Wesley is the monster. His brand of wickedness surpasses all of the infamous Counts that have gone before him. How in the world can he be any relation to my sweet, sweet Gage?
I step out onto the porch just as Mom and Tad head inside.
Tad leans in dressed like a hippie, complete with long braids clipped into his sideburns and a rainbow bandana. “So the linebacker dumped you, huh? It didn’t take long for him to figure out you were accustomed to three solid meals a day—don’t forget snacks, and all those damn water bottles you keep opening and leaving around. The only thing he was really interested in was the gravy train—in other words the Landon refrigerator. And let’s not forget those delectable dinner parties of your mother’s. I bet he’s crying in his gym socks over the fact his invitation has been permanently revoked.”
Delectable dinner parties? What I want to know is how do I get my invitation permanently revoked?
I open my mouth to say something, but Mom holds up a finger. She’s got Misty on one hip and Ember on the other—and, of course, Beau has curled himself around her left leg.
“Skyla simply spent the night.” Mom is quick to surmise. “Everything is fine between her and Gage. Isn’t that right?” She makes large crazy eyes at me.
“That is right. It was just some weird ferry glitch. And, anyway, I’ll be out of your fake hair from now on.” I hope. I scowl at Tad as he meanders into the party with his tie-dye shirt and flower power bellbottoms. I’m guessing the costume was free.
A car speeds into the driveway blaring its horn as if the brakes went out, and any second now I expect a handful of bodies to go airborne. Instead, the crowd parts like the Red Sea at the obnoxious sight. A bright light illuminates from the vehicle, and it takes a second for it to register that the car itself is glowing.
“Ethan is making a bundle.” Mom touches her fingers to her lips and giggles. “Can you believe it? He’s been taking orders all week. Tad has even let him convert the garage into a paint shop for a twenty percent cut. And, of course, there’s Drake and his phenomenal T-shirt business. Did you know he rented a storefront next to the Gas Lab, and in the first three days he made enough to pay the rent? The rest has been sheer profit.” She pulls her shoulders to her ears and gives a happy sigh before catching herself. “I’m sure you and Gage will be the next entrepreneurs—of course, after you’ve completed your education. I have faith in the two of you. By the way, is everything really okay?” Her eyes narrow in on mine.
Gage has always been her favorite. I take a quick breath and hold it. Could she have known about his connection to Demetri all along? God—knowing her, she’s sensed it.
I shake my head in disbelief. “I mean yes. Gage and I are fine.” I blink to attention. “In fact, I was just about to look for him.”
Brielle appears from behind and scoops Beau up in her arms.
“Here’s my baby boy,” she coos into him. “Let’s go find Daddy.” Brielle is dressed as an insane version of Alice, and it looks as if she has all of Wonderland glued to her body, with teacups, kettles, cards, and hats all blooming out of her rear at once like a long, psychotic tail. “See you inside!” She gives a little wave before disappearing.
Emily shows up looking every bit her scary self and snatches Ember from my mother. “Thanks Liz. I’ll keep her in my room tonight. I don’t mind the nightshift.”
I give a wistful smile at the sight of babies being stripped from Mom’s body.
“I know what you’re thinking.” She cups her hand to my cheek. “But they’re still in my life—and you—you’ll always be my baby, Skyla. You know that, don’t you?” A glimpse of grief flashes through her as if it pained her to think I didn’t believe she was the real deal.
“I know, Mommy.” I give her a quick kiss on the cheek, and baby Misty presses her hand to my chest. A vision comes to me, clear as a sunny L.A. afternoon. It’s Gage and Wesley walking side by side on a dark fog-riddled night much like this one. They both have the same determined look in their eyes as they head off toward their destination.
I pull back and gasp, just looking at the tiny dark-haired being my mother holds. I don’t know for certain if she’s Demetri’s, but I’m not sure I care to find out so soon in her young life. Her eyes sparkle the same color as the deepest end of the ocean, and she laughs while looking right at me. Besides, I think I already know.
