“Call off this farce, Skyla,” he growls as if the entire chicken loving party were my fault. I’ve got news for him. I’m not the one who gave birth to our savior on this day, nor was I the one to pepper this place with chicken hats and turn up the oom-pah-pah music. Truly Gage is in a better place. “Your plan to have Laken immersed in Cooper’s presence has backfired. I want both him and Wesley removed from her presence.”
“Is she willing to go home with you? My God, that’s progress!”
Her mother shakes her head. “She’s still convinced she belongs with him.” She gives a hard nod over to Wes, and I step into the room.
“Enough!” I roar, and both Wes and Coop glance my way. “Whatever’s going on, just stop it.” My voice hardly breaches the loud acoustics booming from the speakers.
“Stay out of this, Skyla,” Cooper barks as Logan pulls me back.
“It’s too visceral,” he whispers as he yanks me to safety. “Do you have a fire extinguisher?”
“You want to set Wes on fire? That’s brilliant! I’ll hold the fire extinguisher in the sad event the tree goes up in flames.”
“I’m not laughing.” Logan wraps his arms around me like a belt.
The cords in Wesley’s neck pop as his lips redden with rage. “You leave Laken the hell alone just like she asked and nobody gets hurt.”
“The hell I’m letting her set foot outside this house with you.”
I lean into Logan and gasp. “Deep down, I knew this was a shitty idea.”
Coop steps up to Wes. “You don’t fucking tell me what to do.” He gifts Wes a hard shove into the tree, and the lights go off and on sporadically as it tips to the wall. The entire room breaks out in gasps as entire flocks of chickens scamper out of the line of fire.
Wes doesn’t miss a beat. Instead, he charges at Coop, and the two of them growl and roar while tossing one another around the room as if they were rag dolls.
“Skyla!” Laken calls, and how I miss it when she did call. “Don’t just stand there. Do something!”
“Like what?” Besides—watching Coop beat the shit out of Wesley Edinger just might be my gift from Demetri. A secret smile plays on my lips. Gage’s doppelganger or not, Wes is wicked through and through.
“Like put a stop to this madness.” Her eyes grow wild as Tobie snuggles against her neck. Laken is going to make such a great mother one day—to Cooper’s children, of course. “Tell Cooper Flanders that I am never going back to him. He’s wasting his time and his energy. And they’re ruining everyone’s Christmas.” She chokes out the words with such haste I can’t help but wonder if her concern were for Cooper or Wes. I’d like to think that on a subconscious level her concern still lies with her true love. “Please stop him before he kills Wesley!”
I glance to Logan, and we share a look of disdain. “If there were even remotely a possibility of Coop offing Wes, you could bet your confused bottom dollar I wouldn’t be putting an end to the melee.”
Wes thunders out a string of expletives so fast only a trained expletive aficionado such as myself could decipher each and every word. Coop struggles to rise on his feet, and Wes dives over him, sending the two of them crashing into the Christmas tree, toppling the eight foot noble fir to the floor. Side note: my mother is a Doug fir girl all the way, messy needles and all, but since this entire party is meant to show up the snobs who didn’t think murder jived with my mother’s decor at the masquerade, she opted to mimic Emma while decking the monochromatic halls this year.
The room erupts in screams. My mother and Tad speed down the hall, cutting through an entire crowd, sending chicken hats flying as they belt out their own cacophony of expletives.
“That’s it.” Logan presses his lips to my ear. “Open the front door, Skyla.” He dives into the living room, screaming and roaring like a cage fighter, and picks both Wes and Coop up by the shirts, slowly detangling their savage limbs from one another, and shoves them in this direction.
“Out of the way!” I shout at the crowd congesting the foyer, carefully pulling Laken and Tobie to the corner and away from the clear and present danger. The icy air suctions into the house as I swing the doors open wide, and the evergreens lean in just enough to get a better look at the chaos going on at the Landon nightclub.
