“Do your father,” Sage gurgles with a dark laugh before the show ever begins.
Gage takes a breath, closes his eyes, and his features rearrange until the exact representation of Barron Oliver appears before us. I will admit, there is something calming about his presence. Something soothing. He is, in fact, the quintessential father, and for a moment, I’m struck with a pang of jealousy over the fact Gage had the perfect upbringing, perfect parents.
Demetri slept with my mother and left both her and me for dead before reappearing in my life just when he could use me the most.
Sage tilts her head at him. “I knew you’d choose him. You’d never claim Demetri as your father. He’s sort of an afterthought to you. Like some mean bully who came into your life and told you what to do, what to say.”
Gage bends over in all of his Barron glory. “Nobody tells me what to do or what to say. And don’t let anyone do those things to you either. We have our own minds, our own will.”
“The hell we do,” I mutter into the glass of five-hundred-year-old whiskey Demetri gifted Gage as a housewarming gift. God only knows what he’ll give him after the coronation.
The king.
I can’t help but roll my eyes at that one.
“Do Uncle Logan!” Sage hops a little when she says his name as if he pleased her. I’m pretty sure Sage can’t stand Uncle Logan because she can’t stand anyone but her father. I’ve never seen a child outright worship a parent before.
I wonder if Candace wishes Skyla would worship her that way? I’m pretty sure if Candace wanted it she would get it. Whatever that wily wench wants, she gets.
My stomach sours because she just so happens to want to shove me into a furnace for the duration of eternity. The never-ending flames my forever home. No Laken, no light, no peace, no Laken.
Laken is the beginning and the end of everything, and without her, there would be no point in existing.
Gage takes a breath and closes his eyes. His features dip and stretch, and sure enough there’s the bastard in the flesh. Logan Oliver looks every bit as pissed and simultaneously humble as he does in real life.
A bark of a laugh streams from me. “That’s a good one.”
Sage lifts her hand to his face and Gage bends over so she can touch him.
“Careful”—I warn half-teasingly—“my niece does love to dole out a punishment.”
“I’m not slapping my father.” Her tiny body lifts an inch as she takes a deep breath. “You look just like Uncle. He wouldn’t like this. It would frighten him to know you could be him and fool Mother into doing just about anything with him.” She gives him a couple of light taps on the cheek. “But you would never do that, would you, Father? Pretend to be somebody else to fool the woman you professed to love so deeply?” Her voice is curt and tight. Sage is like having a cloying, wicked mother waiting in the wings to reprimand you, to best you at every turn. “I’ll see if those treats I’m baking are finished now. It’s something I would have loved to have done on earth for you.” She heads for the kitchen. “You, too, Uncle Wesley.”
“Only you would have poisoned mine with something creative to give me the shits.”
A bubbling laugh expels from her as the distance grows between us. “You know me best!”
“That I do,” I say, heading over to Tears over Creation and giving the watery globe a light spin. Tears over Creation, Tears over Paragon, whatever the hell this prognosticating wonder is called is something our father, Demetri, the proper, evil father decided to gift to each of his sons as an additional housewarming gift. Its stone base stands four feet tall and it’s just as round if not wider, filled to the brim with literal tears, I have no doubt, while a dark granite globe almost the size of the well itself spins tirelessly within it. Ask it to show you something and it provides the answer, usually.
Where is Laken? Where is that bitch Chloe that I’ve managed to leash myself to several times in this short life? What is Kresley doing with Eli? All questions I’ve asked. Gage and I have been afforded many supernatural liberties by our father, and this is one of them.
Gage comes over, his face still stuck in Logan mode.
“Dude.” I nod over to him, annoyed that I’m forced to look at him this way.
It’s not that I have anything against Logan, but the guy is the spitting image of Cooper Flanders and I’m no fan of his. Coop and I were great friends until he decided he needed Laken for himself, and once he won out in that regard, I haven’t been able to fully look him in the eye. A part of me is still afraid her heart will piece itself back together the way it was before the feds fractured her mind to my benefit. But my ace in the hole is the fact I made a silent pact with Candace Messenger at my trial last year.