“Hey”—Mom latches onto my arm—“did you hear about those kids that have been popping up all over the world? They just started appearing from thin air at fire stations, hospitals, churches, libraries—you name it.”
Laken’s deal with the devil comes to mind. “I think I did hear something about that.” I stop shy of spilling all the details. I don’t really want to get into it with Mom. I’m just glad those kids are safe unlike the poor souls who comprised Wesley’s tower of terror. Wes is in for a surprise because, ready or not, I’m shutting down Tenebrous. This nightmare is going to end a hell of a lot sooner than Wesley thinks possible. He might think he has all the answers but I happen to have an ace up my sleeve. I give a quick glance around for my handsome ace of a husband, but there’s not a sign of him anywhere.
Mom gives a mean shiver. “Times must be really tough for people to just start abandoning their children like that. Anyway I’m glad they’re safe. Speaking of safe, don’t stay out too late,” she says, swaddling Misty in a blanket. “It’s a school night.”
She heads inside, so I walk over to Emily. She’s waiting patiently for Ethan who’s currently taking down phone numbers from a long line of people willing to turn perfectly good cars into colossal fireflies.
“Hey, Em.” I offer a finger to baby Ember, and she latches on for dear life. No visions, here. I look to Emily a moment. “So, spill, what’s the connection your family has to that dragon in your house? And Host. I know for a fact it’s more than some employment status.” I don’t really, but I’d bet my standing as the overseer that something is up. The morning I married Gage, it was a dragon she scribbled out on that fated napkin she handed me. It was representing my beautiful husband who happens to be the farthest thing from a scary mythical creature like that.
Her mouth opens, and she blanks out just staring at the bolts of fog unfurling before us.
“We’ve been waiting for him,” she says in a trance-like state, almost catatonic. “He’s the chosen one.” She snaps her head toward me like a woman possessed. “You know his name. He’s come, hasn’t he?”
I open my mouth, and it almost slips from my lips. I almost said, Gage, but I swallow him back down and hold him hostage in my throat instead.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” It looks like it’s my turn to hold onto the truth for a little while.
“You do.” The whites of her eyes glow as if they were backlit, and a chill prickles up and down my spine. She grips onto my arm, digging her fingers straight through to my bone. “By the time the sun kisses the horizon, everything will have changed. Brace yourself, Skyla—the dragon is about to swallow you and your people, whole.”
Ethan bumps into her and the baby starts in on a loud, hacking cry. Em, scowls at me before they scuttle off inside, but I’m still too stunned to move.
“Evening, Ms. Messenger.” A soothing vibration strums through me simply from the sound of Marshall’s voice, and I’m quick to lean into his chest. I twist around and nearly pass out at the sight of him.
Gah!
Marshall has a sickly grimace expanding over the girth of his face. His eyes glow a peculiar shade of rose.
“What the hell are you supposed to be?”
“A clown.” He offers a Cheshire cat grin, and his painted on smile expands like an accordion.
“That you are.” I take a deep breath and close my eyes because I’m not afraid of clowns, I’m not afraid of clowns. And if I say it enough I might escape this night without pissing in my glittery tights. I pry open an eye and inspect him further. He’s wearing a pinstriped suit and Italian loafers that shine
even in this dull light. Marshall has the ability to make even something as demented as a demon-spawned clown look sexy as hell. “I have something to tell you.” I clasp onto his hand and let his fine-tuned vibrations wash over me, instantly calming my nerves.
“I’ll listen to anything you wish to say.” He picks up my hand and kisses a finger.
“Whoa,” I whisper, carefully extracting myself from him. “I’ve got a husband around here that I’d like to keep.” I glance toward the crowd. Gage is still nowhere to be found. God, he’d better not be a clown. A clown Fem! Double gah! I take a deep breath. “Marshall”—I stare up at his intense glowing eyes—“I’m going to make up with Gage.”
“But the pain he’s caused you—” He shakes his head and that eerie grimace bobs back and forth. “Nevertheless, I place the blame with your mother for relegating you to the beast to begin with.”
