All Hail the King (Celestra Forever After Book 6)

by Addison Moore

  A bubbling laugh tickles my chest. Yes, Logan. I wholeheartedly agree. We are not just stronger together, we are a new creation, one whose power is unsurpassed in greatness and glory. Only we can fix the crooked path. Alone, I have destroyed a kingdom, but together, we will bind up its wounds and restore our people, the Sectors, ourselves to live a brighter, safer, far more abundant tomorrow.

  Logan pulls me in hard with his supernatural strength and he seizes a moment. Then, just as quickly, he tries to pull out and I hold him there, hostage as his body releases inside of mine, his muscles trembling as he shakes out to completion. My hand slaps against the cool window and I press against it hard as Logan and I hit our zenith.

  Logan’s mouth lands back over mine and offers me a sweltering kiss. His breathing and mine are so erratic it hurts my ears to listen to it. The air is downright muggy and it feels as if a tropical heat wave has taken over the Mustang.

  “I love you, Skyla,” he pants the words heavy in my ear. “You are my everything.”

  I pull back and gaze into those red glossy eyes of his. “I love you, too, Logan. I can honestly say that I’m glad I went through the hell I did because not only has it made me a stronger person, but it’s landed us on the track we were meant to be on all along. You make me stronger, wiser, and better than I could ever be on my own. Thank you for that.”

  His body collapses over mine for a moment as his mouth finds its way to my ear. “I could die happy now.”

  “Don’t you dare die on me, Oliver. Once was more than enough.”

  A dull chuckle bounces through him. “I agree.” He pulls up on his elbows and I can take a full breath again. “There’s no going back. This really happened?”

  “It really happened.” I give his side a playful pinch. “And I’ve got news for you,” I say, scooting myself back underneath him so I can feel his chest pulsating over mine. “It’s going to keep happening. We’re going to keep happening. And we’re going to enjoy it. You make me happy. I want to be happy again. So thank you for that.”

  “I want you happy. You make me happy, too.” A mournful smile comes and goes. “You realize that I want you with me at Whitehorse. I’ll move you and the boys over. Just say the word.”

  I can’t help but grimace. “Will you hate me if I say I’m not ready? I think I just need to take careful steps, and unfortunately those careful steps will take a bit of time.” My lips quiver and I press them together hard. A thought circles my brain and I don’t want Logan to hear it—but I seem incapacitated to building a wall up around him at the moment.

  “I know what you’re thinking.” He winces. “You may not be a legalist, but you’re not so hot on shacking up with me at the moment. You’re not sure about the message you’d be sending the boys, to yourself, or to others. Running out of a frying pan and into a fire. You want a ring.” His lids hood over, that devilish grin lands right back on his face.

  “It’s so not fair that you’re able to pry into my heart that way.”

  Logan offers a pained smile as he pulls me into his arms.

  “I’m not trying to pry.”

  “I know.” I take a gentle bite from his bottom lip and pull it out. “You’ve thawed my heart out in record time, Oliver.” A single tear rolls down my cheek. “In truth, it was always hot for you.”

  He nods apprehensively. “And it still is for Gage.” His finger gently presses to my lips. “You don’t need to pretend with me, Skyla. You can be as loud or as quiet as you want with your pain, but I know it’s there. It matches my own.” His voice hitches as he takes a deep breath. “Enough of that.” His brows pinch as he pumps out an idea of a laugh.

  “That’s right. This is about you and me. Logan and Skyla.” Our names come out lower than a whisper, like a secret to be spoken only in the dark. “I’m happy for us.” A small giggle works its way up my throat. “Us.” I run my fingers through his hair and laugh as much as my tears will allow. “We’re finally happening.”

  “I think we just happened.” I press his heated body until it seals over mine. “And we’re going to happen, again and again and again.”

  Logan’s bedroom eyes take over.

  Logan Oliver has always been partaking in some level of seduction with me, with the world. Perhaps that’s what attracted me to him to begin with. I still find it arrestingly attractive.

  “I’m going to marry you, Skyla.”

  “We’re already married.” I graze my nails down his back as if driving home the point.

  “Too bad, we’re doing it again. Big wedding. My place. Play your cards right, you might score an invite.”

  “Ha!” I belt it out as our chests bump with silent laughter. “I guess I’ll wait for the proposal then.”

  “I’ll make it a good one.”