Tad jumps in front of Wes and Coop and holds out his hands like a referee. “Enough! I’m sick and tired of you boys acting like animals! Skyla is just a person!” God, he’s so hopped up on eggnog, he thinks that it’s Gage and Logan warring over me. How I wish it were true. “There are plenty of fish in the sea. Now get out there and—”
Wes decks him without blinking, and Mom starts in on a howl that doesn’t seem to have an end. Tad flies to the stairs and embeds himself in the railing, leaving his neck twisted unnaturally. But Wes and Coop pick right back up where they left off, decking one another on their way out the door with their bodies fumbling, stumbling like a couple of drunks, and I get caught up in the chaos and find myself jumping right onto the porch along with them. The fog retracts in violent puffs as Wes knocks Coop into the side of the house so hard a window shatters upstairs and rains down glass just as Chloe steps beneath the shower of shards.
“Merry Christmas to me,” I whisper.
Chloe lets out a chilling scream that stops everyone at the doorway from joining us on the porch of doom. Her hair is filled with a sparkling mosaic, her face pimpling with blood as if she were sweating the sanguine liquid.
“You!” she howls at Cooper as if it were all his fault. Chloe launches at Cooper just as Wes pulls him in by the shirt, and the three of them go tumbling down the stairs using Coop as a human sled. Chloe’s hands are wrapped around Cooper’s neck, and the poor guy’s arms are pinned beneath Wes so he can’t even defend himself.
“Stop!” I flop onto the dog pile just as Wes bucks Chloe and me off with a shout and sends us both into the woods next to the driveway. My back hits the ground so hard it knocks the breath right out of me. A hard moan comes from my throat as my eyes struggle to open. Blinking to life, I spy a light so bright and beautiful up above, I want nothing more than to gaze upon it. Too bright to be a star, too close to be a planet, surely Wesley’s intention of frightening the people of Earth is still in full swing on this, the holiest of nights.
Chloe rolls over, her face smeared in crimson just like that day I found her with Gage’s head tucked in her belly. “You witch!” she shrills into the glacial night as she pulls me on top of her with a growl. “You think you’re so hot. You think everything in life should always go your way. Who the hell cares if Laken wants to be with Wes?” she riots into my face with blood coating her teeth pink. “I’m siding with the twit on this one!”
I glance over to the tangled knot of bodies to our right as Wesley smashes the living shit out of Cooper’s beautiful face. Laken and my mother scream in a choir as Tad pelts the driveway with rocks and, dear God, his shoes and socks? The odor alone should be enough to cause the entire island to pass out. It’s a genuine nerve gas he’s unleashed on us all.
Logan jumps into the mix and hauls Wes back, allowing Coop to sock him hard in the throat. Wesley’s head flies back like a rag doll’s, and a horrible loud snap ricochets through the air as if his spinal cord had severed. I can see the fire in Wesley’s eyes, and I know both Logan and Coop are in trouble. I roll past Chloe as if she were a bump in the road, and she gags so loud I’m half-afraid she hurled in my hair. I latch my hand over Wesley’s ankle as he roars to life, and in a supernatural fit of rage, he grabs ahold of Logan by the neck.
God, not his neck! He just got this body back. I won’t allow Wes to harm a single hair on his head. I spring to my feet just as Wes draws a fist and land myself in front of Logan.
Just as I open my mouth to reprimand the dark-haired demon, that fat ham hock of his swings full force into my left eye, and my body goes flying into the woods until the back of my head slaps into the trunk of an evergreen. The world stills around me for a brief moment before I la
nd in a heap on the frozen ground below.
My body feels strangely numb as I struggle to breathe. I roll onto my back and gaze up at that haunted spotlight in the sky burning bright above me.
Demetri strides by, his dark eyes penetrating mine as he fades from existence. “Merry Christmas, Skyla. Don’t ever say I never gave you anything. Enjoy your gift. I’m most certain you will.” His frame is replaced with a puff of powder white fog—Paragon blowing him out like a birthday candle.
It takes everything in me to keep conscious. Somewhere in the distance Logan calls for me. The world around me grows eerily still as the sounds from the party become nothing more than a distant rumble.
Out in the forest a face emerges, that of a girl, pale, so small. Her wiry hair shines gold, and the whinnying sound of a horse accompanies her. I blink several times as I look up to find the beast she’s secured with a rope struggling to breathe, gagging, bucking wildly, his hooves dancing dangerously close to my body, and yet not a muscle I own will respond to my desire to move.
