I’m falling, spinning through space as the rocks come upon me quick as sharpened blades.
They’ll say it was suicide. Skyla will never know I was fighting to stay by her side—her and the baby. That my greatest desire was to keep her safe, from me of all people, the only way I knew how, by turning in my horns and tail.
The earth jumps toward me.
“Skyla!” Her voice vibrates through the rain like a love song.
It’s done. My time has come and gone far too quickly—far too tragically.
My family, my friends, the warm smile of my beautiful wife—they are my past, never to be enjoyed again in this coat of flesh.
The rocks gyrate as they fast approach.
Only one thing waits for me now and forever.
Eternity.
Logan
The drumming of the rain tries its best to stir me from my slumber, but I’m holding on. Skyla and I are enjoying one hell of an erotic ride, and I’m not about to let go of this nighttime fantasy to gape at the weary world outside my window.
“Logan,” she sings over my mouth, her tongue snaking in and out as she teases me, laughing so sweetly I could hit pause and rewind on this very act all night. “Logan.” She growls it out a little deeper as her hands sink into my boxers. So fucking nice. “Logan!” Her voice is deep and guttural, her hands rattling my shirt. “Logan, I need you, man. Take care of Skyla.” Gage comes in clear and startles the shit out of me.
I sit up panting into a dreary room as the walls take on a familiar formation. I’ve officially moved from Dudley’s. I’ll be staying at Barron’s until I can get it together. But, for now, I’m panting like a madman, pulling my shirt off as I roll out of bed.
My phone lights up and rotates on my dresser. I pick it up and wince at the light. Fourteen missed calls from Skyla. Three text messages.
Can’t find Gage.
He left a note.
On my way. Meet me downstairs.
I pull on some clothes and shoes and take the stairs down two by two. The headlights to the Mustang light up the miniature windows embedded in the door.
I head out and get drenched by the time I hop in the passenger’s seat.
“What’s going on?”
Her hair is plastered from the rain. Skyla’s robe is loosely open in front, revealing nothing but pale, alabaster skin underneath. Her pink nipple is exposed, beautiful like a flower, and my insides spasm because that wasn’t for me to see. Her mascara is down to her chin. She’s trembling.
“Come here.” Without thinking I pull her over to my lap and bury my face in her neck. My lips find that tender spot just beneath her ear, and I linger there far longer than I ever should. “What’s happening, Skyla? Talk to me.”
I try to warm her with my hands, but she scoots back until her knees are pressed against my chest. I pull my shirt up over them like a blanket and her cool skin touches mine. Her robe has come undone, and her breasts are bared to me. The dark triangle of hair at the base of her hips begs my eyes to dip down for a while, but I’m quick to cover her up and cinch her belt at the waist.
“It’s Gage.” She rattles a piece of paper in my face, and I gently take it.
“What’s this?”
Skyla,
Farther down the road I see you,
a heart that measures in time with mine.
We breathe the air of a world forgiven.
Spin on this planet, once thought divine.
I’ll stand beside you until I am driven,
into the light so brilliant—into the light sublime.
And if that moment has finally come, my wish for you is this; love without abandon knowing we’ll hold each other again in eternity.
My heart breaks writing this.
I pray you never find it.
All of my love, forever,
Gage
“Okay,” I whisper. What the fuck are we supposed to do with this?
Her lips contort in a crooked idea of a grin. “I can hear you.” She rubs her knee into my bare stomach.
“Right.” I glance down at the paper again. “It’s his handwriting.” I haven’t seen it in so long. It’s like seeing an old friend. It makes me miss how close we used to be.
“This”—Skyla runs her finger over the first half—“is the poem he wrote for my seventeenth birthday. The rest is something he added tonight. What do you think this means? It sounds ominous, Logan. We have to find him before something happens.”
The rain comes down in uneven sheets as if we’re sitting in a carwash, not in Barron’s driveway in the middle of a downpour.
