“Let’s go for a walk,” he offers.
Logan comes around and helps me slide to the damp soil below. The air is sweeter here at the falls than it is just about anywhere else on Paragon. And life is sweeter with Logan by my side even if Gage is in the picture.
“Can I?” He takes my hand and holds it up, asking permission after the fact.
“You never need to ask.” I kiss him over the knuckles. “Now tell me everything my lunatic of a mother said while she held you captive.”
“She didn’t hold me captive,” he says, leading me through a trail in the woods toward the back of the lake where the falls aren’t drilling their lusty cry of existence into our ears. “And it turns out, she’s not a lunatic.”
“Sure she’s not, especially after she declared you as the best man for her daughter’s heart.”
“Especially after that.” He gives a playful tug. “She’s right, though. I am the best man for your heart.”
“And what about Gage?” There it is. I didn’t want to go there, ever, but I knew where the train was headed long before it ever left the station.
“What about him?” Logan pulls a bleak smile before dissipating to an all-out frown.
“Doesn’t he factor into the equation somehow? I saw this vision, and he was able to replicate it for me. There’s something there—some kind of future.”
“He replicated it?” He tucks his head back a notch. “Sounds fishy,” he growls. “I don’t buy it.”
God, I hope he’s being playful. The last thing I want is to play suspicious minds with Gage again.
“Forget it,” I whisper. My heart lets out a few vagrant thumps and fills my ears with the sound of its percussion. Gage and I had moved past deception, hadn’t we? And now, Logan had stirred the pot again. With everything in me I want to believe in Gage, believe that he knows things and that not a cell in his body could ever be deceptive. But a warning siren is going off inside me. It sits in my chest like a brick that Chloe cast there herself.
We come upon a steep hill with a slick, muddy path. The scent of the eucalyptus perfumes the air.
Logan wraps an arm around my waist and helps steady me until we get to the bottom. It’s a miracle I didn’t end up on the seat of my pants.
“So let’s talk about us,” I offer, lifting my head to see the barely visible lake. The quiet hush of the falls whispers “Logan and Skyla” from the distal end of the hillside. I’m betting it’s more mother than nature procuring the strange phenomenon.
“I’d like to think we’re getting back on track.” He leads us to shore, to a small water cavity that hangs from the edge of the lake like a hot tub.
I peer inside the black cauldron. This is no heated whirlpool. This small body of water is capable of freezing your fingers and toes off before you realize what’s happened—might land you a permanent residency in the cemetery on an unlucky night. Barron will probably give Tad a price break on the burial if I kick the bucket.
Logan taps the water twice with the bottom of his shoe, and the deep well lights up a bright glacial blue.
“Wanna go for a swim?” He gives a smile laced with a bite of lust, but the trappings of eternal sadness remain locked behind his eyes.
“I’m not wearing my thermal bathing suit.” I give his hand a squeeze, affirming the fact we should abandon the hypothermia-inducing idea. “Plus, we’ll freeze to death,” I say, sticking to the more practical part of my argument.
“It’s warm. I promise.” He reels me in like a fish. “And you can go in fully clothed, if you like.” Logan wraps his arms around me tight as if he were saving me from taking a flying leap off a very tall building. “Can I take you somewhere, Skyla?”
“Not until after you fill in a few blanks.” I don’t know whether to struggle free or succumb to Logan’s healing touch, so much of me cries out for him—to love him just a little while longer. I’m so afraid I’m going to lose him—that in some way I already have. Sometimes I think just putting up a wall and pretending that I never had feelings for Logan would be easier than living in this crazy world without him. Even with Gage by my side, something lingers in my spirit for Logan—howls for him like a child lost in the woods on an Ezrina-filled night.
“You make me feel safe,” I mouth the words.
“Let’s jump in, and I’ll fill in all the blanks for you.” He moves us a step over toward the rim of the glowing pool of water. “I promise I’ll always keep you safe.”
Logan pulls me in tight, latches onto me with a bionic force and leaps us into the tiny offshoot of the lake. He lays his cheek over mine as we plunge deep into the Caribbean-blue waters, warm as a tropical sunset.
A rush of bubbles explodes around us. Streams of evanescence float their way to some nebulous surface as we drop through a tunnel of liquid so beautiful I never want to leave.
It’s magic like this with Logan. A lifetime with him would be nothing short of a miracle.
We spring to the surface, gasping for the honeyed air only to discover the surroundings have transformed themselves. A well-lit world awaits us with the blush of a lavender sky. The touch of a tangerine glow kisses the horizon and an emerald lawn sprawls for miles in every direction.
Everything about this mysterious place feels so richly familiar. I’ve been here before in my dreams with my father. He told me to go back, that I was pure as gold.
“Where are we?” I ask as Logan spins me slow in the water.
“Elysian Fields.” He lands a soft kiss on my cheek as if all he sees is me.
I take in a quick breath. “Does that mean—?”
“Yes, Skyla—we’re dead.”
Chapter 56
An Afterlife Kind of Love
“Dead?” I say, startled.
I take in the beauty, the majesty of the landscape as the sweetened air fills me with far more than my olfactory senses can handle. This place, it touches me, cradles me in its perfect loving arms. I throw my head back, and an unexpected laugh bubbles out.
