Lost Beauty (Deadly Beauties Live On) Page 6

  Leah is throwing knives around the wall, but screams when her hand gets sliced into by the power of the demons. Apparently she’s not impervious to all magic like we’d assumed.

  That’s the trigger that sets Zee off, and my breath catches in my lungs as Zee implodes, releasing so much power that I feel the pulsing of it in my heart.

  My body coils around the child as I spin her away, ducking as painful waves of it roll over me. “Zee, no!” I hear Leah yelling, sounding pained too.

  Screams release from the room, but I don’t know who from. I’m too focused on keeping the child shielded from anything and everyone.

  She whimpers in my arms, but doesn’t wake up. Cursing, my eyes scan the area as more and more surround us. I feel the power without seeing them.

  But then I feel a familiar power that has my body tensing all over.

  The walls groan as the power ripples through the air, and I hold my breath as I coil tighter around the child. I chance a glance over my shoulder just as the top of the cave is suddenly yanked away. Rocks crash all around, and I push out power to cover me. The rocks won’t hurt me, but the human I’m protecting is fragile.

  Fire swirls through the air, slamming into three of them just as Chaz unleashes the last of his restraint. At least I hope that’s the last of it.

  The wall drops as Zee continues to fight with black eyes and no sanity. Leah spins through the air, slicing through the hordes of never-ending night stalker demons. Silan is on the ground, bleeding out through his mouth, and I watch as the red leaves his eyes. I also watch as it disappears into the air, the demon inside escaping before dying with the host.

  My eyes snap up as Slade lands inside, slamming into the ground so hard that it cracks beneath him. The top barrier has been ripped away, because Slade always prepares for the worst. The crack in the ground slithers all the way over to me as his silver eyes connect with mine.

  Shit.

  He’s pissed.

  Hopefully he doesn’t try to kill anyone that I want to stay alive.

  His gaze snaps away, and I watch as he slowly stands. When his dark grin emerges, I stand with the child in my arms, knowing without a doubt the four of them can handle this without my help.

  My eyes move up to the missing top, seeing the open night sky above me. It looks like we’re inside a volcano now. A deep one.

  It takes all my strength, but I crouch low and leap as hard as possible. My body slams into the side, and I turn, keeping the child protected as my foot catches a ledge enough for me to balance myself. Then I leap again, this time clearing the top and landing in a crouch on the other side.

  As things explode behind me, I race away, but stumble to a halt when I see Ella suddenly here and getting out of her car. Kimber and Gage are right behind her.

  Ella’s eyes are burning silver as orbs circle her hands. Her smile is darker than Slade’s as she makes her way toward the explosions inside.

  Chaz is about to be exposed to everyone if I don’t stop them.

  Ella... Ella might understand, but I don’t know about the rest.

  “Help!” I shout to Kimber who quickly rushes over to me and grabs the unconscious girl from my arms.

  “Get her out of here and keep her safe,” I tell her and Gage.

  Another car skids to a halt, and I internally curse when I see Thad and Roslyn get out.

  “Take them somewhere safe and wipe the kid’s memories,” Gage tells Roslyn, then looks to Thad. “Go with them. And call Drackus; tell him to meet you.”

  Something loud explodes behind me, and I dart around just as Ella drops into the opening.

  “Fuck that! They need our help!” Thad barks.

  “I said get the kid the fuck out of here. They may come after her, and Kimber can’t protect her alone,” Gage barks.

  “Fuck you,” Kimber grumbles.

  “Sorry, baby, but it’s true. Go with them, please. Thad, get her the fuck out of here. Roslyn... Fix her head.”

  “I’ll call Mom and figure out how to erase the memories without hurting her,” Roslyn says as I turn back around.

  They turn to leave, but Thad looks reluctant to go. Thankfully, he concedes and rushes to the car, holding the door open for Kimber as she climbs in.

  “You should go too,” I tell Gage, needing him away from Chaz.

