Throne of Fire (Celestra Forever After Book 5)

  “In Tenebrous?” He tips his head with curiosity. “Sounds like the losing end of a bet.”

  “It is,” Coop assures.

  He nods toward Coop and me. “If the two of you don’t mind, I’d like to borrow Skyla a moment. It seems I’ve a glitch with the lumen.” He holds up that glowing blue clipboard, and the two of them begin buzzing over the small mechanism.

  “Come here”— I hop up on the stone and Coop follows me to the middle—“what’s this really about? I can see it on your face. You’re holding something back.”

  His eyes remain over mine. The tension emanating from him sends up every red flag I own.

  “Logan.” He closes his eyes a moment. “You have to trust me on this. It’s nothing we can discuss right now.” He exhales a restless breath as he looks to Skyla. “She can never know. You probably shouldn’t either.”

  “All right.” Skyla hops onto the stone and jogs on over. “You ready to follow the necrotic brick road to find our demonic Oz?” Skyla holds up her hands as if in deep worship. “How in the hell are we going to figure out which way is due east?”

  “There’s no breeze,” I say, trying my hardest to feel anything with my hand.

  Skyla licks her finger and holds it in the air. “Wait a minute.”

  Coop and I do the same thing and, sure enough, we all point to the left at the very same time. We walk for what feels like a mile before Skyla heads to a snake-like rocky crag that butts against a hillside.

  “It’s the river.” She kicks a stone, and it lolls its way down a few feet, heavy as a bowling ball. “That’s two clues crossed off the list. What’s next?”

  Coop straightens the paper in his hands. “The woods twisted and gnarled.”

  “That’s a needle in a haystack,” I say as we follow the river down a few hundred yards until an entire fortress of knotted oaks, their backs bent and charred, stop us in our tracks. Each burnt branch leans hard toward the west as if a significant wind blew them that way and there they forever remained.

  “My God”—Skyla moans—“don’t get me wrong. I’m an ardent lover of nature, but these trees, they look beyond deformed.” She points up at the outer branches. “It’s almost as if they were trying to run away from something.”

  Coop shakes his head while marveling at the grotesque sight. “You’re right. And if you look hard enough, they start to take the shape of people.”

  They’re both right. It’s distressing, alarming. That coupled with the fact that the temperature just went up twenty degrees leaves me feeling as if I might drop from fatigue.

  “Next clue, Coop.” I wipe down my forehead with the back of my hand.

  “The next and final clue reads, a bubbling cauldron of pain.”

  “That’s what I’m feeling.” Skyla places her hand over her back and stretches. “We need to hurry. I don’t know how much I have left in me.”

  “Let’s go.” Coop leads us through the haunted woods as a heated breeze picks up out of nowhere. The bony fingers of the oaks scratch at us as we struggle to follow the buildup of heat, the scorching nuclear breeze blowing our way. Skyla stumbles, and I catch her, slipping my arm around her waist the rest of the way as we do our best to physically support one another.

  The woods thin out, the sky hangs heavy overhead, illuminated by a peach glow emanating from just beyond the ridge.

  “That must be it.” Coop’s chest rises and falls as he looks over at it. There’s excitement brewing in his eyes, and as soon as I get the chance, I’m going to demand that he tells me what the hell this is really about. “Come on.” He charges ahead, and Skyla and I perk back to life as we keep pace beside him. The heat index spikes another ten degrees, and without thinking I take off my shirt.

  Skyla makes a weak effort to fan herself. “You’re tempting me to do the same.”

  “You don’t see me stopping you.”

  Cooper huffs a laugh. “Skyla, you want me to hit him?”

  “No thanks. I can take him if I wanted.” Before she can tack on another thought, or threat for that matter, we hit the tip of the hill and the three of us freeze in unison.

  A clearing lies ahead, steam rising from the black crisp earth. About a mile in the distance, a cauldron that spans a football field bubbles with molten lava, flames licking from it daringly high into this dead night. The entire vicinity is lit with its pumpkin glow.

  “What is this place, Cooper?” Skyla whispers breathless at the menacing sight.

  “It’s the abyss, Skyla.” Coop takes a staggering step forward. “This is a portal that leads straight to hell.”