“Can you help me?” A sinister smile rises on her cheeks. Those eyes of hers look startlingly familiar. “My horse is choking. Please help.” A tear runs down her face, a single line of meandering blood as she extends a blackened hand to me.
“No.” I shake my head, struggling to wake from this nightmare. “Please go away.” My heart begins to race, and my breathing grows erratic. My head refuses to turn, but I drag my eyes to the left, far away from the sight of her where I spot an entire fleet of shadowed jaguar-like creatures, tall as men, standing on hind legs, enormous yellow eyes illuminated in the night, feasting their gaze upon me. “No,” I whimper as a scream gets lodged in my throat.
Something is happening. Something wicked has unleashed itself on Paragon.
I’m so frightened. I’m so very frightened as the night fades like a bad dream. Perhaps in the end that’s all this will be. A very bad, bad dream.
I wake from a still and comfortable slumber, only to have the night air fill my nostrils with sea salt as my fingers dig into sediments that feel much like sand. The world reimagines itself in shades of indigo and violet as that brilliant light shines down over the weary island, piercing through the fog as if it were a laser slicing through the night. A hard slap crashes to my left, and I roll my head that way, only to find the illuminated waters racing toward me, stopping shy of my body by three solid feet.
The beach. I pick up a handful of sand and let it run over my chest slowly, sooted and dusty.
A breath hitches in my throat as I hike up on my elbows and take in the ebony terrain.
“Rockaway,” I croak as I struggle to move after the physical trauma of the evening. My left eye feels as if it’s swollen shut, even though I can still see the world through its slit. Demetri and his cryptic threat of a gift run through my mind as I tap my hand lightly over the swelling. It wouldn’t shock me to learn that he possessed Wesley to accidentally-on-purpose land a left hook to my face. My God, I could have suffered a skull fracture the way he came at me with his bullshit Barricade Fem-induced strength. I’m pretty sure Wesley wouldn’t knowingly hit a girl, but Demetri is another story. He’s a misogynist through and through—a real deal asshole who wouldn’t know a good Christmas present if it bit him on the balls.
A hard groan works its way up my throat, accompanied by a sharp wave of nausea. The last thing I want to think of on this sacred night is that demigod’s pebbles.
And what the hell am I doing at Rockaway?
That star up above twinkles and shines as if it’s about to give birth, and a thought comes to mind, sending a sharp, searing breath filling my lungs.
“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!” My feet dig into the sand as I struggle to rise. Could this be the gift Demetri was trying to give me? Maybe Wes’ lucky shot was a complete bonus to him? “Dear God,” I whisper as I stagger on wobbly legs. It feels as if I’ve been unconscious for hours. I glance around the dark expanse. The brilliant beams from the star up above wash everything with a crystalline magic in its pure white light. The fog is considerably thinner as I look to the area where Gage once built a shed for our love out of palm fronds.
A sharp cry comes from me as I spot an overgrown shack made of thatched branches. A small bonfire burning bright sits in front of it.
In an instant, the sky is darkened, and from the heavens descend several shadowed creatures in the form of men, wings long and expansive bloom from their backs made entirely of fine black feathers. They fly down with violent force, their wings blossoming and retracting in a fury, tall as evergreens, wide as houses. Their faces are charred in darkness, and there are only glints of their eyes as if they too were a secret. They touch down on Paragon soil, surrounding me in a tenebrous cloud, a cloud of raven-winged devils, and a gripping fear rides through me so powerful it paralyzes my vocal cords from unleashing a scream.
A magnificent roar comes from somewhere in the universe, from a voice that holds a familiar appeal, a succulent sound I’ve heard both in and out of my dreams.
Then just as quick as it came, the shadowed figures begin to dissipate, leaving the beach and stealing Paragon’s fog right along with them.
The light blooms from above and pours all of its incandescence directly onto a single figure—that of a man. Broad chest, white T-shirt, blue jeans, dark hair—
“Gage!” I scream so loud I’m sure they heard me all the way back in L.A. I burst forth like a bullet. I run so fast my feet never hit the ground.
His perfect, beautiful body, that perfect, gorgeous face.
But he’s not running to meet me. He’s standing there, examining me as if it were his first time on this planet, his first time ever laying eyes on me.
