“Crap, Messenger.” She lays her hand softly across her belly. “Don’t you know I’m with child?”
“Try this.” Ezrina hands her a yellow bubbling concoction.
“Thanks.” Chloe moans as she downs it. “God, I feel instantly better. What is this delicious poison?”
“Ginger ale.” Ezrina turns to me. “What is it you want, Skyla? Morning sickness holding you back as well?”
“No.” Although the thought of Chloe and Wes getting to do what Gage and I never will, does make my stomach churn. “Never mind.” I shouldn’t have come.
“Go ahead, Messenger,” Chloe chirps as she swings her legs over the side. “Tell her all about how you’re sick of Gage hiding things from you. Let me guess, you want your old Levatio back.”
“I’d give anything for him not to be a Fem.” I can’t break my gaze from the empty blue tank before me. It reminds me of another empty tank that once housed Logan’s body.
“Is there a way?” Chloe inquires of Ezrina as if she too were interested in the answer.
“A sword of steel cast by a destroying angel.” Ezrina says it so causally as if it were common knowledge. “Might work. Might not. Might kill him. Might make him human.”
“So many options,” Chloe purrs. “Do you dare risk killing your husband, Skyla? Is molding him into what you want him to be so important to you? Or can you learn to support him just the way he is in the name of love—in the name of the holy matrimony in which you’re bound?”
A riotous cry rips from my throat as I speed my way to Marshall’s. I hate it when Chloe Bishop makes sense. I hope she pukes up a lung or two for the next nine months.
The lights are all on at the oversized McMansion. I’m still bristled after my unexpected meeting with Chloe, not to mention the fact I didn’t care for Ezrina’s Russian roulette answers. I burst through the door to find Logan and Gage playing against each other in a video game. Ellis and Liam lounge on the other side with a beer in their laps.
“You and you”—I point hard at Logan and Gage—“stay put.” I point over at Ellis. “Where’s Dudley.” I’m certain if I asked for Marshall, Ellis would have no clue who I was talking about.
“The kitchen.”
I head over and find him in the dining room instead. A set of metal tools are laid out before him, and he’s happily tinkering away.
“Good evening,” the words come out stilted, too formal to ever be exchanged between us, from me anyway.
“Why are you here?” He doesn’t look up from the task at hand.
“Excuse me?” I balk. “I clearly remember a time when you were all about having me in your presence. I believe you doled out visions in exchange for kisses.” I take a seat next to him.
Marshall raises a brow and pauses to look over. “Are you in the mood for one of our revelating exchanges?”
“No. I’m in the mood for a specially crafted spirit sword.” I slink down in my seat and close my eyes because I can’t believe what’s about to spew from my lips. “There’s a Fem I need to kill.”
“We should all be so lucky.”
I fill him in on my brief exchange with Ezrina.
“So is that what you want? Your meat-loving Levatio back in your arms?”
“More or less.” I pound my fingers into the table like I’m trying to wreck a piano with my anger. “I’m frustrated. I’m sick and I’m tired of being on the losing end of whatever this is.” A cry of frustration sears my throat.
“It’s called destiny, Skyla.”
“Destiny?” I balk. A thought comes to me. “Remember during ski week, all those years ago, when Emily drew those wild images onto my body?”
His chest pumps as a perverted grin surfaces. “I do recall you coming to my room and dropping your clothes to the ground. It was a glorious night if I do say so myself.”
“Yes, well, in the pictures, Logan was a lion. What did that mean?”
“The lion represents a savior.”
“So Logan is a savior—mine, maybe Celestra’s. And how about you?” I touch his cheek with the back of my hand, and my skin snags on his stubble.
He sneaks a kiss to my finger. “I’m simply an angel who was asked to protect. I fell in love with you. I never want you to be alone, Skyla, so here I am.”
I close my eyes and give a solemn nod. Marshall doesn’t want me to be alone. He knows that eventually I’ll lose both Logan and Gage—or so my destiny-wielding mother insists.
Logan and Gage darken the doorway.
“Is this a private party?” Logan holds his hands in the air as if it’s a stick up. They meander into the room and sit across from us while I continue to glower at my two favorite Olivers.