“He’s not a beast.” Maybe a little. In bed. “And you’re right. She should have filled me in on this tiny detail months ago.” But a part of me is glad she didn’t.
I press my lips together because it was Chloe I extracted the truth from. Which leaves me a little more than ticked at my mother for the deal I was forced to make with that scourge who keeps interfering with my life. I glance around because I fully expect Chloe to use her license to thrive and show up dressed as the most hideous creature of all—herself.
“Know that I’m here for you, Skyla. Together we shall overcome this evil you’ve bound yourself to for the rest of his unnatural life.”
I avert my gaze. Gage is a lot of things, evil isn’t one of them.
“Then please”—I lean into Marshall and his heady cologne tries its best to seduce me—“I beg of you to end the mystery of Emily’s family. Is there something I should know?”
His chest expands as he takes in the scene. “They’re a wicked brood.” A look of discontent crosses his face, but that painted on grimace still unnerves me. “Steer clear.”
“I knew it! She knows things. She does these drawings in a split second that are spot on. For a lack of a better term, it’s freaky.”
“Freaky indeed.” He frowns into his words. “Artistic prophecies such as theirs can be traced back to the Roma people—gypsies as you’d know them.”
“Gypsies, huh?” A chill ripples through me as if my intuition was keyed into something far more nefarious. “She said they were waiting for the chosen one.” I grip his arm. “The dragon,” I whisper because we both know who that might be.
“Skyla.” He closes his eyes a moment. “The Morgan’s are—”
“What?” I jump a little when I say it.
“There is a small migratory band of Roma who were mixed with a very powerful being from the Decision Council centuries ago.”
“A powerful being? As in my mother?” God this is far more bizarre than I ever imagined.
“Heaven’s no—as in Rothello.”
“The long-haired dude with one eye?”
Marshall plucked the eye right out of Rothello’s skull and gifted it to me, which in turn I stupidly gave to Chloe.
“Yes, well, that ‘long-haired dude with one eye’ has had his fair share of ill-excused behavior.”
“Like starting the faction war in my name.”
“That was destined to happen—as was this. His offspring—the Videns, have been reduced to vagabonds who await supreme leadership, and only then can they be recognized as an enclave faction. For now, they’re nothing short of cursed sorcerers.”
“Lovely.” I swallow hard. “My father said the Master hates sorcery and fortune telling.”
“Unless it’s issued to you as a prophecy from the Master himself, it is abhorred in the Kingdom.”
I breathe a sigh of relief because Dad said that, too. “And the rest of the story?”
“Rothello was kicked out of heaven’s good graces and forced to live among the filth and blight of the race he created until one day he crawled back with his wings tucked between his legs. He sold his lineage to your father-in-law for a pittance, then was restored his position alongside your mother, and the rest is as you say—his-story.”
“My father-in-law? Barron has something to do with this?”
“Your other father-in-law.”
I glance over and spot Demetri at the edge of the driveway, making his way in this direction, and a rage boils through me.
“Oh, that one. Newsflash, he’ll never be my anything.” My hands clench into fists, and it takes everything in me to keep from running over and throat punching him. “What does the dragon have to do with any of this?”
Marshall holds a finger in the air as an epiphany comes to him. “It would seem it was the exact same century I boldly asked for your hand in marriage. Which makes sense”—he momentarily glares at Demetri—“the devil himself made the same request.”
“Really?” I blink back with surprise. “But my mother said Demetri was led to believe Chloe was the Celestra born to lead.”
Marshall looks down at me lovingly as if he was about to break some real crap news over my head, and I’m betting he is.
“It’s becoming clear why Ms. Bishop is exceptionally obsessed with your betrothed.”
“Fill me in because I’m still stuck in the fog.” Literally.
“To be sure you would fall in love with his heir, he needed to know the attributes you desired most—looks, personality, physique—he then tabulated it all into one, Gage Oliver—and his predecessor, Wesley the Wicked One. Although, he has a different task, I assure you.” He gives a long blink as though he were disgusted. “Nevertheless, it’s an old trick used to create soul mates. Crawl into a waking dream and delicately pique the arousal factor until a fitting specimen appears in the minds eyes of the victim.”
