“Wanna go for a walk?” He hops down off the freckled granite and offers me a hand.
I get up on my own and slap the sand off my thighs. Might as well get this over with.
***
Gage tries twice to interlace our fingers. I have to give him props for checking to see if the first time I recoiled was just a fluke.
We meander past the boulders, past the howling screams of laughter, and off to a quiet sandy area secluded by a wall of overgrown foliage.
“What’s going on with you and Logan?” He says it sad, slow, as if he were reading the eulogy of who we once were.
“I was taken by the Counts.” I dust a finger over my neck.
“Skyla”—he spins me into him—“you’re bruising.” Gage looks over my injuries and sags. “Let’s get you to my dad.”
“He didn’t take much.” I shake him off. “See? Still have my strength.” Never mind the fact I feel nauseated and passing out feels like a very real possibility. I’m not in the mood for one of Marshall’s less than intoxicating concoctions this evening.
“What’s going on?” He dips into me. His eyes go off like sirens and my stomach does a quick revolution. I hate how vulnerable I am to his all-out comeliness, his staggering good looks. That dark hair combined with those cobalt eyes acts like an aphrodisiac. “Is this about the war? I would never throw a region to the Counts. It was Ellis. I swear on my sister’s grave.”
A shiver runs through me as though it were Giselle herself trying to convince me of this. Swearing on Giselle’s grave is his way of begging me to believe him. Giselle’s grave is sacred, a holy marker of the sister he loved—that he would use her against me at a time like this is unthinkable. Had Chloe driven him to this? Would he sink so low for Bishop’s heart?
“Ellis wasn’t there.” I don’t mean to scream it, but it shrills from my lungs like a battle cry. “What kind of bullshit would you like to feed me now?”
“Hey,” he whispers, trying to settle me with the balm of his voice, “you won’t get any bullshit from me.” He tries pulling me in, but I jump back and the world sways in one fluid movement.
“That seems like all I get from you lately.”
Gage freezes. His deer in the headlights expression quickly shifts to seething anger.
“I don’t give you any bullshit, Skyla,” he spits it out. His dimples dig in, his lips press tight with frustration. “This is fucking bullshit. I’ve been one hundred percent there for you from the beginning. The day you walked into my life, I knew—I knew you were the one from my dreams—the prophecies—and I can’t get a grip on why you won’t believe a damn thing I tell you.”
“So your shady behavior is somehow my fault for moving to Paragon? Let me offer you a clue as to what has me so paranoid—how about teaming up with Chloe? Hiding her underwear from me in the butterfly room?”
Gage squints into me as if rummaging through the possibilities and coming up with none.
“You swore Ellis won the region and Ellis wasn’t there! You’ve been nothing but a big ball of inconsistencies, and yeah,” I scream, “it makes it a little hard to believe a damn thing you say! Answer me this. Have you and Chloe ever discussed your findings as my well-placed boyfriend? Feel like fessing up to any clandestine meetings the two of you may have shared?”
Gage doesn’t say anything. He lets his silence fill in the void with all kinds of insane suggestions.
“She talked to me on a few occasions,” he confesses. “I didn’t go out and meet her. She found me at the library, at the park. I told her that I loved you—that you were the one for me. That…”
“That what Gage?” It comes out a dull whisper.
“Skyla…” His tone softens as he takes up my hand.
“No.” I pull back. “You’ve been giving Chloe a foothold from the beginning. This war—this was our time—you and me!”
“Who says?” It booms from him like the growl of a bear.
“Logan.” I shoot his name across the beach like a poison arrow.
“I don’t give a shit what Logan has to say about anything, especially when it comes to you and me.” Gage steps in firm as if his feet were about to dig in and take root right here on the beach. “I’m going to fight for you, Skyla. It’s going to be me that you watch the sun rise and set with—and not because of some mental delusion I’m spinning.” His Adam’s apple peaks and falls. “It’s because I love you and what we have is real. Once all of this goes away, including the war, I’m counting on the fact you’ll see that. We belong together. Just you and me, not Chloe, not Logan.”