“She is in a mood,” Marshall warns.
“Hey, I thought we just had a moment?”
“We did.” He offers a brief sarcastic smile. “And now the real reason you’re here, Ms. Messenger?”
Gage and I lock eyes from across the table. In some way, he must have known this day was coming. The day of reckoning. The day, or rather the night, in which we broach that magic bubble we’ve been cocooning ourselves in for close to six months.
“It’s because I’m a Fem.” Gage stares right through me at some damning place—a juncture that has the ability to bury our relationship—burn it to ashes. Dangerous, sharp words are about to be exchanged. One wrong noun, one stray adjective and we can send our short marriage sailing off the side of an emotional cliff.
Logan lets out a heavy breath. “We all know he’s doing whatever it is he’s doing because he loves you. It’s exactly why I did it.”
“He’s not like you.” I shake my head in frustration. I’ve always known Logan and Gage to be likeminded, to be on the same page, but that doesn’t feel like the case. Now they just seem miles apart in every way.
“I’m a Count, Skyla.” Logan flat lines.
“Exactly—he’s worse than you.”
“Excuse me?” Gage tweaks a brow, incredulous at my accusation. “I’m sitting right here. I’m not worse than Logan.” He turns to his uncle, cousin, whatever they’ve squared each other away as because technically he’s not his anything. “Not that there’s anything wrong with you. In fact, I owe you both an apology. I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry?” I shake my head with disbelief. “Just like that, I’m sorry, and you expect me to believe it? Half the things Logan has ever told me were misshapen truths. And most of what comes out of your mouth, Gage, is a prism of colorful corrections. I just don’t get any of this. Where do you get off? How will I ever expunge the God’s honest truth? You’ve lied to me since the first day I stepped off that ferry.”
Logan and Gage exchange looks and conveniently don’t offer up any words to refute the theory.
Logan leans in. “Who exactly are you talking to—specifically?”
“Both of you.” My anger hits its boiling point. My head fills with a rage so volatile it feels as if lava is coursing through my veins.
Marshall’s chest widens with pride as he scoots towards me. “It appears I’m the only honest soul in the room.” He cuts a glance my way. “Other than yourself, of course.”
Gage glowers at the Sector by my side. “You just so happen to be the only kiss ass in the room, too.”
My chest bucks with a silent laugh. “Oh, Gage—oh, Jock Strap—oh, Mr. Oliver.” I say each moniker as its own expletive. “You would be lucky to ever get close to doing that again.”
His jaw tightens. Gage swallows hard, and his Adam’s apple tells everyone in the room how nervous he’s suddenly become because God knows that sweet spot between my thighs is his favorite place to land a kiss.
“Leave them be, Skyla.” Marshall coaxes me with his velvet voice. “I’ll welcome you home with open arms.”
“Believe you me, I’m thinking about it.”
My body ejects itself from my seat, and I bolt into the other room simply for the fact I almost tested Ezrina’s theory. It took everything in me not to fl
ing myself across the table and strangle Gage.
“We’re not done,” he says sweetly as he comes after me in the living room.
“You bet we’re not done.”
“I’m sorry,” he pleads.
I pause in front of Ellis and Liam. “I’m sorry?” I cry out while tossing my hands in the air. “That’s the best you’ve got?”
“There’s more.”
“Well, you better start spewing words, high and fast, like Old Faithful because until you geyser up the truth, I’m absolutely done with this shit!”
“Skyla, go easy.” Ellis reprimands. “He’s your freaking husband.”
“Wouldn’t destiny just like for them all to be my husband?” I shout up at the ceiling as if it were my mother herself. “He’s my husband, he’s my husband, he’s my husband!” I jab my finger at Logan, Gage, and Marshall in turn. “How about him, and him?” I shout pointing at Liam and Ellis, both of whom look as if they want no piece of my crazy. “Is that what you want, mother? For me to bed my way through this world so you can get what you want? Forget men, it’s you who’s repressing women by reducing them to breeding factories!”
Marshall steps forward obviously infuriated at my tirade.