“You like this, don’t you?” Logan lovingly caresses my hips. He pulls me underwater with him and steals a kiss, as if such corporal displays of affection weren’t allowed in this strange, new universe.
“Logan.” I pant as we reach the surface. A smooth vibration tunes through me. It feels like Marshall in every way, just richer, more refined.
“Come on.” He lifts himself out of the warm pool and gives me a hand, landing us both on the cushioned grass.
The sky shifts a pale vanilla. Soft overtones of pink outline the hard ridge where the trees meet the sky, and the dark rich lawn rolls out into a viridian horizon.
“What are we doing? We need to explore,” I say, pulling Logan up as we set in on a walk. Both my clothes and my hair, dry in seconds. A perfumed breeze sweeps through the air, intoxicating me with its floral welcome. “This is bliss. I’m not afraid at all. So are we really dead?”
“Mostly dead.” Logan glances back as if he were looking for someone. “I happen to have scored a day pass—one for you, too.” He rocks into me before nuzzling a kiss in my hair.
“From my mother.” Of course it’s from my mother. Death totally falls in line with the kinds of gifts she would give. “So we’re in the Soullennium? Marshall took me on the guided tour. Didn’t look like this though.”
“Nope, not the Soullennium. I was a guest there for a while, remember?” He jiggles my hand. “This is the other side of Ahava, past the lake. It’s the real deal.” He points over toward a mighty body of water with a two tiered waterfall on its outer banks. “It’s gorgeous. Earth could only hope to have such peace and beauty. I was hoping your mother would let me bring you.”
“Sort of gives two tickets to Paradise a whole new meaning.”
“You got that right.” He drops a kiss just shy of my lips before beaming a fantastical smile.
In the distance the waterfall glows a warm shade of crimson.
“Logan,” I say, stopping him in his tracks, “that’s where
the sword of the Master is. We should use this and try to get it. We can end the war right now.”
“No. There’s a chasm.” He pulls me in by the waist, rides his hands up my body, slow, like he’s familiar with my curves, like he dreams about them nightly. “I asked to bring you here today. I wanted to show you that it wasn’t so bad. That it feels good—that we’re still alive in every single way.”
“It’s better, it’s richer,” I add to his sentiments. “I feel more alive here than I do down there.” Instinctually, I know the Earth is somewhere below us, a footstool to the throne of this exotic locale. There is not one ounce of illogic to fight me on the matter.
Just past the lake, a soft wave sweeps up from the ground and wobbles through the air like radiating heat.
“So that’s the chasm,” I say, looking out at it, inspecting it. It looks penetrable. I can see clear to the other side. “I love it here, Logan.” Powerful feelings of joy pulse through me. “I never want to leave.”
Logan cradles my face in his hands and pulls me in. I can feel his ache to kiss me deeply. His entire being draws me in and I give. There’s not one cell in my body that suggests otherwise, just the sweet anticipation of his precious lips as I wait for them to fall over mine.
Our passion explodes into flames like gunpowder.
I had waited so long, denied the both of us of this spectacular splendor, and now, here we were on the other side of death. There were no rules, and no doubt, and no one else to stop us.
Logan pushes me in by the small of my back as he caves into his desire. His soft lips against mine, his hungry tongue—Logan gifts me with all of his willful affection. For the first time in a long while, he’s unafraid to love me.
I miss this. I miss Logan with an indescribable urgency. I hate my mother for making me choose. She did this. Let all of the penalties lie with her because she force fed me two great loves.
Logan pulls away. Gone is the perennial sadness in his eyes, replaced with inexpressible joy.
“It’s this place, Skyla. It’s coloring your feelings.” He smiles as though it didn’t offend him in the least.
“Not true. I love you. I’ve always loved you.”
“You love Gage, too. I didn’t bring you here to take you physically or ask you to erase him like a bad memory.”
“Take me.” I push into him with a laugh. “You can bark out orders, and I will obey every single one.” It streams from my lips with lust-filled passion.
“Skyla…” His demeanor softens. “I needed to show you this place. I knew you had feelings for me,” he whispers soft as tears, “that you held a place for me in your heart.” He swallows hard. “Look.” He nods behind me.
A beautiful little girl with butter-colored hair strides by. She glances up at the two of us and offers a shy smile.
“Hey…” I look back at Logan. “I think I know her. I’ve seen her someplace or…” I rack my brains trying to figure it out. I turn around and she’s disappeared. “She’s gone.”
“That was a vision,” he whispers it so low it was almost impossible to hear. Logan pulls me in and holds me for a very long time. I can feel his warm breath as he sinks a kiss over my neck. His body trembles slightly as though he were on the verge of tears.
“What’s happening?” I whisper, almost afraid to ask.
“I just needed you to see this place—to know that people who come here are going to be all right.”
“Is this all there is? I mean it’s quiet and peaceful but…” There’s something off and I just can’t put my finger on it.
“No, this is just the beginning, the entrance to Paradise. This is where your mom brought me. She wanted me to see it, and I couldn’t stand the thought of not sharing it with you.”
