Celestra Forever After

  “Michelle Miller?” Skyla tries to hide her concern. “What was she doing with Logan?” She glances over at me, her cheeks flooding with embarrassment. “I mean the bowling alley.” I know it kills Skyla to think he might be with someone else. But I know for a fact he won’t. I wouldn’t.

  “Oh, this and that.” Giselle shovels in a mouthful of mashed potatoes. “Mmm.” She washes it down with water and moans as if it was the best combination on the planet. “They were playing games with some other girl—I think her name was Sexy. They were having a real good time, laughing, and hugging, and talking about the good old days.” Giselle has no idea she’s carving out Skyla’s heart right now. “They said they would all get together later that night and do it again. Ellis said it would be a threesome.” She giggles into her words, completely unaware of the fact she just laid out a sexual innuendo the size of Mom’s turkey.

  Skyla’s face pops, red as an apple. “Do it later, huh?” She makes tracks in her food before surrendering her fork to her plate.

  I know what she’s thinking. Logan came back and is hanging out with Michelle and Lexy rather than us—than with her. Maybe I’ll let her know he came to see me at the hospital that day. Let her know that he’s just killing a little more time—that he wants her—us—to be happy.

  “Michelle’s a tasty treat,” Liam muses. “In fact—” He checks his watch. Outside of my father, Liam is the only other person I know that wears one. “I’m taking her to the movies tonight—drive in.”

  “Paragon doesn’t have a drive in.” Dad is quick to inform.

  He pulls out his newly issued cell phone and wags it in Dad’s face. “It does now. Besides, we won’t be paying much attention to the show.”

  “Smooth.” Skyla perks up a bit. I think knowing that Liam is trying to bed Miller takes the edge off. I know for a fact Logan isn’t going to rumple the sheets with anyone anytime soon. In fact, the only person he will do that again with is the beautiful, sweet girl sitting right next to me—my wife. A bloom of sadness spears through me, and I try to shake it. I know it’s coming—the great spousal reversal—I just don’t know when. I shouldn’t mind though. After all, I’m the one that gifted the years to Logan and Skyla. It felt right at the time—and, sadly, it still does.

  Dinner goes by with Mom’s incessant questioning of Kresley’s hopes and dreams, making the last solid hour feel like an infomercial—one that I’m not interested in. But that doesn’t stop Kresley from ogling me, looking over at me with that I’m-ready-to-rumble horny-as-hell look in her eyes.

  I push my plate back. “I think I’ll take Skyla for a drive.”

  “Perfect.” Skyla helps bus the dishes to the sink in record time, and Giselle kindly offers to take over.

  “No way.” Skyla takes back the dish they’re tugging between them. “You wash, I’ll dry and put away.” I love the way she cares for my sister as if she were her own. Skyla melts me in ways she doesn’t even know.

  “Son”—Dad nudges me toward the living room—“can I have a word with you?”

  “Sure thing.” I head over to the sofa and lie down for a moment, letting my body sink into the soft cushions. My neck has been sore all day, but it’s a thousand times better than it was. I have to admit, staying away from three hundred pound offensive linemen was probably a good idea.

  “Dr. Flanders called.” He gives a curt nod, and I sit up at attention.

  Dad takes a seat on the coffee table across from me and places his hand over mine.

  Crap. I see an alarming number of problems with this scenario, and they’re setting off some serious red flags.

  First, if Mom catches him sitting on the coffee table she’s going to throw him on the floor by way of some inventive karate flip—and, second, he hasn’t held my hand since third grade. It’s obvious the shit is about to hit the fan.

  “What?” I startle. “Am I sick?”

  “No, Gage.” He takes off his glasses and wipes down his brow. “If you were sick, that would be simple. Even the most devastating illness would be easier to deal with.”

  I slump back into the pillow. “Fuck.”

  “My sentiments exactly.”

  “Give it to me straight. No bullshit.” I keep my eyes fixed on the ceiling.

  His chest expands as he takes a deep breath. “You have all the markings of a true Levatio.” He pats my hand while an artificial smile thins out over his lips.

  “And?”

