Changing Beauty (Book 2) (The Deadly Beauties Live On) (23 page)

Forcing my concentration to remain in place, I tune him out. I tune out everything except for the whispers of the earth as it keeps me balanced. Pain slices through my side, but I just cry out instead of moving, knowing I can’t keep this up much longer.

They die or I die. That’s the only option.

Chapter 26

THAD

My eyes have moved everywhere, seeking and searching. My heart is in my throat, but I haven’t seen even a glimpse of her. Zee’s Hummer comes into sight just off to the side, and I glance over the top of it to see something that stills my heart completely.

Storm clouds have formed, and I watch in disbelief as what’s left of the sunlight disappears, listening to the crackle of thunder that comes out of nowhere. Only something as powerful as Drackus could be doing that.

Zee’s brakes slam on at the same time I do an immediate directional shift. Rain starts pouring down, weighing down my wings, but it’s not enough to slow me down. It’s not the storm that has us both racing toward the woods; it’s the light.

Silver light crashes as blue orbs slice through trees, both exploding into the air like a firework show of dominance. It’s loud and wild, and that means that son of a bitch found her.

I’m moving so fast that everything around me turns to a blur, and my vision becomes a tunnel, zeroing in on all the action below. I dive low, moving at warp speed, and start shifting on descent.

By the time I see the chaos around me, my feet are hitting the ground, and I’ve shed my feathers for fur. My wolf’s howl bubbles in the back of my throat, but I hold it back as my eyes widen on the scene.

There are so fucking many of them—blood-starved, psychotic, hungry-as-fuck, mindless night stalkers. And most of them are screaming in pain or vaporizing to nothing, as streaks of silver light up the forest.

Pure silver energy rolls off Roslyn, and it’s almost hypnotizing. More and more of the savage monsters fall, but my eyes are mostly aimed at my girl and the son of a bitch behind her.

Blue surrounds him—acting like a shield—as he shoots out his orbs toward the blood-seeking creatures. When his eyes find mine, they narrow, and I see his intentions before he even makes a move. I move toward him, but one of the silver streaks hits my leg, and a roar of pain tears from my throat.

“You don’t want to face me, mate,” the arrogant asshole says as I side step another streak, careful not to feel the burn again.

It’s like a laser obstacle course that makes this look like a Mission Impossible sort of setup.

Just as he turns, I say to hell with caution and leap, spiraling through the air. Roslyn’s cry of pain sounds in my ears just as I get my jaws locked on his shoulder, taking him down with me.

“Fuck!” he yells as his body crashes through one of her beams.

His skin sizzles, and his leg comes up, managing to kick me square in the stomach and launch me off him.

Another yelp sounds from me when I crash through a streak of Roslyn’s power, and I land on my feet, crouching low as I think of a better point of attack. Roslyn drops to her knees as several more of the night stalkers drop.

She’s risking death to take them out, and Slade is capitalizing on her distraction. I charge as orbs fill his hands, but I’m too far away. They release, sailing toward her, and I dive, hoping I’ll somehow manage to end up between them and her.

I end up crashing into Roslyn just as a set of crazy orangey red energy streaks crash into the blue orbs, exploding in unison hard enough to make my ears ring and my skull vibrate.

My body shifts from fur to flesh, and I stretch out over Roslyn to keep her covered as the energy stops flowing from her body.

“Thad.” My name is a whispered gasp of disbelief, and I look over as Zee and Slade go head to head, exchanging blows of harsh magic.

Fucking shit. Zee has his power completely under control, and Slade actually has blood on his mouth.

“Get her out of here,” Zee growls, straining to stay in step with Slade.

“Really don’t want to kill you fuckers over her,” Slade confesses.

Roslyn sucks in a sharp breath, and suddenly I feel my body dematerializing as she drags me away. The weightlessness slaps me, but it’s a smooth transition, unlike Zee’s attempts.

We’re suddenly appearing much too far away for a plane travel. Fuck, we’re almost back at the house.