  “Hell.” The word expels from me like a punch in the gut.

  “Oh my God.” Skyla points to an entire herd of figures out in the distance—people, crouching in fear, on their knees, on their backs, each one of them charred to a crisp.

  The sea of fire stirs up as the ground beneath us gives a violent shake. A roar comes from the bowels of that boiling cauldron as the flames rise ever higher. A spew of lava rises hundreds of feet into the sky, and the three of us stumble back a few good feet.

  Another horrific thunderous howl emits, and flames rocket into the sky, lighting up this dark hellscape with the brightness of the sun, powerful and blinding. The wind shifts as the flames reconfigure and out of the chaos a form takes shape, a monster, a dragon eats up the sky with his tail whipping back and forth in quickened spasms, knocking the stars right out of the night. And as if suddenly alerted to our presence, it stops abruptly, turns our way, smoke flaring from its nostrils, that elongated snout pointed our way, eyes like fiery rubies. It rears its ugly head with furious intent, launching a fireball our way, hurtling it at us like a death warrant, a devilish promise.

  Skyla reaches for Coop and me as Tenebrous fades away like the bad dream it’s panning out to be.

  Tenebrous has been hiding a dark secret all along, a portal to hell itself. I don’t think any of us are all that surprised.

  But I can’t help but wonder what it all means.

  Wesley

  Fair is never a word I would use to describe my life, and at this particular junction, hellish is a more appropriate term. No sooner did Kresley howl in pain than Laken doubled over—Laken who was kindly trying to offer a fellow expectant mother a comfortable seat in the house seems to have contracted the delivery disease. Scratch that. To see my child—my children, for the very first time will be a privilege. And if I might have a thought that I would rather forever leave unspoken—it’s that I wish Laken and I could have had at least a week buffer in either direction in regards to Kresley’s baby. I wanted this moment with Laken to be pure. And Kresley—not the child she’s carrying, is muddying up the waters.

  Laken is in our bed in the master bedroom, and Kresley is in the guest room, a room that has never been used for anything but to hold a surplus of Tobie’s ever-expanding closet. Laken has made it a habit to fill her time by shopping online for our baby girl—Cooper’s idea, who conveniently has it all shipped to his place and uses it as an excuse to haunt us daily. And yes, Laken does consider Tobie her own. Once we’re married—after Laken recovers her figure, her thoughts, not mine—she’s already resolved to officially adopt Tobie.

  Laken gives my hand a hard squeeze as she grunts her way through another contraction. A horrible scream gets locked in her throat as her head falls back against the pillow.

  “Go check on Kresley,” she says breathless. “I’m fine, really.” A weak smile flails unconvincingly on her lips. “For Pete’s sake, Wes, she’s screaming her head off. She’s got to be farther along than I am and she has no one here.”

  “She has Ezrina.”

  “Wesley.” Laken swats me. “You imprisoned her! Don’t be a beast.” She pulls my hand forward and kisses it. “I promise, you won’t miss the birth of our child.”

  “Master Wesley?” Ezrina’s other half, Heathcliff, pokes his head in. “You have guests.”

  “Who is it?” I bark without meaning to. The tension
of having two pregnant women both in labor, both ready to gift me a child, has my mind spinning like a demonic top.

  “Your brother, Master Cooper, Master Logan, and Mistress Skyla.”

  “Oh good.” Laken struggles to sit up. “Please send Cooper and Skyla right down. I’ll need all the support the universe wants to give me to get through this.”

  My heart drops when she says Coop’s name. I’m paranoid beyond comprehension that she’s falling in love with him again.

  “Wes, no.” She shakes her head, squeezing my hand again—this time to reassure me. Laken always knows exactly what I’m thinking. “Coop is just a good friend. And I know that he’s convinced this baby is his. I can’t deny him access to me now. I have no interest in breaking his heart further. Once the baby arrives, we’ll have Ezrina run a DNA test and he’ll know for certain that this is your child.”

  My stomach cinches in a knot. We had discussed it as a plan of action in passing, but now that it’s almost upon us, it seems like a piss-poor idea. If that child belongs to Cooper, Laken might see him differently. Hell, she’ll be forced to.