  I have no idea why I suddenly feel so protective of Chaz’s secret, but I really don’t want his friends to turn on him.

  He ignores me and starts walking toward the fireworks show anyway.

  “You can’t go in there!” I shout as Gage suddenly dematerializes.

  Shit.

  I watch as he reappears halfway up the side of the rocks that now look like a volcano on the verge of eruption with all the smoke and sparks flying out of it.

  I dematerialize and reach the edge just in time to see him drop into the madness and chaos below. Fire shoots past me, and I fall beside it, not feeling any heat touching my skin even though I should. It’s not human fire. It’s freaking dragonite fire that Chaz is hurling around down there.

  I land in a hard crouch, and my head snaps up as Chaz throws a guy against the wall, slamming his fist through the guy’s chest. Blood sprays, and my eyes cut away when it gets too gory. I don’t mind gore, but when things start falling out... sheesh.

  Gage seems unaffected by Chaz, which makes me wonder if he didn’t already know. I breathe out in relief, not realizing just how concerned I was until this moment.

  Slade slices through the throngs of endless demons that are flowing through with night stalker blues hiding the red. It’s the perfect setup. Humans are too weak and don’t hide them as well as the immortals... They’ve created their own bitten army and are using them as hosts.

  But how are so many in one place? And how do they have so many other powers? Demons can’t cast barrier spells.

  Now’s not the time to analyze, Kya.

  The power rushes from my fingertips, and I release it, knowing it comes at a cost. I’ll have to feed after using so much.

  Chaz spins and grabs me at the waist before tossing me against a wall. I see it too late when a streak of red lights up the space I was just in.

  My breath comes out in a rush, seeing how close I was to being in the path of that.

  Chaz doesn’t even glance down at me before turning again, and I try not to think about the fact there’s a bit of someone else’s guts on my side where his hand was holding me.

  My eyes force themselves away from his back as the red shoots from my hands and slices through one girl who is racing toward me. I spin around and slam my booted heel into the chest of another.

  Slade is suddenly beside me, and I know that look in his eyes. It’s not a look I like.

  Ella is whirling through the masses that seem to be never-ending. She also looks to be on the verge of losing herself to the power she can’t control. If she loses it, we’re all fucked.

  Maybe Slade is right; they have plenty of power but no control.

  Zee is already out of it, barely coherent as the darkness consumes him. Gage will be the next to break. Chaz is unpredictable at this point, already being twice as brutal as he’s ever been, to my knowledge. What if he’s losing it too?

  “You need to get the hell out of here,” Slade tells me, still releasing power as he fights through the ones coming in through the south tunnel. It’s like a beehive full of buzzing bees, only the bees are vicious demons on a mission. Oh, and they’re wearing night stalker skin.

  “You can’t take on this many demons on your own. Not even you’re that good,” I point out, narrowly dodging a stray streak from Zee.

  Damn him.

  “I want you out of here. I don’t plan to take them all on. We’re not prepared for this fucking shit. I just want to take out as many as possible before getting the hell out of the battle zone.”

  “What about them?” I ask, wincing when my arm burns from a streak that grazes it. I was trained to endure pain, but that doesn’t mean I
don’t still feel it.

  Slade cracks his neck to the side. “Leave the princess. Get the others out.”

  He spins away before I can try to argue how impossible that will be. I tuck and roll across the floor, landing next to Leah before I scramble back up to my feet.

  “Please tell me you know a shut off switch for Zee,” I tell her, throwing up a shield in front of us just in time to stop a blast.

  “I can get him out if that’s what you’re asking, but he’s not turning on us, so we’re good!” she shouts, distracted as she throws two knives into the heads of the demons running straight at us.

  Her definition of good certainly doesn’t align with mine.

  “Get him out. Slade is about to go thermonuclear.”

  Her eyes widen, but she nods before diving away and slamming into Zee’s back. He turns and his eyes slowly start to fade from black back to his color. I blow out a breath that their connection is stronger than the uncontrollable power.