“I’ll go get him,” she tells me, turning away.

The fuck she will.

I grab her wrist, jerking her to me, and my eyes fall on all the damage.

Her mouth is swollen, her lip is bleeding, and there’s a harsh bruise on her cheek. Her side is dripping blood from the hit she took from him, but she doesn’t seem fazed by it.

“You can’t go back. He’s going to fucking kill you.”

Her eyes soften, but before she can speak, Zee is suddenly appearing next to us, jogging to a halt at our side.

“Dude is seriously psycho,” he says, wiping blood from his mouth.

“I have to go back,” Roslyn says again, trying to wriggle free from my grip. “He’ll kill you if I don’t. He’ll kill you just to be able to kill me!”

The panic in her tone snaps my mind into action, and I finally take in the reality in front of me. She’s not an incoherent mess. She knows who I am; she’s alert and completely lucid; and she cares.

My eyes dart down to the wrist I’m holding, and my gaze slides up the tattoos that spiral around her arms, ending at her elbows.

“She’s turned,” Zee whispers, apparently noticing the same thing I am.

Roslyn’s eyes meet mine, and I take in her unshed tears. Pain. There’s so much pain in those soft, violet eyes right now.

It makes me want to tear them all apart for what they did to her.

I pull her to me, brushing my thumb over her bottom lip, and watch as the first tear rolls down her cheek.

“Believe it or not, we can handle him if he comes, Ros.”

My breaths grow shaky as Reese’s warning comes back to me. He said all the memories that drove her crazy would come back when she turned immortal, and she’s clearly immortal.

Her dark hair stops just below her bra strap on her back, and it tickles against my hand as I wrap my arms around her, ducking my head to just barely touch my lips to hers.

Light giggling nearby has Zee groaning, but Roslyn shakes in my arms as though she’s sobbing silently. Fuck. I hope she’s not going to lose it again. I don’t want to see her in that sort of pain.

“Dude, you need clothes. We should get inside.”

Roslyn’s head snaps up, and she shifts her body to be in front of mine when we see several girls near the edge of the lake getting a good look at my naked attributes.

They all turn around at once, gasping as though they’re surprised, and suddenly clothes appear on my damn body from nowhere. It takes a second to figure out what she just did.

“You’re not supposed to use magic on humans unless you’re dusting their memories,” Zee says with an amused grin as the girls find themselves unable to turn back around.

“So tell on me,” Roslyn mumbles.

I can hear the panic in their voices, but Roslyn just walks away as though nothing is going on. My girl’s not so sweet after all. Fuck yes.

Zee fights a grin, clearing his throat as we walk toward the cabin. I turn around in time to see the girls have been released from Roslyn’s hold, but now they’re freaking out a little.

“Looks like she’s more your type than I ever thought possible,” Zee says under his breath, keeping it so low that I barely hear it.

She put me in jeans and a hoodie, covering every inch of skin she could get away with. I’m surprised I don’t have on gloves.

“Damn, not even Gage is good enough to use magic on me that well,” I say under my breath, feeling so damn turned on. Power is hot.

Smirking like the cheeky ass I am, I jog up behind her, putting my arms around her waist and tugging her to me. She tenses in my arms, and I immediately get worried. She normally melts against me.

“He won’t kill me, Roslyn. He won’t kill you either. We’re stronger together—all of us.”

She mutters something to herself before turning in my arms and looking up at me with those watery eyes.

“Don’t fall apart on me, sweet girl. Let me hold you together and make you forget the things you don’t want to remember.”

A few tears fall this time, and she sucks in a shallow, shaky breath.

“I’m really not sweet,” she says sadly, and I fight really damn hard not to smile, because she’s very serious.

“You are, love. Much sweeter now, because I love this new style.”

A small, but encouraging laugh escapes her lips, and she pulls me tighter to her. A little too tight. Holy shitballs, she’s strong.

Kissing the top of her head, I hold her to me as Zee goes inside.

“We should get in. Slade can’t crash through Gage’s protection spell.”