A surge of heat spikes through me. I’ve never seen Gage so worked up, so aggressive about anything and it takes my breath away. I’ve seen his passion before, but never like this—never shooting off in the night like fireworks that spell “I love you” in the most intimate way.
His muscles redefine themselves in the shadows as a thin veil of moonlight baptizes him from above. His hair holds a darker hue than the night sky, set off by the pale ridges of his cheeks, his perfect lips that call me over to touch them.
So maybe Gage is telling the truth—maybe he’s not—either way, I’m not above seizing the moment—meeting him with a passion of my own before the damn war ends.
Gage wraps his arms around my bare waist and, this time, I don’t fight him.
Logan is about to draw the line. I can feel it. With or without the war, this might be the last taste of the boy I once thought so highly of—gave my heart to all too willingly. Had he really been using me all this time?
I wash over him with a lust-filled gaze.
Turnabout is fair play.
Gage edges in before kissing me softly on the lips.
Then it hits me. This was the vision I had the night we watched baby Beau in my bedroom. The one we shared of the two of us arguing at the beach.
I open my mouth to say something and a smile forms instead. The prophecy of the heated argument on the beach came true. Oh God—they all will. A breath gets locked in my throat.
He dives down over me with an all-out assault from his lips. Warm hungry kisses that battle my defenses and win round after round. Then, like a gift, his internal walls crumble. I can hear his thoughts, his random musings—the waves are too loud, it’s getting windy, the sand snapping at our legs makes him wonder if he should pull me in for shelter—how he’d like to take me to his room for safe keeping, out of reach from the Counts and Logan forever.
“Gage.” I run my fingers over his features, watch as his dimples invert with just the hint of a smile. “Thank you,” I whisper into the wind.
He covers my lips with his and pulls us down to our knees. A wave detonates over his back. It tries to wash away our desire for one another, to cool the explosion of passion, but it encourages us in the worst way possible.
I peel off his shorts in an instant, and he returns the favor by sending my bathing suit bottom sailing. Gage flips my top off with no more effort than the flick of his thumb. He unleashes his tongue over me like the slither of a snake.
I indulge in his thoughts—he enjoys licking the salt off my skin, he wishes we were anywhere but here.
He blesses my lips with briny kisses as he lies over me, breathing like he just ran a marathon. Gage flexes my arms over my head, straddles me by locking his ankles over mine. I can feel him in jags, in spasms as the icy water numbs my senses. A rock-hard protrusion pushes against my thigh and enlivens me.
Gage and his delirious kisses, his uncontrollable lust is only rivaled by my own.
We detonate into our own private world.
The waves, the howling wind, all of it melts into a perfect symphony conducted by our love.
This is our moment. The first day of something new as we navigate into one another so much deeper than flesh could ever hope to offer.
Gage sears me with affection. He runs a burning line of kisses down my chest all the way to my belly, and the earth trembles and belches before swallowing us whole.
Chapter 72
Double Trouble
Large pregnant clouds accumulate above like a purple rosary in the sky. The sound of palpable detonations goes off in the distance—the ground quakes beneath our feet, alerting us to the fact we’ve entered the seventh region of the faction war. I see the orator over the hillside. He glows like siltstone and glints iridescent as he crosses his slender arms over his head to capture our attention.
A warm breeze licks my skin. I look down at my stomach, my bare breasts—the dark triangle that has never been exposed outdoors stares back at me.
Shit.
Ironic how my mother saw fit to dump me here without a stitch of clothing. Not freaking funny, especially since she’s pulled this twice.
I reach up and clasp the disc hanging from my neck. Thank God it’s still there. It’s comforting to know I can use it to free us from this hellhole if need be. An image of Demetri’s nefarious smile crops up, and I shake the thought away.
Gage runs up and before I know it his T-shirt is over my shoulders, warming my skin as it slinks past my waist like a dress.