  In less than a blink, they’re gone, even though he’s not fully lucid when they leave. Chaz is fighting next to Gage, and I rush over to them.

  “Time to go!” I yell, then duck behind Gage when an onslaught of red energy pounds against his shield.

  “Kind of busy!” Gage snaps.

  “Now! Slade is going to give us time to get out of here, but you don’t want to stick around to see how.”

  “Shit,” Chaz curses. “Grab Ella,” he adds to Gage.

  “Leave Ella. She’s already drunk on the high from using too much power. Slade can handle her.”

  “Like hell,” Gage snarls. “Kane doesn’t want her around that son of a bitch.”

  “His mother was actually a good woman, based on what I’ve gathered,” I point out, then roll my eyes when I realize he doesn’t mean that term literally.

  Gage doesn’t comment on that. Instead he says, “We can’t—”

  His words die when Ella turns her wicked gaze on us, and a dark smile curves her lips as her hand shoots out. My breath is slammed out of me when an invisible force collides with all three of us, launching us back so hard that we crack the wall behind us on impact.

  The three of us drop, and Gage groans as he rolls over onto his back.

  “On second thought, Slade is better equipped to handle her,” he grunts, then disappears.

  Chaz curses, looking reluctant to go, but when Ella raises a hand to repeat the psychotic attack, he tosses his arm around me. I feel weightless, nauseated, and dizzy in the next breath.

  My breath doesn’t come back normally until we’re suddenly in the middle of the desert with nothing surrounding us. Chaz doesn’t give me time to recover before we’re disappearing into nothingness again, and landing in a green field.

  My eyes widen as I look around. There’s no way we went from the desert to a grassy field this quickly.

  He straightens and puts his hands on top of his head, staring at the sky. It’s not the Vegas sky. It’s not the desert sky. I’m not even sure if we’re in the same state. But how?

  “I forgot my fucking phone in the car, and I need to talk to the others. I should go back for Ella,” he says without turning around. “I don’t think I can even get back right now.” His words are so soft that I don’t think I was meant to hear it.

  “Slade will get her out,” I say quietly, grimacing when the burning in my arm reminds me I was hit.

  I look down, seeing the burn marks slowly starting to heal. It’ll take at least a day for that to fully mend.

  “Why the hell do you trust him so blindly?” Chaz asks louder as he turns to face me.

  Ignoring all the aches I feel, I force myself to stand up.

  “Because Slade could have left me behind the night you guys freed us. He could have let me suffer when the guards would take turns testing my pain tolerance. Instead, he pissed them off so they’d come after him. He could have ignored me when I was in the cell next to him. Instead, he’s the reason I survived that hell, because if he could endure everything they put him through for centuries, then I could handle whatever they dished out for less than two decades. I was more fortunate than him.”

  His look softens, and he releases a harsh breath.

  “I grabbed your phone from the car,” I tell him awkwardly as I pull it out of my back pocket.

  It’s cracked, but one swipe of his hand has it repaired as he takes it from me.

  “If red jinn and Lokies only create illusions, then how’d you do that?” I ask him curiously as he starts texting someone.

  “Lokies had a lot more power than illusions,” he states absently. “Red jinn too.”

  Right. Lokies created us, after all. Now I just feel stupid for asking that question.

  He curses the phone in his hand and slides it back into his pocket.

  “Kane is going to kill me,” he says on a sigh. “No signal.”

  I pull my phone out to see it has no signal either. Shit.

  “You have a way to contact Slade to make sure Ella is okay, right? I mean, as soon as we find signal.”

  “He has a phone,” I say cryptically, unsure if he has the power to track him or not.

  Not that it matters. They seem to have been able to track us in the past without his phone number.

  “When you think he’s clear, call him. Let’s find some signal,” he says. His eyes don’t meet mine as he turns to face me. “We need to walk for a while. I can’t transport anymore without risking hurting you, and we need to find somewhere to lay low until one of the others can come pick us up.”

  I look around at the woods in the distance.