“I’m your husband. And when I bed you, it will be only then it matters. This”—he points hard at Gage—“is nothing more than spare coins at the bottom of a sofa cushion.” He taps his chest in a show of bravado that I’ve yet to see in him. “I’m the bank, Skyla. Get ready to make a withdrawal because when you do, you will be filled with riches beyond measure.”
Holy hell. Did Marshall just equate making love to Gage as spare change?
I cut a quick glance to Marshall’s crotch. Just what the heck is he hiding in there that I’ll be so eager to withdraw? If those dreams are any indication, my money is on a skin-covered snake.
Gage pulls me in by the waist. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Time for the drive-thru?” Ellis hacks out a laugh, slapping his hand over his thigh. “Looks like Skyla better scrounge for change just to get that beef burrito.”
“Shut up, Ellis.” Gage and I say in unison.
“Look”—I hold Gage at an arm’s length—“I just need to clear my head. Just—give me a minute.” I head out back. “And can someone please, for the love of God, stop the rain?”
The sky quakes with thunder before the rain dissipates, and I make my way toward the barn taking in large gulps of fresh Paragon air.
“Skyla.” Logan sprints my way, and I don’t stop him. After all, he’s dead. We’ve already reached the worst outcome to our story. “I have a plan,” he pants, ditching into the barn a moment. I follow him and watch as he digs behind a stack of equipment and pulls out a backpack. “Coop gifted this to me.” He plucks out a bastardized Ruger.
“What are you going to do with it?”
“If we’re lucky, kill.”
“That thing shoots poisoned darts. If I remember correctly, they’re just temporarily debilitating.”
“Not these bad boys. Come on.” He takes me by the hand, and we run deep into the woods.
“So what’s the plan?” I pant hard, pressing myself into the peeling bark of the eucalyptus just to keep Logan’s chest from mine.
“The plan, Skyla, is to do this.” He leans in. His lips edge toward mine, and for the briefest of all moments, I ache for his kiss. Logan spins around and pulls the trigger. The shot rings throughout the island like a thunderclap, and I stagger forward just as a body falls to the field. It’s Gage.
“You killed him.” My hand claws at my chest. I can’t breathe.
“I’ve always been a damn good shot.”
Gage
The world spins. The dark sky overhead is exchanged for shining bright lights and a trio of curious heads staring down at me. I squeeze my eyes shut tight and let out a hard moan.
A cool hand slaps me over the cheek.
“Wake up.”
My lids peel open to find Ezrina staring down at me, then Skyla, my beautiful, beautiful wife. I try to touch her, and my arm falls back heavy.
“Careful. That happens to be ground zero.” Nev touches his hand to mine. “Don’t move this one.”
“What?” I give a hard grunt and sit up, finding myself in the Transfer—no wait, the lab at Whitehorse. “What happened? What am I doing here?”
“Apparently, testing theories.” Dudley peers over Skyla’s shoulder. “The Pretty One tried to implement an execution. In laymen’s terms, he tried to kill you.”
“Exorcise. There’s a difference,” Logan is quick to state.
“Exorcise me of what?”
“Of your Fem standing.” Skyla touches her hand to my forehead. “I think he’s fine. I’m going to take him home now. This has been a hell of a night, and I’ve got an eight a.m. class.”
“With me.” Dudley checks his watch. “I’m off.” And he disappears with a thunderclap.
“Did it work?” Logan looks at Ezrina while she shakes a long metal rod as if it were a thermometer.
“No such luck,” she sighs. “Same cell deformities. Same curious markers.”
“Wait.” I bolt up in a panic, and a harsh wave of nausea pumps through me. “Did you try to make me human?” I’m not thrilled with the idea of being a Fem, but I’m not a lunatic—human is last on the totem pole of things I want to be.
“No,” Skyla sulks. “Personally, I was rooting for a Levatio. Logan and I just wanted to see you back to normal.”
“I was never a Levatio, Skyla.” I fall back and stare at the ceiling with a mix of horror and rage.