I gave my unspoken word that I would make sure Gage stayed away from Skyla, and she gave her unspoken word that it would benefit Laken and me. A part of me wonders how strong that pact was and if it’s null and void now that Gage and Skyla have gone their separate ways for seemingly good. As bad as I feel for my brother, I think deep down it’s best he’s not with her.
Laken is a Count like me, like I thought I was for so long, but if she belonged to Celestra, that would have been a thorn in my side, the size of the Empire State Building. Yes, the old Laken sided with Celestra, but she’s come to her senses and I can breathe again.
“Show me Laken.” I lift a brow at my brother as his face morphs slowly back to that of his own—my own, too, if you want to get technical.
The dark well beneath us illuminates and the globe darkens as an image appears over its wet flesh. It’s Laken walking through what appears to be a bookstore. The image of a body appears next to her. It’s Cooper Flanders and my stomach sours. He’s holding Charlie in his arms, pulling out board books, and she does her best to gnaw on them. Laken and Coop share a laugh. But I’m not laughing.
“Don’t worry, man.” Gage flicks the globe with his middle finger and the image clicks off as if it were a television. “Chloe is with them. She mentioned she wanted to take Tobie to story time at the library. My mom is taking the boys for me. Skyla insisted on going. She doesn’t want to miss a moment of the boys’ lives. I’m betting either Skyla or Chloe extended the invite to him.”
“Skyla and Chloe attending story time at the library? What the hell kind of warped world are we living in? You do realize she was serious when she said she was going to kill Chloe.”
“She can’t kill Chloe and she knows it. Candace has a concrete shield around the witch.”
“The witch is carrying your child.”
“Your child, Wes.”
“Technically, but someone will have to be a father to it, and that responsibility, my friend, falls to you.”
“Lucky for him or her, I’m a damn good father.”
“But you’re not excited about it.”
“I’m not excited, and neither are you. But I think we both know how it feels to have the paternal wool pulled over our eyes. I think together we can show this child enough love, be a friend, be an uncle, be a father, be whatever the hell it needs. It’s a casualty of the shit world we’re living in, but that doesn’t make it less of a person. There will be enough affection to go around.”
“Hear, hear. Also, I think that Chloe might actually care about this one. After all, she thinks it’s yours. She never cared to be pregnant with Tobie. Not for one hot minute, and she’s downright glowing this time around.”
“That she is. She’s due in August. Same month as Laken. Last year you had Charlie and Eli in August as well. You should probably keep it in your pants next November.”
“As long as Laken is in my bed, I’m not keeping it in my pants. Might I suggest you stray from the nuptials. I think you’ve met your quota on weddings for all of your nine lives.”
“Touché. But Skyla will get married again.” He stares down at the watery globe. “To Logan. Sooner than later, I’m guessing.”
“I don’t know. They’re not exactly shacking up just yet. I th
ink her heart is still pining for someone else.” A smile bounces over my lips. “Marshall Dudley.”
“Very funny.” Gage doesn’t bother with a smile of his own. “You keep that up and I might give you a swirly. I think I owe you years of brotherly affection.”
“I’m not a big fan of dunking my head into the toilet bowl, so I’ll step back.” My heart breaks for my little brother. Life is forcing him to eat a shit sandwich and he has to find a way to like it, too. “You really think you’ll be okay if Skyla marries Logan?”
He takes a huge breath. “I don’t have a choice. The only respite I have is knowing I’ll get to spend eternity with her and the kids. I guess you can say I’m in it for the end game.”
I slap him on the back. “And, let me guess, the end can’t get here soon enough.”
“You got that right.” He leans hard over the granite rim of the well. “Show me Skyla.”
An image forms, but we’re not anywhere near the library. Instead, it’s Ezrina’s new lab below Whitehorse, those familiar blue tubes glowing like light bulbs.