Skyla fists my shirt and rattles me, her knee still firmly tucked in my gut. “You don’t think he’d hurt himself, do you?”
“No.” My mind drifts back to that conversation last night. He said if anything happened to him that Skyla and I had his blessing.
Skyla lets out roar as tears explode from the corner of her eyes.
Damn telepathy.
I jump into the driver’s seat and rev the engine. “Put on your seatbelt.”
“Where we going?” she asks, struggling to comply.
“To pick up a supervising spirit. Dudley is going to take us wherever the hell we need to be.”
“Gage.” Skyla curls up in a ball and tucks her face between her knees. “Hang on for me.”
For me, too.
We hardly make the turn into Dudley’s driveway before Skyla jumps out of the car and crashes through his doors. I let the engine idle and join her. Liam and Michelle stumble downstairs, and, before Skyla can make her way up, Dudley shows up bare chested in his boxer briefs. Instinctively I look away. The last thing I need is that image burned into my mind.
“It’s Gage. You have to come.” Skyla leads Dudley down the stairs as clothes appear on his body from nowhere. By the time he hits the bottom, he’s donned a three-piece suit. Dudley. I shake my head at the oddity.
“What’s going on?” Michelle spontaneously bursts into tears. “Is he dead?”
“No.” I nod for Liam to take her back to their love nest. She’s wearing his shirt unbuttoned down the front, exposing me to yet another set of twins I have no intention of memorizing. That’s not entirely true with Skyla, but, in my defense, I memorized her body while she was still my wife.
“Look at you,” Dudley marvels at Skyla, and it’s only then I note her robe has come undone, and she’s standing here stark naked as his eyes take free roam of something that hopefully will never belong to him.
I pull her in and gently cover her body, fastening her robe with a double knot this time. My arm finds a home around her waist as I hold her. Skyla is a trembling dove in my arms.
“We need to find Gage.” I glance past him, making sure Michelle and Liam are out of earshot. “Take us to wherever he is.”
“He left this note. It sounded pretty bad.” Skyla’s voice cracks. “Marshall, please take me to my husband.”
My grip on her loosens ever so slightly because that husband isn’t me. Skyla belongs to Gage. And as grievous as it may be, I want her to. There’s not a hair on his head I would wish any harm.
“Very well.” Dudley takes up her hand and shouts something in an indiscernible language, a chant that sounds about as melodic as reading the phone book backward. He ends it by whacking his palm into my forehead so hard the entire room melts away.
Devil’s Peak.
The three of us find ourselves standing on terra firma, hundreds of feet from the rocky crags below. The ocean churns out its thunderous waves in a giant wall of whitewash. The storm rages around us. The heavens have cracked open, pouring down their wrath. A familiar crown of lightning threads itself above us in a lavender sizzle. A steady roar of thunder reverberates over the landscape, through my chest like an unwanted heartbeat.
“Where is he?” Skyla screams at Dudley.
“Judging by the riot of protest nature is putting on…” Dudley lets his words drift as he steadies his gaze towards the edge of the cli
ff.
“No.” Skyla’s hair jumps around her shoulders in unified protest as she shakes her head. “Gage would never do that—not to himself—not to me.”
Shit.
I pull Skyla in. I want to be there for her, but, selfishly, I need her right now more than I can say.
Dudley makes his way to the edge and glances over the side—his suit soaked, his hair plastered to his head. Immediately he lifts his chin and stiffens as if he’s seen something he wished he hadn’t.
The rain lets up just enough. Skyla tries to break free from my grasp, but I won’t let her.
“Let me do this.” I try to spin her further from the cliff’s edge, but she doesn’t budge.
“No. We do this together.”
Skyla and I make our way to where Dudley stands with our fingers laced so tight, bones are threatening to snap.