“He won’t come for me here,” she says on a sigh. “He’s too smart for that.”

“You know him?”

She looks up, and purses her lips before giving me one, tight nod. “Sort of. I know of him. When you spend so long in solitude, you drink in every sound that isn’t inside your own head whenever you… get out for a bit. So to speak. There’s more you need to know. A lot more. Things they couldn’t pry from my mind when they looked into my head.”

“You mean your dad and the witch?”

“Dad’s here? With you?”

“He’s somewhere. We all sort of went looking for you. I thought…
we
thought you might have gotten pissed because… Well, I shouldn’t have left you alone.”

Her lips twitch, but she slowly shakes her head. “I wasn’t pissed.”

My hands slide up her arms, tracing over the proof she was stuck in the slave rings for so long. Kimber’s marks didn’t show up until after she was immortal. Apparently it worked the same on Roslyn.

“You’re mine to keep,” I remind her, watching as she lets another tear fall.

“You tried changing me,” she says softly.

Ah hell. She’s remembering everything, apparently.

Blowing out a breath, I rub the back of my neck, looking down instead of into her eyes. I really don’t want to fight or lie, but I don’t know away around one without doing the other.

“Fuck,” I mumble, feeling trapped. “Look, Roslyn, I’m sorry, but I wanted to—”

A hand around the back of my neck pulls me down hard, and she breaks my words off when her lips find mine. It only takes me a second to catch on to what’s going on. Forgetting about all the crazy shit going on around us, I pull her flush against me, kissing her back as her devilish little tongue darts out to meet mine.

A growl rumbles in my throat, and I feel her smiling against my lips.

“All those sounds make a lot more sense now,” she murmurs as her lips just barely part from mine.

Smirking, I wink at her, but we’re interrupted by the annoying fucking incubus who loves grating my nerves.

“Wolf girl crazy or not? Zee wouldn’t say anything other than she was immortal and that he was calling Reese.”

Roslyn tenses, but I slide my hand down her back as I glare over her head at Dice.

“What?” he asks, shrugging. “Oh, and Zee looks like he took a beating. Did she do it? I’d have loved to have seen that—”

“It was Slade,” I interrupt.

Dice’s eyes widen. “He went against a creature god and lived to tell the tale? Maybe his freak burst is stronger than we thought.”

“He’s not just a creature god,” Roslyn says on a deep sigh. “Let’s get in. I don’t like talking about this out here. And I’m fairly sure that house is soundproof,” she says, motioning toward Gage’s home.

My arm drapes around her shoulders, and I look over at Dice. “Call the guys. Leave the girls and Kane with Alyssa.”

“Sure. As long as you tell me something.”

I lift an eyebrow at him just as we reach the inside of the house.

“What?”

He eyes me, seeming confused. “It’s hot as hell, and our temperatures already run a lot hotter than a mortal’s. Why the fuck are you dressed like an Eskimo?”

Roslyn’s cheeks light up with a soft blush, and I realize she still is a little sweet—a perfect blend of bad and sweet. Maybe I am in love.

***

THAD

Chaz walks in, and I stand to meet him in the center of the room as Roslyn lingers upstairs.

“So your girl has her mojo in full effect now. How’s the memories treating her?”

I glance toward the stairs before facing him again. “Not sure yet. She hasn’t spoken much since we got back. She said she needed a shower. Reese is on his way, but he got held up with pack business or something. How’s Alyssa.”

“Fine for now. I don’t like leaving her, but the house they’re in couldn’t be broken into by anyone at this point. There are numerous protection spells on it. I want to focus on helping track down the big bad, and if your girl can remember something that can help us, then this is where I want to be. Besides, she has Sierra, Deke, Amy, and Amy’s night stalker who are on guard full time until further notice.”

As if she knew we were talking about her, Roslyn appears at my side, and Chaz eyes her pink shirt that says something about loving kittens and white jeans. She doesn’t look so threatening dressed like that. I prefer the hellcat outfit she was wearing when I got her back.