“Thank you,” I mouth, unable to look him in the eye. Gage has seen me naked before, but not while I was awake to oversee the situation.
I don’t recognize the military fatigues he’s wearing, nor the T-shirt he just threw on me, but I don’t ask questions.
Logan barrels over—all piss and vinegar. He’s holding a crossbow with a quiver strapped over his back. He glows a powder blue so beautiful it makes me want to touch him, press my fingers to his face and watch the light bleed through my open palms.
Logan slams his hands into Gage and sends him stumbling back a good ten feet. “You fucking piece of shit.” He continues his charge as if he were about to bash Gage into the ground until his skull cracks open, nothing but his love for me oozing out. “Not going to touch her, huh? You said we we’re on an even playing field after ski week—I shouldn’t worry, right?” He gives another shove before grabbing him by the throat. “Now, twice you try to get a foothold.” They explode in a ball of rolling flesh. Plumes of dry clay erect themselves like towers as a testament to their fury.
A glint of light catches my attention—an entire wall of sky-lit people charge in this direction. I don’t hesitate picking up the quiver and crossbow that Logan abandoned. It’s so damn noisy with the barrage of the mortar shells I don’t think they’d hear me if I yelled for them to stop, if I warned them of the enemy.
I get down low and pull an arrow into position, aiming for the tallest in the flock—and nail him in the neck. It was his chest I was targeting but the neck seems so much better. I like the swift victory an arrow brings as opposed to the soft poison of the bastardized Ruger formally introduced to me by, of all people, the Count using me as a celestial fuel station.
I fire shot after shot as the crowd huddles over the errant Count’s body and attempts to haul him off the field. I hit two in the back and one in the thigh. Only three remain as the others scurry into the woods like the luminescent vermin they are. The round heap of bodies shine like a puff of winter clouds—every cloud has a silver lining and this one just so happens to house precision weaponry buried in its flesh. I don’t feel too bad about ejecting the bastards from their mortal shells. It’s not like they won’t be back. Ezrina’s lair is rife with watery graves just waiting for them.
I squat low and run over, plucking a shotgun off one of the bodies as they writhe in a pool of their own blood. Two of the men evaporate in turn, leaving a pile of clothing and military boots behind. I snap a pair of pants off the ground and jump into them, rolling them up at the waist.
A blast ignites to my right. The heat radiates like a fireball, searing the skin on the side of my face. The ground gives an aggressive jolt and I fall, hitting my head on a rock in the process. I hug the soil as it pulsates like gelatin, and the air lights up with sulfuric fumes.
“Messenger!” I recognize Ellis’s mighty roar before the smoke clears and I see him fully. He points hard behind me and I turn expecting to see an army of Counts, an entire slew of arrows peppering the air aimed in this direction—but not this—anything but this.
Logan and Gage lie ten feet apart, covered in soot and ashes. Logan has his eyes set to heaven with a vacant stare.
A body hovers over Gage—Chloe in all her wicked determination. She touches her lips to his, administering the CPR of her dreams while arresting the blood-let from his chest with her hands. Her arms are glossed in a crimson slick all the way to her elbows.
Ellis pulls me along until we come upon them. I fall over Logan first, and check his pulse at the neck. Still beating—he’s breathing. He groans and rolls to the side, wincing in pain.
I make my way over to Gage and try to shove Chloe back to Paragon proper but with my weakened state of being, my Celestra powers recanted as a punishment from my mother, I’m no more useful than a bucket without a bottom.
“He’s not breathing.” Chloe smacks me in the arm. “Do something!” She screams before jamming her palms in his sternum and pressing in with all her strength. Blood squirts from his wound like a geyser. In Chloe’s attempt to save him, she’s killing him instead.
I yank the disc off my neck, almost decapitating myself in the process. The gilded piece of metal, slips between my fingers as if it wanted to fall to the ground on its own volition. I jab it into the earth—solid, like a giant F.U. to the Decision Council or the Justice Alliance, whoever the hell it is my mother employed to see this farce through.