“They’re full.” I point over to the glass enclosures, each filled with a body. “Holy hell. It’s the Spectators. Ezrina is going for it. The Videns will love them if they can pull this off.”
“That they will,” he whispers. “Why is that so bad? We have the seat in the heavenlies. My coronation is in the spring. We will never lose our standing. I say let the Spectators live.”
“That’s because you’re a bleeding heart, Gage. And what a bleeding heart like you doesn’t realize is that Ezrina isn’t just doing some random good deed. I know that witch better than anyone. She’s cutting her chops. Getting ready to try out some new recipe for disaster. And believe you me, she will directly try to screw things up for us. This isn’t some innocent Viden revival that has Skyla wandering the lab.” I think about another horrifying option. “When and if Chloe ever finds out about this mockery of yours, you’re going to have two women pissed off at you. The two most powerful women in the world when you think about it.”
“I’m not thinking about it, because it’s not happening.”
We refocus our attention to the watery globe, and sure enough Logan is right there by Skyla’s side, Ellis Harrison and Brody Bishop right behind them. “That, my brother, is the Retribution League getting ready to hand you your ass. Things aren’t over. They’re not over by a long shot. So you see, Your Highness, I wouldn’t go resting on your laurels just yet. That ex-wife you’re still so very much in love with is looking to blow a hole through any eternal plans you might be making. I wouldn’t go imagining some sickly sweet reunion in the Elysian Fields just yet. Skyla is gunning for you, Gage. And she just might send us both to hell yet.”
He shoots a steely glance out the window at the stormy skies that reflect his mood. “She won’t. I will never let her get close.”
“You’ve underestimated her.”
“Quite the opposite.” His fingers press white as he clenches that granite tub. “That’s why I went hard. That’s why I won’t relent. I love her more than she will ever understand.”
“She’ll understand one day, in the sweet by and by.”
He shakes his head as if it were an impossibility. “I don’t even think she’ll understand it then. In fact, I know what she will say. We could have found a way.” He heads for the bar and pours himself a shot of that haunted whiskey.
Gage could have found a way. Skyla would have moved heaven and earth just the way he’s doing it for her. Gage is an outright idiot and it breaks my heart to witness.
They could have had it all. I don’t know if it’s still true, though. He cut deep. The blows he’s delivered, the wounds, they fell too hard, cut to the bone.
Sometimes I think he simply prefers to brood. You can’t brood in a state of constant happiness. And to be truthful, I don’t think Gage has ever truly felt happy. He had Logan sitting over his shoulder during his entire marriage to Skyla. He was never Skyla’s first choice. Perhaps he’s always felt like a consolation prize. And perhaps, deep down, he’s felt as if he wanted to make things right for Skyla and Logan because he believed the lies he was feeding himself—that Skyla was never truly his to begin with.
Sometimes the lies we tell ourselves are the most damning of them all.
Skyla loved him. He was her everything. Even now, if he pleads insanity, she would open her arms to him and happily fall into the nearest bed with him. But there is no reasoning with him. And if I tried, I just might lose the love of my life in the process. Sorry, Gage. You can’t wake up, and I can’t slap you back to reality. But at the end of the day, you have no one else to blame but yourself.
“Show me Laken,” I say to this wicked well and an image forms. The library materializes before us with little Charlie in Coop’s lap. Coop’s arm is wrapped around Laken as if they were a couple. Chloe sits next to Laken and I spot Tobie sitting up front with Gage’s boys. But my gaze drops back to Cooper Flanders’ arm, how low it is, how very intimate it looks.
Laken isn’t fighting it and it makes me wonder.
13
Inception
Skyla
When my father was still alive, he and my mother took Mia and me to see a musical at the Pantages Theater, not far from our home in Los Angeles. We were frequent fliers at the theater. My father believed in a holistic upbringing, and that included many cultural excursions. But one musical stuck out. It was Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. There was one scene that etched itself into my mind, one song, one verse—something about pulling back the curtain and heading back to where it all began. I sang that chorus for months, for years. The concept was fatally romantic. I couldn’t get past the idea of going on an emotional journey only to arrive back at the place you took your very first step. I asked my father what it meant and he carefully explained to me that sometimes in life you need to travel down harrowing paths to sand you down, polish you—you will be renewed, better, far more prepared to handle the destiny that was yours all along. I cherished those words, carving them over my heart to review again at a later time. I clung to those words with unstoppable hope.