“I’m a lot of things but I’m not a victim. So, Demetri crawled into my dreams centuries before I was born…” Why does this not surprise me?
“With your mother’s permission. I’m assuming he touched on a few candidates, such as yourself and Ms. Bishop. He might have thrown in a few Counts as well.”
Laken and Kresley Fisher come to mind. They both have a heart for Wes. Of course, Laken has been forever inoculated of the desire to have him, but I’m sure her heart still aches for the boy she grew up with.
I shake all thoughts of Wes out of my head. I find it interesting that Demetri went through all that trouble, and, yet, that day at the bowling alley when I first moved to Paragon, it was Logan I was initially attracted to. It was my mother’s and Demetri’s wills colliding that afternoon. And, now, here we are with all our hearts strung out on a line, including Marshall’s.
“Let’s get back to the Videns.” I shiver. “After Rothello sold them for a pass back to the kingdom, what happened to them?”
“The vagabonds then became charges of Demetri’s.”
“But he hasn’t lead them. She said they’re still waiting.”
“Yes.” He takes a cleansing breath, and a plume of fog swirls around us from the effort. “You see, if Demetri isn’t leading them it only means one thing. He’s reserved them for his heir.”
“Wesley?” I ask, hoping for the best—or in his case the worst.
“No love. Its clear one son is to serve and the other is to rule. You, Ms. Messenger, are bound in union with the most powerful ruler of the Viden people. And, once he procures dominion through your loins, he will be your biggest foe.”
“Are you trying to tell me that I’m married to my enemy?” I whisper low, shaking my head in disbelief. “Demetri forgot one detail. Gage isn’t a Count. He still shows Levatio markings.”
“I’m guessing the latter was to give Barron a level of comfort. No reason to blow his cover too early. As for the Counts, Wesley will lay them at his brother’s feet. Gage has enough Fem markers in his blood to qualify as close to pure as possible.”
I sway on my heels. The thought of Gage being a pure form of what I’ve come to associate with evil is wrong in every capacity.
“Gage will be in charge of Wesley?” I ask as if it mattered.
“If Jock Strap so wishes. The only being he’ll need to submit to is his demon of a father.”
Demetri nods as he passes the two of us. “And he will.”
“Like hell he will,” I shoot back. He won’t will he?
“Skyla.” The warm baritone of the sweet boy I love booms from behind, and both Marshall and I turn around. Gage stands there, gorgeous as a dream. His eyes siren out into the night the color of the ocean bathed in midnight. “Can we talk?”
“I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to leave.” Marshall expands his chest, doing his best impersonation of a bouncer. “No costume, no admittance.” He says it, stern, in a way that blatantly threatens to slice off Gage’s balls if he doesn’t comply.
“You’re wrong, Marshall. He is dressed.” I take up both of my husband’s strong warm hands. “He’s a prince.”
I pull Gage back into the house.
It’s time we shared a few words. And, if I’m lucky, more than a few kisses.
I think we can find our way back to one another.
God, I hope we can.
The party is barreling full steam ahead with the music pumping so loud the house has an irregular heartbeat.
I’m about to pull Gage through the back but then remember Logan, and just about everyone we know, is out there so I lead us upstairs instead.
The noise from the party becomes increasingly muffled as we ascend to the second level. The chaos from downstairs is replaced with shrill laughter and the sounds of heartfelt slapping—flesh against flesh—as if someone is being severely punished.
Perverts.
I try my hardest to break into a few rooms, only to find two locked and the third occupied with a seventeenth-century hussy and some poor fool with a faux-hawk that has no clue he’s about to bag someone far older than his grandmother. It takes the term cougar to a whole new level—more like a saber-toothed tiger.
“Oh, hell,” I hiss as I lead Gage to the master bedroom and lock the double doors behind us. Marshall’s private abode is just as good as any, even though for what I’m about to do it feels just this side of sacrilegious.