  He indulges in a dramatic pause, and it speaks volumes. Something else went down that he didn’t care for.

  “Please,” I whisper.

  “You have an additional marker in your blood, Gage.” He grinds the words out as if it were painful. “NSO. No specific origin.”

  “NSO.” I shake my head because it doesn’t mean squat. “It’s probably a virus. I’ve been reading all kinds of scary things on the Internet. I might have a pathogen attacking my spinal column.”

  “No. I ran a battery of tests. You’re as healthy as a horse. It’s as the doctor in the E.R. suggested—spinal stenosis.” He leans in, serious as shit. “The NSO signifies something neither human nor Nephilim.” He dips his chin, bearing into me as if speaking in code. “Gage—the only other person Dr. Flanders has found this marker in is Wesley Paxton.”

  “Demetri’s son.” The room sways. “You don’t think—”

  “I don’t. But, either way, I think we need to get to the bottom of this.”

  “And how do we do that?”

  “We take it to the source.”

  “Demetri.”

  Skyla and I finally take off and head for the beach.

  Rockaway shines under the lamp-lit fog with its spray of white dust defusing the great Pacific. The shadowed sand is reduced to a murky illusion.

  Skyla falls onto the blanket I spread out for the two of us. It’s freezing out, even in this tiny shelter I constructed for us way back when. The palm fronds have frayed, and the thatched roof is balding in patches. The sky unleashed a good downpour this afternoon leaving the earth scented with the ripeness from the soil.

  “You want to stay in the butterfly room tonight?” she offers, nuzzling her cheek over my chest.

  “It’s up to you.” I sink a kiss onto her lips. I’d sleep right here if she wanted to as long as I could hold her all night.

  “Maybe not.” She traces out small circles over my chest. “Tad’s insanity is more than I can handle. Brielle told me he had to stop killing the electricity at night because the food was spoiling in the fridge. Now he just patrols the halls at all hours making sure no one is sneaking on the lights.”

  “Sounds like tough times over at the Landon house.”

  She rests her head in my lap and looks up at me. “And there seem to be interesting times over at the Oliver house as well. It looks like your mom found a new little friend.”

  “Sorry about that.”

  Skyla glances down at her chest. “Do you think your mom will ever like me?”

  “She likes you, Skyla. I promise. She loves you. Once she finds out you’re her daughter-in-law she’ll be ecstatic.”

  “Maybe we should tell them soon.”

  Something warms in me at the idea. “Let’s do it.”

  “I’ve been talking to married housing on campus all week.” She looks up with a twinkle in her eye. “Let me see if I can’t get us a place of our own before we break the big news. I’d hate for them to point out the obvious—our lack of shelter.”

  My heart sinks. Never in my wildest dreams did I think our life together would start out essentially homeless. Logan offered the house he built for the two of them, but I’ve been wearing my pride like a coat of armor. There’s no way I’ll take him up on that. I’d rather the house sat empty. He should move into it.

  “We’ll work something out,” I say without anything whatsoever to back it up. A selfish part of me is just glad Skyla and I are together.

  She nestles in gently over my crotch and gives one of her sexy grins
.

  “That’s an invitation if I’ve ever seen one.”

  “Darn right it is.” The smile fades from her face. “You’ve been pretty intense ever since we left your house. Anything you want to tell me?”

  “My dad and I were just talking about a few things from the past. Nothing important.” The past is right—all the way down to my birth date. I wall up my thoughts, so she can’t hear. The last thing I want to do is panic Skyla over a genetic mutation I might be housing. I don’t want to let her in on this infection that’s slowly taking over my life—the anvil that’s dangling over both our heads, if this happens to be true.

  “I’d love to talk about the past.” She’s feeling me out, seeing if I’ll throw her a bone.

  “I think, sometimes, the past can cloud things. How about, just for tonight, we start anew.” The fog billows into the tiny hut as if it were trying to smoke us out.

  She slips her hand in mine and pulls it to her lips.

  “So are you going to tell me what you and your dad talked about or not?”

  I groan in lieu of an answer. Most likely not, I want to say.