  She struggles to hook my gaze. “It’s not happening,” she whispers, tears glittering in her eyes. “I’m never leaving you, Wesley. You’re my first and only true love, and I can never leave you. I don’t care what anyone says. We’ve found our way back to one another, and I’m never leaving you again.”

  My eyes widen with an unstoppable amount of hope that everything she says is true. I know she means it, but should she ever rouse from this stupor the government seems to have landed her in, I wonder if she’ll change her mind.

  She shakes her head as if she heard me. “Never will I leave you, Wesley. Never will I forsake you.”

  Someone clears their throat from behind, and we turn to find Skyla frowning and Coop white as a sheet. Good. He heard. They heard. Skyla can be just as tenacious as Coop is in this endeavor, perhaps more so.

  Cooper rushes over and takes her hand from me, booting me off the bed without giving it a second thought as he leans in and lands a kiss to her cheek.

  “What can I do? You need water? I’ll massage your feet. I’ll—”

  “Dude”—I gift him a hard shove to the shoulder—“do not touch her feet. In fact, I don’t want you touching her at all.”

  Kresley screams so loud I’d swear the stones in the walls are choking loose from their mortar.

  “My God!” Skyla’s face turns a bright shade of pink. “She’s being tortured alive. From one hostile environment to the next. I feel terrible for her.” She wipes the hair from Laken’s eyes. “I’ll be right back.” She threads her arm through mine.

  “I’ll be right back,” I shout to Laken as I follow Skyla to the hall.

  Those luminescent eyes of hers land hard over mine. “What do you know about Tenebrous?”

  “What?” I pull free from her psychotic grip on me. “Two women are having my babies and you want to talk shop?”

  Her affect softens as she looks past me into that room with Laken. “Fine. Never mind.”

  Kresley howls in pain once again. This time it ends in a pathetic cry, and it wrenches my soul. I can’t bear it. God knows if Laken loses it like that I will not be able to handle it. I’ll be howling right along with her.

  Skyla inches toward Kresley’s room. “I’m going to see if I can convince Ezrina to give her an epidural. Ezrina’s totally against a medicated delivery, but I wouldn’t want anyone to suffer the way I did.” She takes off before I can throw in my two cents. Do I want Kresley to have a natural delivery? Wouldn’t that be better for the baby? My mind swims with all the possibilities of what can go wrong with having a birth in the Transfer.

  Ezrina comes barreling out of the room with a wet rag, and I catch her by the sleeve before she takes off.

  “Should we ignore their requests for medication?”

  Ezrina growls at me as if she were rabid, “Not your decision. Kresley has requested street drugs.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  Ezrina gags, the look on her face clearly insulted. “I will provide what is best. I will make sure my sweet Tobie’s siblings arrive safe and sound in this world. Heathcliff is bringing the surgical tools from the workshop should they be needed. I have this under control.” She leans in with a demented look that only Chloe Bishop’s old face can provide. “Trust me.”

  She takes off, and just as I’m about to head in to check on Kres, Gage and Chloe appear striding down the hall.

  My God, if the woman isn’t a demon, I don’t know who is. All I have to do is have an errant thought about her and she pops out of the woodwork.

  She twitches a smile. “Don’t look so happy to see me.”

  “No one is ever happy to see you.”

  Chloe cranes her neck into the two rooms as Kres begins in on a crescendo, and Laken pants her way through another contraction.

  “Oh my, Wesley. When you cheat on your wife, you cheat on her good.”

  “You’re my ex-wife. Keep it straight. Laken and I are thinking of a winter wedding. And yes, knowing my sweet fiancée, you will most definitely score an invite.”

  “Please, it’s not worth the paper it’s printed on. Coop’s never going to let that happen.”

  “She’s in my bed, isn’t she?”

  Gage twitches his head. “He’s got you there.”

  Chloe pulls her lips back, her features dull on a dime. “I guess miracles happen for the wicked as well.”

  I pinch my forehead as I try to stave off the burgeoning headache evolving behind my eyes. “What are you doing here?”

