an ogre. Impossible.

  His dark, ripped jeans have blood all over them, as though he wears them with previous stains. Probably to intimidate the competition.

  He turns around slowly as the crowd erupts into frenzied cheers, and he holds his hands up to announce his victory. My eyes slither up his torso and chest, taking in all the ink he wears there, and my breath catches in my throat. There’re a line of stars that dip down to his waistband, and a dragon is inked on his chest.

  It is the duster.

  My eyes dart up to find his gaze burning through me, and my knees almost collapse at the impossible combination I see. No...

  There’s no way Karma has seen him, not after how they reacted to the red jinn. Red jinn and the others mixed together... They’d fucking kill him before he could kill them.

  Panic has me snapping out of my shock and looking for an escape. I turn and shoulder my way through the crowd, racing toward the exit door of the old factory as fear grips me. Just as I break through it and reach the street, a hand clamps over my mouth and I’m slammed back against a wall.

  Those wicked eyes stare into mine, and I struggle against his hold. My magic doesn’t zap him or even expel from my body, and I know it’s something he’s doing.

  “I figured this day was coming,” the fake duster says on a sigh, but I feel as though he’s toying with me. “Now let’s discuss how good at keeping secrets you are. I’d hate to hurt Karma’s sister.”

  I struggle again, but my power remains dormant despite the current supply I have. He holds me against the wall with ease, smirking as he pushes closer.

  Just as I find a gap to pull my knee up, I’m submerged into spiraling darkness. My breath leaves in a rush as dizziness sets in with a ferocious attack, and I realize belatedly that he’s just done something far different than a simple dematerialization.

  A weightless sensation hits me with a sickening punch. I don’t have time to figure out what he’s doing to me before we’re suddenly being spat out of whatever that was and I drop to the ground, rolling onto my back.

  In the next instant, Chaz is coming down on top of me, and his mask is back on. For some stupid reason, that thing scares me worse.

  He pins my hands above my head, and fear grips me when he straddles my body, firmly securing me in place.

  “Relax,” he says, as though I’m actually going to listen. “I don’t want to have to hurt you. And don’t get any ideas...” He glances down at the way our bodies are intimately placed before looking into my eyes again. “This is just to keep you from attacking me. Nothing else.”

  His eyes slide over my breasts, making me regret the decision to wear something that exposes so much cleavage. His gaze lingers for a fraction of
a second too long, but he jerks his eyes away at last.

  “Unless you want something else,” he says while cocking his head, and I swear I can feel his smirk even though I can’t see it.

  The mask is solid, other than the eye holes. The eyes are what I find so terrifying, because I can see everything he is.

  “How?” I whisper. “You were born before purgatory was unleashed. Hybrids couldn’t exist then. You can’t exist now. How—”

  “What I am is what shouldn’t exist. I know this. So does my mother—the mother who raised me, not the one who birthed me. You don’t know a damn thing about me, Kya. If I was a threat to anyone, I would have already struck. Don’t you think?”

  There’s a bitterness to his tone that I don’t understand.

  “What... Just tell me how this happened,” I say on a shaky breath, trying to wrap my head around him and the abomination he is.

  There’s not an ounce of good magic inside him.

  “My birthmother was red jinn. In theory, she should have only birthed a red jinn. But, our world always, always has exceptions. Those other two things are those exceptions. My father was a blend of both, a creature who was left behind for not belonging in either of the other dimensions, and he had no idea he could impregnate her. Voila. Here I am.”

  I swallow hard, still trying to process it.

  “So you’re mostly red jinn?”

  He shakes his head slowly. “Not how it works, sweetheart. Not when the other two are far more powerful than red jinn. It evens out into thirds, I think. I’m not really sure, to be honest. It’s not like there’s a guidebook.”

  It doesn’t make sense that he’s been so close to the central circle of power, but has never attacked them, unless he truly means them no harm. It also doesn’t make sense that the three parts are nothing but bad, yet he claims to be good.

  He studies my face, probably trying to decipher my expression, and I try to mask my features.

  “If you tell Slade or anyone else what I am, it will distract everyone from what’s going on right now and leave us disjointed,” he goes on, making a damn good point. “I’ve killed to protect my friends and family. If you have any logic in you at all, you’d see it would be illogical for me to have done that if I wanted anything to happen to them.”

  “How do you feed?” I ask immediately, considering red jinn thrive off the magic of others, and it often kills the one being fed on if they take too much.

  “Dice,” he says with a hint of amusement. It almost makes me laugh. Almost. His eyes grow serious again. “And those fights. I take a little from everyone in there without them realizing it’s missing. They’ll replenish before they ever even knew it was gone. It’s why I show up to them.”

  He presses tighter against me, and a breath hisses between my lips when I feel something hard against the V of my thighs. Something that should not be hard if his earlier promise is legit. The small amount of movement causes a surprising reaction from me, but I ignore it. Obviously I’m sick if this is turning me on.

  He clears his throat while pulling his hips back, and his eyes avert mine. “I’m going to let you go, but we’re not finished talking. I can transport quicker than you can dematerialize, so don’t even think about trying to run. Got it?”

  His eyes meet mine again, and I slowly nod. Transporting? I thought that was ancient magic long lost with... Oh yeah.

  “Are there others like you?” I ask him as he loosens his grip on my wrists and inches back slowly, warily. He pulls off the mask, and that helps remove some of the threatening appeal.