Slowly we peer over the edge, down to the jagged shoreline rinsed white with foam. The ocean calls its own as the waters retract revealing a landscape of green mossy stones, sharp as upturned knives. Vertigo sets in as the stones beckon us down, daring us to leap into the comfortable abyss. It would be so easy to fall into its wicked trance. I can see how people could do it, lured by the steady lull of the sea, the white foam bed promising to rinse your world clean.
Then together we see it. A bloodied T-shirt, twisted jeans, dark hair, a face covered with long, crimson tracks.
Gage lies there broken and alone, his head snapped unnaturally to the side.
Dear God.
The ocean covers him with its pale blanket.
Skyla folds in my arms and gives a primal scream that lets all of Paragon—the world—the universe in on our pain.
Wesley
One hour earlier…
It’s dark as it is quiet in the great room. My eyes steady over the globe that floats in a pool of misty water. It’s a work of art that my father gifted me as a housewarming gift. A seemingly innocent globe that has the ability to allow me a visual of the things my heart desires, and at this moment, like all others, I desire to see Laken.
Her ash brown hair lies over her shoulder, half of it spilling off the side of her pillow, as she sleeps with the look of peace ingrained over her delicate features. I’m convinced there is no greater beauty than that of Laken Stewart.
Stewart. A tiny huff emits from me. For so long that’s not who I believed she was. But her alternate identity—the Ephemeral Academy itself, seems like an entire lifetime ago.
I trace her trembling lids, the slight smile on her face, those brows that frame her pale denim eyes—I’m entranced by it all. It’s no wonder women have the power to take down kingdoms with a glance. Beauty is a hypnotic elixir that has the ability to break the crown of every king, dismantle the throne and tear down the walls to the strongest cities. Laken could rule the world with the curve of her lips.
She could have been here with me—for her I’d take up residency on Paragon where I truly belong. But she nailed my heart to this hell the moment she chose him over me.
Speaking of the devil, an arm floats into the picture. Cooper Flander’s shit-eating grin appears as he nuzzles into her from behind.
Coop and I were friends once upon a time. That was back when I believed in the lies fed to me by my father, by the greedy world of Counts who cared more about their standing than they ever did anybody’s life, including my own, including Laken’s.
Her face lights up as her eyelids flutter. I wave my hand over the wet world, and the globe returns to its natural state, bobbing in a sea of clear blue liquid. My blood boils as I try to erase the visual from my mind, their tangled limbs, their naked bodies ready to conjoin as one. As much as it pains me to see them together, I hold tight to the prophecy that was gifted to me many years ago. Laken will once again stand by my side. The kiss we shared can attest to that. You can’t fake passion, and Laken brought every bit as much as I did. Unless, of course, that was the moment, and it’s come and gone all too soon. I shake the thought away. I won’t believe it. Laken will be mine. I’ve no doubt about this.
Footsteps head in this direction. Chloe. I sigh before turning around. She’s beautiful in her own right. A bitch on heels. Tall, dark, and hot as all hell, but she still isn’t the one for me—even if she is carrying my child. I’m working on loving her. I’ll have to in order to achieve my goals. She already claims to love me, but I’m guessing it’s more of a compulsory adoration than something organic born of lust and yearning.
“Are you ready for the surprise?” Her voice shrills off the stone walls.
“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
Chloe links her arm in mine and walks me upstairs through the long, cold hall to the door just down from our bedroom. She’s been decorating the nursery for weeks now and hasn’t let me set foot in it until this moment.
“Close your eyes.”
I do as I’m told while she leads me deep into the heart of the oversized bedroom. This space, right here, will soon be filled with the blood of my blood, flesh of my flesh. Dominion will be achieved through Chloe and I. Skyla and Gage all but forfeited the effort, and now the family line will be propagated forever through me. Laken and the memories of who we were lay over my heart like a bruise. I’m hoping in some twisted way my child will soften her to me, after all, it should have been our child.
“Open!” Chloe hops up and down like a schoolgirl while I do a neat sweep with my eyes. An off-white crib and matching cradle sit off to one side. A twin-size wicker bed adorned with a pink-checkered canopy lies on the opposite end of the room. There’s a simple dresser and a desk that looks as if it’s seen better days.