The clouds shudder. They fall like a cymbal crashing to meet its mate—dash their way to the ground and rise back up again. The world darkens to soot then blinks back into existence as if there were a momentary blip in reception.
I gasp and choke from the newfound rise of dust christening us.
“What the fuck was that?” Ellis holds me at the waist like he’s trying to protect me, but really I think he’s using me to quell his fear.
“The region is over.” Chloe yanks off her tank top and fills Gage’s wound with it, leaving nothing but her bathing suit underneath. “We’re onto the next.”
“That’s not possible.” I stare down at the disc protruding from the ground, taunting me as it glints in the light.
“Welcome to region eight, Skyla. Congratulations. You lost another one.” Chloe slaps the dust off her shorts as she hops to her feet. “You’d better breathe for him or brain damage will kick in and you’ll both be terminally stupid.” She gets in close until I can feel the heat from her body. “I’m going to find that freak that runs this place and win the region to save Gage—God knows you can never say that.” Chloe takes off like a gazelle in flight. She morphs into a blur in her quest to save the only person she truly loves.
I bear down over Gage and push in a breath—watch as his chest rises and falls like some mechanical movement. Just putting forth the effort makes me dizzy, weaker than when I started.
It would figure that Demetri would gift me the disc. He knew I’d use it in peril and what better way to ensure I lose two regions? Asshole.
“Ellis—take this.” I yank the quiver off my back and throw the crossbow at his feet. “Win the region.” I blow another breath into Gage. “I swear I’ll do anything you ask.” Not including a flesh swap, but I don’t fill him in on that at the moment. Besides, I think Ellis knows the odds of that happening are nil.
“My dad is gonna crucify me if I take the region for Celestra. He’s under the impression I’m protecting you—not sabotaging the win for his team.”
Crap.
I push another breath into Gage.
“Do what’s right Ellis—win for Celestra. If by some miracle I become overseer of the factions, I swear I’ll make you my right-hand man. Think of all the authority you’ll have, and the chicks—celestial chicks no less.”
Good God, I’m bribing him with angel ass.
Ellis snaps up the weaponry and takes off down the field. A mine explodes in his path, knocking him back like
a ragdoll. His shoulder blooms a dark shade of crimson as he lies motionless with his legs twisted beneath him.
“Shit,” I pant, before blowing another breath into Gage.
I can’t lose them all—I can’t lose any of them.
“Mother!” I scream until it sounds primal, altogether animal. “Daddy.” I cry for my father, the one I know would move heaven and earth to help me. But here, in the ethereal plane, he’s helpless. The only thing I have to cling to is the determined belief that Logan, Gage, and Ellis are going to somehow survive. All of my hope is pinned on Chloe getting us out of this mess by deferring yet another victory to the Counts. “I hope you’re happy,” I scream at the fuchsia-colored sky before blowing a quick breath into Gage. “You wanted me naked and everyone I love dead. You know I can’t leave Gage!” I puff another few breaths into him.
I’ve already given Ezrina everything she wants. No use in trying to procure her useless services. Demetri—would help. He’d do it for my mother and everything he wishes they could be. He’d do it for the war, to gain ground and push Celestra and the Sectors off their longtime pedestals. The rules of engagement merely state they can’t fight—they never said anything about rescue—about deceiving with a faulty disc.
I blow in several more breathes into Gage’s beautiful body. My fingers slip into his wound and glide in the slick of his precious blood.
But first there’s another name I’ll try—one that has never let me down. If he comes, I will forever remember his generosity and I’ll be sure to reward him richly.
I tip my head back and summons every ounce of strength left in me.
I call out for Marshall as if he were the savior himself.
Chapter 73
Saving Grace
The sky in the ethereal plane mutes to an oily shade of soot. Long javelins of rain spear down, forming instant pools in our footprints. This was no ordinary shower, nothing tame like the torrents you’d see on Paragon. This melted over us like lovers’ tears with powerful sorrow behind every charge. It seared my skin like candle wax with its long deliberate incisions.