  Then again, we’re designed to make others let their guards down. Show someone the monsters we really are, and they run. Show someone something beautiful, and we’re drawn to it like mindless drones with the depth of a puddle.

  As he eases back and sits on the ground, I take a look around, noticing we’re in the woods, near the lake somewhere. It’s dark, it’s isolated, and it’s doubtful screaming like a human would save me if I needed to be saved.

  I could try to hit him with my magic, but it still feels subdued, even though I don’t know how he’s doing that.

  “I don’t know,” he states as he watches me with a guarded expression.

  “Do the others know what you are?” I ask him, pulling out all the information he’s willing to give.

  “I have a question of my own,” he says instead of answering me. “How do you know what I am?”

  That’s not a question I want to answer just yet.

  “I don’t trust you,” I remind him.

  He laughs humorlessly while dropping his head back.

  “Which part?” he asks, bringing his head back down as his eyes train on mine and his jaw tics. “I need to hear you say which part you don’t trust and why.”

  All those powers beam around him like a taunting aura no one but my kind can see.

  “Karma doesn’t know?” I ask him quietly.

  “She knows the red jinn. If she’s seen more, I’m not aware of it. She met a female red jinn in the slave rings.”

  I wince at just the mention of the hell I barely survived, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

  “I need to hear you say it, Kya. I need to know what you see... what scares you... how you even know what it is. Then you can go.”

  I don’t know if I trust that or not, but my options are limited, and he could easily keep me here if he wanted to. He could also be using force to get info instead of simply asking questions. But what if I become a liability because I know?

  “Lokie. The name was derived from the supposed Norse god Loki. The myth came before the invasion of the Lokies, so the name was passed down and the spelling was altered just enough to separate the reality from the myth,” I whisper, watching as his eyes narrow. “I saw one in the rings.”

  His lips purse, but he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he just watches me, as though he’s waiting for me to elaborate.

  I rub at one of the slave ring marks on my arm, the tattoo slithering up from my wrist to my elbow.

  “I’m not worried about how the damn name is spelled, nor one version of the controversial origins of it,” he goes on when I lose the words I need to speak. “What about the Lokie scared you so much?”

  Besides the fact the Lokies are the reason we exist and it was their nature to create and destroy?

  I’ve seen so much through Slade’s eyes that it’s hard to un-see the possible destruction something like Chaz could cause.

  “The Lokie in the rings was used to torture some of us. He was heartless.”

  He nods slowly.

  “I’m not heartless, Kya. Demons are heartless too. Some might believe the same of you.”

  That’s a jab, but also a valid point. “I’m half human,” I point out.

  “And half not,” he retorts.

  Bristling, I sit a little straighter. Surely he has to see there’s nothing comparable between us. Before I can start spewing how different we are, he continues.

  “How do you know about the other part,” he states, remaining cryptic, as if he’s fishing for me to say the word aloud and be sure I truly know.

  Taking a deep breath, I decide to answer, hoping he’ll really release me. His shirtless body is distracting me now that I’m trying not to concentrate on his intense eyes. The more beautiful, the deadlier in most cases. He’s definitely deadly, but my body seems to suddenly remember it’s a woman at the most untimely moment. I really don’t like the heat I feel in places I shouldn’t be feeling heat.

  It’s him. He’s doing something to me, but I don’t know what.

  “Stop that,” I hiss when I have to clench my thighs together to relieve a familiar ache... An ache I really don’t want to be feeling, especially not now of all times.

  His eyebrows go up. “What? Asking questions? No.”

  “Not that,” I growl, unable to keep my eyes from dropping back down to his chest like it’s mesmerizing.

  “I’m not doing anything,” he tells me, sound
ing genuinely confused.

  I almost want to accuse him of being part incubus, but I’d see it if he was. Trying to ignore those primal, nonsensical, base desires that are annoying me with their intensity, I answer him, desperate to get away from him.

  “Slade showed me the past. The life he lived. I saw everything. The Lokies and the beasts.”

  When I manage to tear my eyes off his chest and meet his gaze, he looks stunned, maybe even speechless.

  “You saw them? How? How would he show you the past?”

  “It’s something he can do, but he doesn’t like doing it. He’s private—very private. Showing me all of that was a major invasion of his privacy, but it had to be done. After learning Leah was an Aquarius that I walked into our group without realizing what she was, Slade decided not to take any more risks. He can’t see things the way I do. I can see to the core of someone’s being. His gift of seeing someone for who they are is completely different and not as strong. So... he showed me the past the only way he could. He showed me his past.”

  The most painful thing I’ve ever had to endure was living through the hell that has been Slade’s sad and lonely excuse for a life. It was over in five minutes, but it felt like I had walked through every long century with him from start to finish.

  I hated him for what he did to Leah, but after walking a thousand miles in his shoes, I wanted to kill her too. I wanted justice for the ones slaughtered at the hands of the Aquarius. I hurt like it was my own pain I had suffered through.

  It was Slade who calmed me after the initial madness of the memories ebbed. Thankfully, my will to kill Leah is gone. She was so close to being my friend before the Scooby gang stole her away. But it’s for the best.

  Friends are liabilities.

  “His past? He’s that old?” Chaz asks in surprise.

  I decide not to give any more of Slade’s information away, and remain silent. He likes his privacy, and I owe it to him to shut my mouth. It feels like a betrayal to have said this much.

  Chaz’s lips tense again when I don’t answer him.

  “Fine. What did you see that scared you? What convinced you they’re so terrible?”

  I don’t miss the fact he’s still using pronouns and not naming them.