“Why did she bring you here?” Oh my God, we’re going to die. Gage’s visions were nothing but a hoax to get in my pants.
“I don’t know.” Logan pulls me down to the grass and cradles me in his arms as we look out at the lake. “I figured since she was giving me the tour that it was a strong possibility I would soon be a resident. And”—he sighs into the back of my neck—“if I am, I want you to know I’ll be OK. That I’ll be here waiting for you.”
I don’t like this conversation. And suddenly, I’m not so hot on this magical mystical death portal, either.
“What did she want?” I ask.
“She wanted to know if I remembered her, and when I said no, she filled me in. She put her hand on my forehead, and then it was like watching a movie.” He gives an impish smile. “I remembered everything.”
“What happened? When did you meet my mother?”
He takes in a lungful of air. “When I was alive, in the time after my parents died, I met her. She was working at a research and development hospital on the outskirts of L.A., and I had been down there recovering after another one of my surgeries.”
“You knew my mom!” I twist in his arms. That hurt look on his face lies buried below his smile.
“Sort of, we met in passing a few times. She was interning for a doctor who had my case. We got to talking, and I told her my story. I told her my parents died in a fire, that I was badly burned in the process.”
“Oh, Logan.” I wrap my arms around his neck, sniffing back the tears. Logan and I rock slow and steady to the beating of our hearts, right here in the eternal city. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that.” Tears roll down my cheeks.
“It’s OK.” Logan warms my back with his hands. It’s typical Logan to comfort me when he was the one who lived through the harrowing trauma. “Your mom was very sweet. She said she knew who I was, that there was much hope for me. She said I was chosen to live out another life, one that would cost me my own, but I needed to leave that life to come to this one.”
“I wish you were born here to begin with.” Leave it to good old Candy to take the hard road to get where she’s going. And why drag Gage into this? Why dangle me in front of Marshall like some matrimonial prize? God—I bet she’s in bed with Delphinius and perhaps in more ways than one. “I don’t see why she couldn’t have arranged a different time and place for you to begin with.”
“I asked the same thing. She said I needed my genetic code, that it was worth more than gold.”
“What did she say?” I pull back and examine him.
“She said my genetic code was worth more than gold.”
“That’s sort of what my father told me in this weird vision or dream I had when we first fell from the stone. He said for me to write it down—repeat it to myself.”
“Really?” He studies me a moment. I can see the thoughts shifting in his mind like a landslide, the movement of something big coming up from underneath. “This means something, Skyla.”
“What else did she say?”
“When I knew her back in L.A., she came every day. She listened and spoke with me. I had very few friends and no family out there, so it was a welcome reprieve from the loneliness. I was in pain, and she touched me—she healed my affliction.”
I wonder if I was an infant at that time? Knowing my mother, she could have just as easily morphed to Earth and pretended to be an intern. Her ulterior motives know no bounds.
“I thought the past didn’t change.” I pull my eyes along Logan’s precious face. I wish this moment would stretch out forever, but I can feel it closing in on us, coming to an end like a rubber band ready to retract. “But it changed for you.”
“Your mother changed it,” he says, swallowing his excitement. “She said I made an impression on her and that she wouldn’t let me go to waste, that I wouldn’t have to worry about being lonely again.” Logan holds my eyes with a heavy gaze. “She said her daughter needed me. That we were meant to be together right from the beginning, but we were on different paths.”
“That’s me.” I breathe the words like a dream.
“She said our paths would converge, then disperse for a short time.” His expression dims. The light in his soul goes out completely before sta
rting in on an incandescent flicker. “Then we would back. We would find our way together again.” His lips bloom into a smile. “She said our love would be strong, Skyla—that we had a spiritual covenant.”
I take in a breath and blink back fresh tears, this time they were all for Gage. A slow boiling anger stirs in me.
“Did she tell you why she shoved another perfectly good Oliver in my direction?” I want to strangle her for breaking my heart, for breaking Gage’s heart—for toying with us like we were kittens. It makes me want to claw out her perfect, sparkling eyes.
“It’s OK, Skyla.” Logan shakes his head. His brows crease as the world starts to wobble like a stiff piece of plastic, bending and flexing violently in the breeze. “Believe me—there is a time for us. And we will love deeply.”
The world snaps into darkness.
Logan and I appear back at the Falls of Virtue in a pool of illuminated water.
“Logan!” I pull him in and hold on tight. I have just as many questions as I do when we started, only now, I’m afraid to ask them. Every good feeling has washed away and the stale air of Paragon infiltrates my marrow with a destitute misery.
“I love you, Skyla Messenger,” Logan whispers, brushing his lips against my ear like painting a picture. “It will all work out in the end. I promise.”
“I love you, too,” I say and wonder what he really means by “the end.”
Thank you for reading TOXIC Part One (Celestra Series Book 7). If you enjoyed this book, please consider leaving a review at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or your point of purchase. Look for TOXIC Part Two, (Celestra Series Book 7) coming SOON!
The Following is an extended preview of Addison Moore’s new series:
Ephemeral (The Countenance)
Teaser: Ephemeral
The Countenance Book 1
Ephemeral
The Countenance Book 1