  “Where are we?”

  His eyes dart around. “Hell if I know.”

  Chapter 9

  CHAZ

  “What was it like to grow up with a mom?” Kya asks me quietly.

  The question itself is painful to hear. “My mother is great. Fierce. Loyal. Understanding. Smart. Most of all, she loves me.”

  “I bet that was great,” she says on a soft sigh.

  “Your parents?” I ask, trying not to grimace at how cold that sounds. “I mean, I don’t really know anything about them, but you could go back after we finish, right?”

  Obviously not the demonic parent, but—

  “Karma doesn’t know our parents like she thinks she does,” she says instead.

  “I haven’t talked to Karma about them.”

  “I’m not even sure who raised her, but our mother was a mule. Our father was a donor.”

  “Mule?” I ask, confused.

  “The rings found mules to volunteer for mixing breeds after purgatory was opened. They found it easier than searching them out. Breeding in the rings was almost impossible, because most everyone was spelled against unplanned births. So, mules. Yes. Our mother was paid generously to give birth to a demon child. She didn’t plan on twins, and having us took her life. I came out of the womb dark and hungry. Karma came out like a normal human.”

  That I sure as hell didn’t know. Did she steal her mother’s soul?

  “Anyway, my mother died because giving birth to something like me was too much for her body. I didn’t need to feed, but I was still powerful. She was jaded and tainted. She’d already signed us over to the rings. Slade and I found some archived documents. My history was just one among them. The children birthed by mules weren’t usually as powerful as the natural ones from fierce bloodlines. I was the exception, but they didn’t realize it.”

  “So who was raising you when you were taken?” I ask her, trying to wrap my head around it all.

  “No clue,” she says with a shrug. “They were paid workers who were supposed to give us the illusion of a happy home so that we stayed put until we were called upon. I was brought in early to examine and study. Karma was brought in later to become one of their soldiers for whatever it was they planned. I’m sure they wanted to control our minds, and I wouldn’t doubt it if they were getting close to achieving that.”

  I suck in a breath. What if they real
ly figured out how to do that?

  “It’s all fucked up,” I tell her, unsure what else to say.

  “We were born with a purpose. I want to fuck that up,” she says angrily.

  I want to touch her, console her maybe, but touching her is a bad idea, considering my entire body is too alert of her presence right now.

  Silence stretches on between us, and I get desperate for a distraction. The scent of her pain is killing me, and all I want to do is explore every possible way to make her forget it.

  “Any clue what those blood-starved night stalkers were about? We haven’t seen any in a while.” It’s a shitty conversation starter, but it works.

  “We’ve eliminated the majority of them. It was good training for the recruits we have. But we think they were just a distraction. The Master probably finished rounding up all the firsts, while we chased fanged savages.”

  “Any idea what role the firsts play?”

  She goes quiet, not answering me. “I want to tell you our theories, but that comes at a price.”

  My lips twitch. “What sort of price?”

  She turns her head, studying me, then resumes walking again. “A price I don’t want to discuss right now. Maybe later.”

  She walks faster, and the silence grows again. Her heartbeat is fast, and my predator hears it as fear when it’s not. Doesn’t stop my dick from stirring with hope though.

  Sick fuck. I’m a sick fuck now.

  “Those demons are building an army, but how?” Kya asks, penetrating my foggy, wayward thoughts.

  “No clue. Demons can’t escape easily, and when they do, they struggle to take hold of an immortal’s body, even if it is weak like a newly sired night stalker.”

  “They targeted Silan with a purpose. Somehow they linked him to Zee. But as for the others... It looked to me like they were creating new night stalkers just to build their own army. A night stalker’s body with a demon inside of it is far stronger than the typicals you’ve probably dealt with.”

  “I don’t deal with demons, present company excluded. Drackus—”

  “I’m a demon hybrid. Not a demon.”

  Ignoring the interruption, I continue. “Drackus has one demon he keeps on a leash. Maybe he can help with the explanation of how so many are free.”