And here tonight, I return to the beginning as I proverbially step back in time to that moment I first set foot on Paragon. Wholly renewed and ready for whatever my destiny holds. It has been a harrowing journey, walking through a briar patch with my flesh catching on the thorns and tearing right off my body. Gage set that briar patch on fire last fall while making love to Chloe in my presence. I was still locked in the thorny cage while it burned. But I am back and am ready to begin again.
I fan out the nude colored dress I’m wearing, tea-length, tulle skirt, satin sweetheart neckline, off the shoulder, formfitting until it hits the waistline then it fans out like a billowy breeze. Bree thinks the color is more of a peach, but it’s not quite that. The dress is illuminated like an ethereal dream and I’m the one glowing in it.
Tonight, I’m taking back something far more tangible than my destiny. I’m taking back Logan Oliver. While Gage has been parading Chloe all about town, shoving her down the boys’ throats, making a spectacle of shopping for their new addition, surrendering his balls to her at every turn—Logan has been campaigning just as hard for my attention in a much kinder, less heartbreaking way. Logan has mastered the fine art of wooing me—taking me out to any and every premier restaurant on Paragon, taking the boys and me to the park, the bookstore, the petting zoo, letting them swim through that ball pit he’s installed in the bowling alley. The boys love the bowling alley most of all. And we have logged many, many hours there.
I will admit, I was apprehensive with Logan. I held my hand out at arm’s length, kept my walls up, buried my heart in concrete to protect it from yet another brutal fall, but I’ve finally conceded. I don’t need to surrender any part of me I don’t wish to give away.
Logan has simply asked me to be his date for the West Paragon High alumni senior prom. We’re going to dance under the supervision of a Val
entine moon, and I’m going to put him right back on the pedestal of my heart and surrender. I’m going to see where it goes, see if I want it to go anywhere, if I’m ready for it to.
Tonight, Logan Oliver has a fighting chance. And in truth, that’s even more than I could have doled out a month ago. That was primarily the reason I was so willing to give my body to Marshall. With him, there would be no strings attached—at least I wanted to believe it. The truth is, Marshall already has me leashed to unbreakable spiritual cables. With Logan, I’ve always felt as if we have everything at stake.
But, there are measures you have to take when recovering from a broken heart. Baby steps with Logan. A date. A dance. Nothing complicated. Just keeping it simple.
Tonight, I am pulling back the curtain and heading right back to the beginning—with the one who stole my heart first, Logan Oliver.
A horrific howl emits from downstairs and my adrenaline spikes, sending me charging down to the foyer in my heels, my purse already in hand. I’m seconds from heading out for the night, but I’m curious to see if Tad accidentally lopped a hand off. I’m pretty sure that was his voice I heard moaning like a dying cow with its tail on fire.
“What’s happening?” I rocket into the family room, propelled purely on anxiety, and then my heart stops cold once I see the world’s biggest malfeasance. Gage is holding Barron while Chloe holds Nathan.
Gage looks wide-eyed at me, that same look of slapped shock he used to get when I would dress up on the odd occasion, and usually that stunned look in his eyes would be followed by a suggestive compliment.
Chloe is gloating. Her A-line dress swings wide in navy glitter, showing off the world’s tiniest and perhaps most unfortunate baby bump.
Tad whoops and hollers and does an odd little one-legged jig before I ever have the chance to slay Gage and Chloe with choice words, and I do have them.
“Come here.” I take Barron from Gage. It’s funny that I chose to do that. Like a reflex, I deemed him the far more wicked of the two. “And you,” I say as I pull Nathan to me and let both boys slide to the floor.
All Hail the King (Celestra Forever After Book 6) Page 22