Logan clamps his hand over my leg apologetically. “Ezrina told me about the theory earlier tonight. Only she may have omitted the possibility of death. I swear, I thought it might be a viable way to scare the Fem out of you.”
“Nice.” I leap off the gurney and scowl at Logan. “Come on, Skyla, I’d like to go home now.”
I light a candle, push the dresser over the door with my bad arm as if to prove a point and get into bed with my wife. Skyla and I sit across from one another, staring one another down in something just this side of a sexual standoff.
“Here it is, Skyla. The truth, all of it.”
“Start speaking.” She’s not in the least bit amused.
I pick up her hand and rub tiny circles into her palm with my thumb.
I shake my head. I don’t trust a soul outside of yours.
Not even Logan? She tilts her head with the probe.
He shot me. Should I trust him?
She nods. Point taken. I’ll admit that came out of left field. But in his defense, Ezrina planted the seed in his mind. And, if it makes it any better, I was ready to have a spirit sword fashioned for the exact same reason.
“Shit.” I bow my head a moment.
“Gage, I know you’ve been leaving me almost every single night.” Her eyes harden over mine. “Your omission of that very important detail has caused a chasm in our marriage that I’m not sure can ever be mended.”
Fuck. I’m losing her. My heart hammers so loud I can’t think straight. This can’t be happening. There’s no way I can lose my beautiful bride. I’ve waited all my life to make her mine, and I’ll fight till I die to keep her.
Skyla, Logan was right. The same empirical bullshit that drove him to do what he did—drove me to do the same.
“Why do I feel a but coming?”
But—a quick smile bounces on my lips—what ended so tragically for you and Logan is going to end brilliantly not just for you and me but for the entire Nephilim race. Wes has no jurisdiction with anything the Barricade does. I do. Mine is the only opinion that matters.
“What makes you so sure?” She shakes her head disbelieving.
He swore it to me in an oath. No decision will ride until we both agree on the outcome. That’s when I knew what I had to do. I’ve entered the darkness, Skyla. There is no turning back. I always knew I’d end up here one day. I pull her over until she’s seated in my
lap. Her Host T-shirt rides up, and she’s not wearing any underwear.
I took his body, Skyla. Tears flood my vision, but I won’t let them fall. I gave the enemy Logan’s body in some egotistical exchange. Can you ever forgive me?
“I know.” She brings my hand to her lips. “I forgive you, Gage.” Her voice is weighted, heavy as the world.
My fingers trace over her firm stomach. I’m never going to let Wesley administer that damn serum. I promise, Skyla, you and the Nephilim people are my first priority. I’ll be honest, I may have lost sight of it for a moment—the power—it’s like a drug. It took me under—held me there until it replaced the air in my lungs and almost cost me everything. You—Logan, I want it all back just the way it was. But deep down we both know it can never be that way. We both know who my father is. I’m already damned. I might as well go all in and watch as the enemy blazes its trail to the Nephilim’s destruction. Don’t you see? All of the wheels would have been in motion without me. Wesley’s serum would be in the bodies of those that belong in the Barricade. The Nephilim, you, would still very much be in peril. I press my lips tight as tears blur my vision. I did this for you, Skyla—yes, just like Logan did, but in the end, we didn’t lose anything. With my standing as Demetri’s son—his chosen one—Skyla flinches—I alone have the power to stop Wesley.
“You really believe this?” A single tear rolls down her cheek, reflecting the flame of the candle.
“I know this.” I pull her lips to mine and dive over her with a kiss that unleashes all of the truths, the secrets I’ve wanted to shed like old skin for the past several months, better than words could ever do.
Skyla pulls back. Her chest rises and falls with grief.
“Gage—thank you. Your sacrifice—it’s too much. And I can see the danger in confiding in either Logan or me, but I do wish we had this conversation sooner. Were you ever going to tell me?”
“I wanted to. Every damn day.” I dig my fingers in her hair and soak in the moment. A weight has been lifted, and I finally feel as though I have Skyla back just the way we were all those months ago. “If you would have asked me not to do it, I would have abandoned the effort. I knew in my heart this was one mission I couldn’t fail. The fact that I’m a Fem might just be a blessing after all.”