  “Honey, I’m about to get a bucket of popcorn and settle in for the show.” No sooner does she get the words out than Tobie runs from her room and straight for Chloe’s legs.

  “Mama!” My precious little girl curls her body around the snake that birthed her. Tobie calls Laken Mommy now. I’m assuming this will be the norm from here on out. “Mommy, gonna hab a babies.”

  “Just one,” I correct as I give her hair a tousle.

  Chloe picks her up and jostles her on her hip. “That’s why I’m here, October. I’m going to watch you—and together we’re going to watch Mommy squeeze the baby out from her writhing body. Do you like popcorn?” She takes off with an exuberant Tobie as they head for the kitchen presumably.

  Gage grunts, “It’s interesting to see Chloe turn on and off her maternal instincts like a faucet.”

  “Make no mistake. She doesn’t have a single maternal instinct in her. What you’re seeing is smoke and mirrors, my friend.”

  He nods, examining me intensely. “How are you holding up?”

  “Like shit.” I rake my fingers hard through my hair as Kresley lights the place on fire with her infernal screaming.

  “Logan, Coop, and Skyla went to Tenebrous. They wouldn’t tell me why, but they all looked like death warmed over once they got back. Do you know what’s up?”

  “No, I don’t know what’s up,” I snap. “Skyla asked me something about Tenebrous just now. Look, I don’t even remember what that was.” Kresley wails my old name, my new name, and every nickname she’s ever gifted me followed by an entire string of expletives. “If you don’t mind, I’m a little busy here.” I start to take off and backtrack. “And really, dude? You are sleeping with her. If you can’t get it out of her, no one can.” I make a mad dash toward the guest room to find Skyla sitting dutifully by Kresley’s side. Her naked body is sprawled over the bed, deathly pale, frighteningly thin save for the basketball tucked under her flesh just below her belly. Laken’s body is lush and robust, her every curve made that much more delicious by this heavenly time in our lives. It breaks my heart that the child that Kresley is carrying has already been deprived of so much needed attention. I will never forgive myself if something has gone wrong with the baby due to the fact I personally delivered its mother to Raven’s Eye. I should probably never forgive myself regardless.

  I dash over, and Kres slaps me forward, gripping my han
d. Her nails pierce my flesh before hitting the bone.

  “Wes!” She presses her chin to her chest and bears down. “It’s coming!”

  “No, no, no!” Skyla does a little panicked hop as she jettisons off the mattress. “You may not push, Kresley. Do not push!”

  Kresley tips her head back in exasperation. “I want it out!”

  “I know,” I whisper as I do my best to comfort her, warming my hand over hers.

  “We’re having a baby, Wes.” She looks to me with a pathetic smile, and it breaks my heart. “We made a perfect being. They let me see the ultrasound. It’s so beautiful. They wanted to take it, Wes. They were so excited to steal our baby.” She sobs out that last word.

  Holy hell. Laken—both of my children are in peril. I don’t know how I will ever rectify this.

  “Wes!” Kresley wails my name out just as Ezrina runs back into the room with Heathcliff on her heels.

  Ezrina lands at the foot of the bed and sticks her hand between Kresley’s legs. “You’re not quite there.” She nods me to the side, and both Skyla and I follow as Heathcliff does his best to land a blanket over Kres. “If we don’t administer the meds in the next few minutes, it will be too late.”

  “No way.” Skyla shakes her head emphatically. “Give her the damn meds or I will myself.” She shoots me a death barb with those colorless eyes. “You have no say in this, Wes.”

  Kres shrieks so loud it frightens the living shit out of me. I’m sure they can hear her in every realm of existence.

  “Fine.” My gut wrenches at the thought of making a mistake, but Ezrina already has Kres sitting with her legs off the side of the bed, inserting a needle into her back, and I feel the life draining from me as my own muscles weaken.

  Skyla offers me a brisk slap over the face, and I take a deep breath. “Thank you.”

  “Anytime, Wes. It’s my pleasure.” She grips me by the shoulders and pulls me in a moment. “We may not see eye to eye on just about anything, but I know that you’re scared and confused right now. And I want you to know that it’s all going to be okay. Ezrina is the best. And you’re already a great father to Tobie. These babies are lucky to have your support.”