“Not even a little.” My own voice meets him in that soft-spoken tender place. “Nothing can make this right, Gage. Only my rage can save me now. It shelters me from the storm you’ve dragged us into. From that hurricane you insist on leashing yourself to. Chloe will die, Gage.” My body begins to shake once again as my anger comforts me in ways that Gage refuses to. “She cannot do those things she’s doing to my husband and live. I may be forced to kill Chloe, but her blood will be on your hands. I’m still unsure if I’ll wait until she’s had your child.” My voice breaks when I say it. “It’s unimaginable, unacceptable, unfathomable what you’ve done to the world, to me, to us. What you’re still doing to my people.” I try to take off and he grabs ahold of my wrist. Our eyes meet up once again and he presses his gaze into mine hard, penetrative.
His jaw is clenched, and his eyes enlarge just enough.
“Oh, save it.” I pluck my arm free. “I can practically see the words damming up in your throat, but you’re too much of a coward to give them.”
His chest thumps, his lips flicker with something just shy of a wicked smile. “I’m no coward, Skyla. I can promise you that. The things I’ve been brave enough to do have astounded even me.”
I shake my head in disbelief. The Gage I knew would never have answered like that. There is no probable way.
“What fuels you, Gage?” My voice softens. My entire body acquiesces to this madness as if accepting it on some level, something that I swore on a cellular level that I would never do.
That stern expression comes back to haunt his features. “You.” He starts to take off, then pivots back to me. “And the boys. The three of you fuel me.” He takes off for the house, leaving my brain to try to tease any sense from his ridiculous answer. He answered like the old Gage. And perhaps that was the greatest mind-bender of the night.
I take a staggering step forward and the sound of primal howling garners my attention. If we had werewolves on Paragon, I would be certain I just heard one. That was no animal. That was human, or at least as human as you can get on this haunted island. The howling goes off once again, and this time ends with a whimper. It’s coming from the woods, only a few paces from where I am, and I take a few careful steps in that direction. It’s probably some ho from East having a good ol’ time ushering out the year on her back.
For a second, I picture Carson Armistead. That boxy shouldered bimbo has been in my face ever since Mia knotted herself up with Gabe, Carson’s idiotic brother. Carson and her family are Noster, one of the lone few. And they, like every other Noster remaining, are majorly pissed at me.
Join the party, I want to say. I’m pissed at me, too.
“Ms. Messenger.” Marshall’s voice comes from behind. I spot him and lift my finger to my lips for him to keep it down before waving him over. “What’s this?” he whispers, lifting an amused brow my way. “Luring me into the woods to expend a little physical aggression? You do realize Candace would have my proverbial spirit sword on the chopping block.”
“Really?” My mouth falls open, wildly amused by this. “And here I thought she’d cheer my spirit husband on while he slayed me with his proverbial sword.” I trace my finger over his lips, and those mean vibrations jump through my arm, having their way with my entire body. “So tell me, Mr. Studley Dudley, do you have one of those miniature swords, or is it something more along the lines of a full size?” I know what I’ve seen in my dreams, and there’s no way that spare leg is anywhere near reality. He’d have to have a basket in his boxers just to keep it in line.
His lids reduce to slivers. His lips pull back with a look of utter disdain. “My love, I can promise you that miniature is not a word one would use in its presence. This is not a meager full-sized option either. I am generously endowed to surpass all of your expectations. Dare I say, a few women have been delightfully surprised and a tad bit frightened of what might become of their delicate parts once I’ve impaled them with my prowess.”
“Oh, please”—a female voice grunts from behind and we see Chloe barreling our way—“by the time it’s your turn, Dudley, that anaconda in your pants will still be too small to fill her used and abused girl parts.” She shoves us both out of the way as she barrels between us. “Em texted and let me know she’s squeezing that kid of hers out in the damn forest. You’d better follow me, Skyla, because I’m not touching Morgan’s bloody vagina.”
“What?” I grab ahold of Marshall and the three of us follow the sound of that horrific moaning. “Emily?” I call out and she belts out a series of primal cries.