“Gage?” I call out as I slow down, pausing ten feet out in front of him. This couldn’t be a cruel illusion. Could it? If it is, I don’t care. I’ll take it. I’ll take whatever my fractured mind demands to give me. He looks solid and real and so very much present.
His grin breaks out slowly, then one by one those dimples dig in deep. His eyes sparkle far more deeper and brighter than those blue sapphires have ever shone, a far more vivid version of the cobalt hue they used to be. He looks every bit himself. He looks every bit different. The changes are small, nuances only a wife might notice, but even at this distance, I know there is something different, something slightly off, something, dare I say, regal about my perfect, beautiful, painfully gorgeous husband.
“Gage,” I say, breathless, stepping in close, my hand rising to touch him, but something in me demands I hesitate. My own words echo in the recess of my mind. You can keep your gifts, Demetri. I don’t want them. They only bring people misery and suffering. I bat those terrible words away and seal all thoughts of earlier tonight off for good.
Our eyes latch onto one another, and it’s all over. I’m his once again. We can have our forever back right where we left off.
“You’ve come back to me,” I pant with my heart overflowing with love, my entire body pulsating with relief.
The smile dissipates as his features harden. “No, Skyla. I haven’t. I’ve come to kill, steal, and destroy.”
Gage
Without darkness, it is impossible to know the value of the light. Without wretched evil, it is improbable you will cherish all that is holy. Hate makes the borders of love that much more defined. And without despair, you can never know pure relief—that’s exactly what I feel now.
“Skyla.” My arms collapse around her earthly frame, and all at once the dam breaks and both our bodies shake in tandem as joyous tears, tears of anguish, of pain, and of pleasure release over one another.
Just a moment ago my soul was in the very presence of God, the Messiah, in the heavenlies surrounded by Seraphim, powers, principalities, thrones, Sectors, Fems, a Caelestis, the innumerous dead, and beasts with far too many eyes. And here I am back on Earth, back on Paragon, back in the arms of the one person I wanted to see the most. I craved Skyla and the boys while I was gone. I
did my best to regurgitate them in my mind over and over again. I demanded they live in my immortal memory as if not a moment went by. It was smoke and mirrors, trickery at its best. Even in paradise your heart aches for those you’ve abandoned on Earth. And although I wanted to come back with everything in me, a strong part of me demanded to remain in that eternal locale. Heaven is truly the paradise of God. And Earth is more or less an unattended outhouse, vile and filthy, evil ruling the entire realm while good struggles to survive.
Skyla moans against my neck, hikes up on the balls of her feet, and crashes her mouth to mine with hot, angry, loving, feverish, greedy kisses, and I match them one for one. I missed this. I missed the feel of her skin touching mine, the soft tickle of her tongue, the wetness of her mouth. A deep moan works its way up my throat as I taste her smooth peppermint kisses, so perfectly satiating. I have been hungry for them for far too long, and now I will never get enough.
I pull back just enough to see her beautiful face slicked with tears. In truth, Skyla even with her hair windblown, mascara down to her cheeks, outshines every angelic being on Earth and in heaven.
“It’s fitting”—I whisper as I brush the hair from her forehead—“the last thing I saw in paradise was the face of God, the first thing on Earth is you. I wouldn’t want it any other way.”
Her legs hike up around my waist as she tips her head back and gives a ferocious laugh. “I really have you back!” Her pale blue eyes glow like winter frost. “We did it, Gage! We cheated death! Not my mother, nor your father, nor any other dark force in the universe has the power to keep us away from one another.” Her chest bucks as she swallows down her emotions, her eyes never straying from mine. “I knew—I knew with everything in me that we were going to make it. I never doubted it, Gage. I never wanted to believe for a minute that you wouldn’t be in my life again.” A desperation fills her. I can feel Skyla clawing to have me, and yet I’m right here in her arms. “I’ll have my mother watch the boys tonight. We’ll spend the night here.” She ticks her head to the thatched structure, newly and expertly erected. I can’t help but feel my father had a hand in that. “I want you, Gage.” She slips her hand up my shirt. “And I cannot wait another minute to have you.” Her lips swell, red as rubies. “There is nothing that can stop our love. We are indestructible. Not even the Master Himself could tear us apart.”