  “Okay.” She sits up in my lap, rotating until her knees are on either side of me. “Let’s try this another way. What has you running scared, Oliver?”

  Running scared sounds about right, but I’ll be the last to admit it. Once Skyla finds out the truth about my questionable genetics, she’ll be the one running scared—and, most likely, pissed. Hell, I’m pissed, and I still don’t have all the answers.

  The moonlight bleeds in just enough to create a halo around her. It makes her look otherworldly—ethereal.

  “You’re a real angel, you know that?” I press a wet kiss into the hollow of her neck, and she dips her head back with a groan.

  “I think you’re changing the subject, but I’m not about to complain. I happen to like where your lips are going.”

  Skyla unbuckles my pants, and pulls off her jeans in some Houdini-like maneuver. Before I know it she’s helping me roll on a condom.

  “I want to take care of you first.” I bite down gently over her ear.

  “Tonight is about you, Oliver, whether you like it or not.” She bites my ear as if returning the favor. “Got that?”

  “Yes, Oliver, I do.”

  Her chest bucks with a silent laugh before she leans back, her arms still slung around my neck.

  “I’m so proud to be your wife, Gage. And I can’t wait until everyone on Paragon—on Host—knows it.”

  By Host she means Kresley.

  “Sounds like our secret days are numbered.”

  “Mmm.” Skyla gets on her knees and straddles my hard-on like she’s about to take the ride of her life. At least that’s what my ego wants to believe. She focuses her eyes over mine and carefully guides me to the tip of that warm spot I’ve longed to bury myself in all day long. “I don’t like secrets, Gage. Not with anyone, especially not between you and me.” Skyla carefully sinks over my body, inch by inch, her eyes never leaving mine.

  “Shit,” I whisper barely audible, my lids too heavy to keep open. Skyla’s body wraps around me tight as a coil. There isn’t a hand job in the world that could ever replace Skyla. And if she ever finds out that I might have anything to do with Demetri or his knockoff son, something tells me I’ll be right back to dating Rosie Palm.

  “I will love you forever, Gage Oliver.” She lets the words expire slow and sweet like a tire bleeding air.

  I hope so. I hope she loves me forever despite what news the future might hold.

  Skyla carefully moves herself over my body before gaining speed. I slit my lids open and watch the show. Her head arches back. Her tits ride up and down making me insane. Then I lose it. I grab a hold of her, low at the waist, and dig my fingers into her soft flesh until I’m resting on bone. I use all of my strength to pump into her body, slamming her over me as if I’m trying to punish my dick with this beautiful woman, kind enough to call herself my wife.

  If my DNA proves anything sinister, I’ll want to punish more than my dick.

  I’d throw myself in a fire in order to protect Skyla.

  I push it all out of my mind. This moment is about Skyla and me.

  “Gage.” Her thighs tremble over me as I ratchet her down a couple more times. Then, in a surge of strength, I pull her in one last time and wrap my arms around her like a steel cage as my body shakes out with pleasure.

  This moment is all I needed.

  Skyla is all I’ll ever need.

  Logan

  A dark pall hovers over Host like a demon spreading its wings. The buildings stretch to the sky with their old-world architecture, limestone with leaded windows and gargoyles tucked in the corners. At a glance it looks like some Goth-inspired sleepy town with its cobbled walkways, the evergreens that look far weepier with their tendril-like branches than they ever did on Paragon. Of course, the sea of people, the guys on skateboards whizzing by, the girls with their pastel 10-speeds each with a basket secured to the front, it all brings you right back to the twenty-first century—and that’s the best one yet because Skyla is in it.

  “Logan.”

  I turn to find Cooper heading my way. I like Coop. He fought the faction war, and helped pull Laken out of the clutches of the Counts. He belongs to Celestra, so he’s already a brother.

  I give him a knuckle bump. “What’s up?”

  “Just finished up for the day. What’s going on with you?”

  “Just checking out the campus. I need to head to the administration building.”

  “You enrolling for fall? Crashing a few classes?”