The moon shines through the fog just enough to illuminate a huddled mass of bristled hair and yards of psychedelic fabric. Emily’s dress is pulled over her enormous white belly. It is a jarring sight and yet stunning in its own right.
“Help me!” she groans.
“Chloe, call 911 and get out of my airspace,” I pant as I fall to my knees. “Marshall, please”—I point to the ground next to me—“you have to help.”
“I’m afraid I cannot alter the natural order of events. I shall stand by at a safe distance in observance and defer to your womanly wisdom.”
I scoff at the sneaky Sector. “In other words, when you get right down to it, you are a stereotypical man.”
Chloe pulls out her phone and Emily kicks it out of her hand in what I’m hoping was just a spasm of delirium.
“Nobody calls 911!” She bears down as if she were being crushed under the weight of a fallen evergreen—and believe you me, that would be far more pleasant than childbirth. “I’m having this kid naturally, and I don’t want a bunch of assholes trying to move me onto a gurney.”
“And that’s what I was afraid of,” I mutter under my breath. “Don’t listen to her, Chloe. Find the damn phone, call for help, then run off and give Gage a blowjob. I really do not care.” My heart wrenches when I say it as if protesting the idea. But my mind insists on putting up a strong front. I am forcing myself to down a cocktail of bravado mixed with rage to help me survive, moment to moment.
“No!” Emily rages. “Chloe, hold my hand.”
“Chloe is a monster!” I rage at Emily as she lifts herself up onto her elbows. “If she stays, I leave!”
Emily’s eyes glint in the light. “Stop being such a bitch, Skyla.” Her knees part for me, and I’m exposed to that dark triangle of hair at the base of her thighs. “You and I both know Bishop is a useless piece of shit whose sole purpose on this planet is to make your life miserable!”
Every muscle in my body freezes as my eyes meet up with the witch to my right. “No one speaks the truth like Emily Morgan.” I glance to Marshall who’s standing with his arms folded and his feet in a defiant stance as if he were a paid security guard. “Marshall, please call for help. This is hardly an environment to bring a child into the world, let alone if something goes wrong. I can’t risk this child’s future. Sorry, Em. It’s not happening.”
Emily lets out a razor-sharp cry that shreds my eardrums and saws along every one of my last nerves. Emily’s vajayjay bulges with such immediacy you’d think she were trying to push a bowling ball through it.
“Oh God,” I whimper at the sight. “Marshall?”
“I do believe your instincts will kick in at any moment. Do tend to the situation, Ms. Messenger.”
“Call somebody!” I howl up at him and Em joins me, filling this wild night with our spastic voices.
“Dudley”—Emily’s voice threatens him in a low, demonic octave I have never heard before—“call for help and I’ll find a way to make you die.”
“On that note.” Marshall takes a breath and turns to his right, his head pointed as far from Emily’s bulging privates as one can get. “Ms. Messenger, I bid you the best of luck.”
“Luck?” I balk. “Luck isn’t a part of your lexicon!” I riot at him. “Mother!” I shout to the sky in hopes of celestial intervention.
“Skyla,” Em pants her way through another contraction. “It’s coming!”
“I
need a blanket. I need something to wrap the baby in.” I glance around and take off my dress. The fog licks at my skin, but it feels as if every last inch of me has been Novocain-ed, numb with shock.
“You little witch,” Chloe bleats, stripping off her own sweater and tossing it at me. “You just wish Gage would see you as the hero in all this. Skyla and her superpowers to the rescue.”
Marshall lands the jacket to his suit next to me and I quickly move it underneath Emily’s hips, creating a dark, clean surface.
“I love you, Mr. Dudley!” Emily grunts as her head spins in slow counterclockwise circles, her mind far past delirium.
“Oh, shut up.” Chloe tries to break free from Emily’s death grip, but it looks as if she’d sooner lose a finger. “They were about to take off their clothes anyway. I heard the whole awkward convo leading up to what they were hoping would be an extraterrestrial hookup. I can’t believe Gage ever thought you were so innocent. You’re nothing but a common street whore.”