“And what if it’s a boy?”
“Is that all you have to say?” She squawks, making her way to the bed and bouncing over the mattress. “It’s going to be a girl. I can feel it in my bones. She’s going to be beautiful.” Her hand rounds over her slightly swollen belly.
“But will she be kind?” I head over and take a seat next to her, placing my hand over hers.
“Who the hell cares? She’s going to be powerful. Half Celestra, half Fem. There will be no one like her before or after. She’s going to rule the Nephilim people. There isn’t anything she can’t do.”
“I agree.” I swoop down and kiss her stomach. “I love you,” I whisper with a genuine affection I haven’t felt since Laken.
Chloe tenses. I’ve yet to say those words to her, and although she doesn’t expect to hear them anytime soon, I’m sensing she’s hopeful. She’s uttered the sentiment to me a few times, followed up with my brother’s name, of course.
“Where did you manage to pick this up?” We’re not exactly living in a metropolitan area flooded with furniture stores on every corner. And, like most things associated with Chloe, I’m sensing trouble.
“The cradle and crib were mine. That bitch of a mother refused to give it to me, so I had Brody steal it from the storage unit they housed it in. The cradle will be in our room for the first solid year. That way you can have easy access to the twerp during its midnight screaming sessions.”
“Twerp?”
“I don’t plan on bonding for the first five years. Once she goes off to school, I’m sure she’ll be deeply missed.”
“School?” I close my eyes a moment trying to evaluate what exactly I’ve gotten myself into. “Chloe, we live in the Transfer, to which you are bound. Don’t count on this child having an ordinary life.”
“We can ship her off to that twisted boarding school—”
“No. Ephemeral is out of the question. I’ll raise her. You can catch all the shuteye you want. I’ll take the midnight feedings, the daytime feedings, hell, I’ll do it all.” I might even head to the surface and raise her on Paragon myself. But I don’t share that with Chloe. No use in rattling her nerves. The thought of living down here alone sends her into a tirade. I’m her only saving grace, and, perhaps in time, this child will be, too. “And this rickety bed? Which seven year old girl did you swipe this from?”
>
She pitches her head back and laughs. Her dark eyes sparkle a dangerous shade, the color of evil shadows at midnight. In a frightening way, Chloe is a lovely sight.
“Let’s just say I picked this up at a garage sale over at the Landon hovel.” She bounces hard on the bed. “Your brother has broken in this mattress a time or two. I’m keeping it for sentimental reasons.”
“Thanks for the heads up.” I’ll be sure to haul a new mattress down here, first chance I get. “So this is Skyla’s bed.” I shake my head. “The obsession never ends, does it, Chloe?”
“Sometimes the best revenge isn’t evicting someone from their own life, it’s stepping into it as if it were meant for you all along.”
My brother comes to mind, and a dull smile glides over my face.
“Sometimes the most ridiculous things come out of your mouth, and sometimes, Chloe, it’s gospel.” I clap my hand gently over her thigh and give it a slight squeeze.
“That’s what I like about you, Wes. You never hesitate to call me on my bullshit—my genius either. It feels good to be appreciated.”
A simple moment glides by as Chloe stares straight down into my soul, and I wonder if this could ever truly lead anywhere. But her heart cries for Gage just as strong as mine cries for Laken. Our restless hearts struggle to survive in this false haven we’ve created for ourselves. I don’t know how I’ll survive without Laken.
“The ferry is due in any minute.” I rattle her hand. “We’d better get going. We have guests to greet.”
A slow smile bleeds across her face as her eyes glaze over with the prospect of what this means for the both of us.
“We do, don’t we?”
Paragon weeps for better days gone by. Celestra has proven useless, impervious to putting a dent in the Countenance rule. The Steel Barricade is shaping up to be all I hoped it would and then some.