  “No, actually”—I take a quick inventory of the students—“I’m looking to enroll for the working adult program. You know, go at your own pace. It’s mostly online. I don’t plan on getting in anybody’s way.”

  “By anybody you mean Gage and Skyla.” He cuts a look to the field. “I get it.”

  “Do you? I’m the opposite of Wes. I’m not planning some hostile Skyla takeover. That’s not what we’re about.”

  “Never said you were, but I appreciate you letting me know. As much as I can’t stand your nephew’s face—I think he’s all right.”

  “Same goes double for me.”

  “You find anything out?”

  I fill him in on the meet and greet in the Transfer.

  “Are you kidding?” He gives a riotous laugh. Coop adjusts his backpack while staring out into the woods that border campus. “The guy that let you in—Ingram? He’s a bullshit slinger. He didn’t let you in anywhere that you weren’t lured. Logan, they would never operate so loosely to let a Celestra in—or, excuse me—a sworn Count who fought for Celestra—and open up the playbook for him. Wes said what he wanted you to hear—what he thought might steer you in the direction he wants to send you.”

  “I thought the same thing. But nothing too dramatic happened. He invited the Counts to defect from their ranks and join his renegade army. They’ve already lost on the spiritual battlefield, so it doesn’t surprise me.”

  Coop’s features smooth out as if he just had an epiphany. “You’re right, they lost the spiritual battle. That means the only war they can really wage is one right here on earth.”

  “Like what, a plague? They’ve done that, by the way.” The Counts and the Fems had their heyday back in the dark ages. It was the turning point of power, and it took until the faction war for Celestra to regain its footing.

  “I don’t think so. If I know Wes, he’s into something far more low key. He likes to be the man in power, let his lackeys do his dirty work.”

  “Enter the Steel Barricade, nothing but minions for the bastard.”

  “That’s right.” Coop glances toward the Student Union then does a double take. “Speak of the devil.”

  Wes heads toward the building with some tall dude dressed in a black suit.

  “He’s here, huh?”

  “Apparently, so. It’s giving Laken some anxiety, but she’s a strong girl. I’m
not too worried. I told her if he tries anything to feel free to invert his jewels and show him who’s in charge. Hell, I might knock his balls in myself.” Coop’s brows peak as two other guys dressed in black suits approach Wes. “There’s an underground society the frats are forever spinning urban legends about—The Blood of the Dragon. It wouldn’t surprise me if Wes is campaigning. And if he gives them enough cash, he’ll be running it in a week.”

  “What the hell would he want with a bunch of college goofs? He’s a little busy culling the dross from the Counts, isn’t he?”

  “Who knows, maybe he’s scouting new recruits.”

  Shit. “Human recruits.”

  “That’s right. Wes needs someone to take out the trash, and a Count of any caliber will be the last person to take down Celestra. So why do you think he did it—gave you a special invite to hear his midnight ramblings?”

  “Ego.” I look over at Wes with his million-dollar smile, that thick, black hair, his shoulders stretched back with pride. I think I just nailed it.

  “Wes has got an ego as deep and wide as the sea, that’s for sure.”

  “So why steal my nephew’s face?” I’m still stumped over that one.

  “No clue.” Coop blows out a breath. “Plus he’s two years older. I’d have to guess this factored into Edinger’s plan somehow.”

  Wes and the three stooges part ways, and he heads in our direction as if he were onto us the entire time.

  “One thing is for sure”—the muscle in Coop’s jaw pops as Wes draws near—“one of them is a red herring. Only which one?”

  “It’s not Gage.” I’m quick with the defense. It’s bullshit to think otherwise.

  Then it hits me. My body goes numb, my mouth falls open like I’m some kind of idiot, and I just stand there, staring this semi-truck in the face.

  Holy fuck.

  Wes is just a smoke screen. But for what? I know Gage better than I know myself. He’s genuine, the real deal—I’d even go as far as calling him pure.

  “What’s going on?” Wes nods over to us as if we have anything to say to each other. He looks right at me, and pins me with that familiar face. “So, you think about joining the crew?” A smile plays on his lips. Coop was right. It was all a big show, and I’m the guest of honor.