A flash flood of liquid vomits from Emily’s vagina and the baby’s head crowns. Dark hair glistens in the night and a small laugh gets caught in my throat at the miracle of it all.
“A whore!” Chloe riots into the night as if trying to one-up Emily and her constant cries of agony. “I can’t wait to expose you! Now that Gage has come to his senses, the entire world will see you for what you really are—a hungry cocksucker who would kneel at the feet of anyone with a penis!”
Emily bears down and the head glides out, a tiny face with eyes shut tight, lips crimped together, and I can’t help but smile and laugh through tears.
“One more time,” I shout and Emily digs deep and bears down with all of her might, allowing the baby to inch forward enough for me to slip my fingers under its arms and pull it out with ease.
I hold it to the moonlight a moment as the fog christens it with a kiss.
“It’s a girl!” I shout, quickly pulling her to me and suctioning out her nose with my mouth, spitting to the ground without giving it a single thought.
“I’m going to fucking die!” Chloe thunders as if we were holding her hostage. And I suppose Em is.
The baby lets out the distressed cry of a lamb at the sound of Chloe’s voice, and I land the precious babe over Emily’s bare chest.
Marshall clicks his shoe to mine. “There’s one more treat on the way.”
No sooner does he say it than the placenta, the large dark, glibbery, crimson mass that reminds me of a human liver spills from her and the umbilical cord separates from it.
“Crap,” I mutter as blood sprays everywhere, my flesh quickly hosed down with the sanguine liquid, my face, my hair, my mouth. “Marshall!”
“Tie the cord off, my dear. The baby is divine.”
“God.” I look around for something that will work and note the hairband around Chloe’s wrist and snatch it from her before tying off the umbilical cord with it.
“You freaking got blood on me,” Chloe howls as if this entire episode affronted her. “Typical Skyla. Always stealing what’s not rightfully hers. You stole my butterfly room, my husband. It’s nice to know your mother really does care about righting the wrongs in the universe. Do you know what she told me the other day? She said Gage Oliver has always belonged to you. What a gift those words were to hear after years of living under your tyranny.”
Chloe meant you as in her, but I heard you as in me—and who knows what the hell my mother meant.
“I have a gift for you, Chloe.” I pick up the slippery mass of bloodied tissue and peg her right in the face with it. The satisfying slap it evoked will ring out in my mind for years to come.
“You bitch.” Chloe holds out her hands as she glances down at the mass slithering down her chest and screams into the night as if she were singing an aria.
Soon enough, the medics are here. Someone, somewhere, had the wherewithal to call for assistance. Marshall helps me up, taking off his dress shirt and quickly wrapping it over my shoulders as we make our way out of the woods.
Logan and Gage run up just as we emerge, the look of curiosity on their faces quickly morphing to panic as they ride their eyes over my bloodied body.
“What the hell.” Logan takes a step forward, his eyes still mapping out the carnage splattered over my skin before he pulls me in. “Who did this to you?”
I catch Gage just as he casts a hard glance to the ground. The look of remorse is clear on his face, and I wonder if it’s because he’s not the one holding me. If he wanted to hold me, he would have done things a lot differently.
“Em had her baby.” I glance to Marshall who’s making his way to Nev and Ezrina, and I’m relieved to see them. We are getting a damn move on regarding those viruses even if I have to infect myself.
“And you delivered it.” Logan pulls back and his lips twist, taking in the damage. “Let’s get you to the shower in the pool house.”
“I agree.”
Gage takes a deep breath as if acquiescing to this fact, as if Logan and I had just announced we were showering together. After being reamed by Chloe for the last half hour, I say he deserves to bask in the misery.
“I’ll find Laken,” Gage volunteers. “I’ll get you some dry clothes to change into.” His eyes pin to mine, and there’s something in them begging me to let him do this. My own begging didn’t get me anywhere. I don’t see why his should.
“No. I’d rather leave wrapped in a towel than let you help me. Why don’t you find your wife? She was rather shaken by the whole incident.” No sooner do the words escape me than Chloe staggers up as if she were the one who gave birth. Her hair is wet, her face washed anew, and gone is every last trace of that parting gift I tossed her way.
“Don’t you look at that bitch,” Chloe barks it out to Gage and his brows depress in that way they do when he’s amused. “She threw that garbage that fell from Morgan’s ass into my face.” Chloe looks to me with venom in her eyes. “You’re going to pay for that, Messenger.”
“For the level of enjoyment I received, I doubt you could come up with a punishment to make me regret it.” I look to Gage as his lip rises on one side with a lopsided smile as if approving of my actions. It’s as if the old him were in there, prisoner, silently cheering me on. Wishful thinking on my part. The old Gage wasn’t weak enough to let this new demonic version rule the roost. There would have been a battle to the death.
“Let’s go.” I pull Logan in and he feels solid, real, and strangely enough, he feels like home.
“Skyla?” Gage calls out before we can get three steps in. “I’ll need the boys for the wedding tomorrow.” There’s a playfulness in his eyes as if he were kidding. As if this were one big joke, and I was the only one not in on the punch line. Hell, I am the punch line.
Skyla. And every dark force of nature laughs up a riot.
Chloe straightens by his side, her bare skin taking on a purple hue in the frosty air.
She gives a shivering grin my way. “Be at Demetri’s by three and no later. Ceremony starts at four o’clock sharp and I need my boys dressed and rehearsed by showtime.”
My stomach clenches when she says my boys. My gaze meets up with the man who once loved me, and I bear all of my hatred into his eyes for upturning my world—for demanding that I give my angels, my twin beating hearts to the scourge he chose to torment me with.
“I wish I never met you,” I say the words lower than a whisper as I look to Gage. Those are damning words charged with emotional consequences because I just erased our three children with them. But a part of me meant them. If I could protect the boys and Sage from these beasts trying to take them from me—and I don’t just mean physically—I would do it without thinking.
We have diabolically opposing morals, and each of us believes we’re right. The boys are in for one hell of a tug-of-war, and the thought of losing makes me want to scratch the entire world out of existence. It’s one thing to take their bodies, another entirely to take their souls.
Logan’s h
and tenses over mine, assuring me he heard every last word.
We take a step together, in harmony as if we were one.
“Skyla?” Gage calls out and I glance his way. “Don’t be late.” The hardness on his face, those bitter eyes. I can’t even process the madness anymore.
Logan leads me to the pool house, my knees weak and my limbs feel like rubber from all of the adrenaline I’ve had to dispense. I pull off Marshall’s white dress shirt as Logan starts the shower for me, the steam already filling the small cottage equipped with a couch and pool table and very little else. I remember being here with Logan all those years ago when we were first a thing, when I thought Logan was the only one for me. The red felt of the pool table brings back that night, flooding in like a wave of warm, beloved memories that I will cherish for all time. I lay Marshall’s dress shirt over the pool table, the blood already dried in a marbled pattern.
Logan comes out and winces. “Geez, you’re covered head to toe. How many children did you deliver, Dr. Oliver?” His brows hitch as he looks to the dress shirt and does a double take.
“You know what I was just thinking?” I pull him in and mouth an I’m sorry as my bloodied belly rubs against his flannel.
“Never apologize to me.” His smile expands. “I’d never miss out on an opportunity to hold you.”
“Then I’m a lucky, lucky girl.” I can’t help but frown because I think we both know that’s not true.
“What’s on your mind?” He glances back to that shirt as if it were competing for his attention. Logan isn’t the jealous type, nor does blood make him squeamish, so a part of me is intrigued.
“If my memory serves correct, we shared one of our first kisses right here in this very spot.”
His features smooth out and his grin begins to fade before flickering back to life. “I think you’re right.” A quiet laugh pumps from him. “And I believe I killed the moment by saying right here, right now.”
“Always going for the sexual gold.” We share a warm laugh. “But in your defense, you did say it to yourself. I was mentally eavesdropping.”
All Hail the King (Celestra Forever After Book 6) Page 17