  “I don’t need anything but you, Logan.” I wrap my arms around him and rest my eyes for a moment.

  All is right with the world again. Sort of.

  14

  Gage

  If the Mustang’s a rockin’, don’t come a knockin’.

  That stupid euphemism keeps running through my mind.

  The air sits damp over my clothes, the fog as thick as rain.

  It was a mistake to follow them out here.

  Devil’s Peak. I thought they had come to talk. Logan would defuse Skyla’s rage. They’re communicating, all right. And here I am standing outside, just feet away ready to push the entire damn car with the two of them in it off the cliff side.

  Initially, when the altercation with Skyla occurred earlier this evening, I thought it might be healthy for her to get it all out, rage against the monsters before her, Chloe and me. And how I hate that I’m paired with Chloe in any discernable way, let alone tagged as a couple. But my cruel design is proving harsh. I have taken it too far. My strategy of pushing her to the limit in hopes she would retaliate, injure the Barricade in some small way, hasn’t exactly panned out how I had hoped. In fact, it fell back in my face like a shit pie.

  What the hell was I thinking allowing her to believe she was nothing more than some competition between Logan and me? It’s the furthest thing from the truth. If I didn’t feel as if destiny was pulling us together, I would have never shared that first kiss with her. I would have forced myself to be content lusting from afar until I willed that feeling away—not that I could have. She would have belonged to Logan then.

  But she doesn’t exclusively belong to Logan. She never has. Skyla is mine. If anything, she is something that Logan and I have been forced to share, just not at the same time. And this would be Logan’s moment. Logan’s freaking moment.

  I’m not happy about it. In fact, the real reason I followed them out here was to rip this shit show wide open and confess. I was ready to drop to my knees, beg both their forgiveness, and ask them to understand that I couldn’t live an eternity away from either of them. I was about to tell them that I haven’t changed, not where it counts, that my marriage to Chloe is a sham, that I have not stopped loving Skyla, loving her people, loving who we were—that we were real.

  It was the doubt, the double-minded horror I inflicted on her that I wish I could take back. But at the end of the day, Skyla is a smart woman. She must know unequivocally that I love her. How could she ever doubt what we had?

  I glower at the orange menace before me, now still and quiet, the murmur of voices growing increasingly scant. Yes, I’ve pushed her to him. But this? Skyla and Logan getting together in this way so very quickly, burns me to the core.

  The Mustang begins to quake again, slowly, so painfully slowly, then quicker with a steady rhythm that lets me know Logan has no problem getting it up for round two.

  It takes all of my self-control not to rip the door right off the car. Rip Logan’s head right off his body and throw both him and his dick onto the jagged rocks below.

  Maybe every word she said was true. Maybe I was second best to Skyla, after all. Maybe a part of her has wanted this with him all along. It’s not me fate chose to be w
ith her tonight. Fate took my bloodlines and pissed all over them, ensuring Skyla and I would end up on opposite sides of the celestial fence.

  It’s not ingrained in her DNA to show me an ounce of affection. I am the enemy through and through. Of course, she was biding time with me until Logan became available once again. To think Skyla could have ever truly been mine is laughable when you think about it. The Celestra and the Fem. It’s a joke. I’m the laughing stock of the celestial gentry to think that I could have ever stood a chance.

  I no sooner stood a chance at having it all with Skyla than Demetri does with Lizbeth.

  We don’t get the girl. We get the periphery. Although, in my psychotic father’s case, he most definitely has the girl, he has her attention, her affection, and ironically, they share a child—Misty. Skyla and I share custody. That’s about the only thing I’ll ever have with Skyla on this planet again.

  The car rocks hard, a loud cry comes from the Mustang, and I am out of here. I storm off toward the street, staggering into the night like a drunk on a mean bender, and I spot a couple in the woods dancing, laughing, the scent of weed and liquor blooming from that direction. I’m about to take off when the dude gives a familiar cackle. I’d know that voice anywhere. I barrel on over, ready to blow a hole through Ellis for taking advantage of my sister in the woods like some animal, but the closer I get, the more certain I am that it’s not my sister.

  “Dude,” I riot at Ellis and slam his horny ass into the nearest tree. “What the hell are you doing?”

  Emerson Kragger grunts as she buttons her jeans up, her tits hanging out of her top for the world to see.

  “Don’t dude me.” Ellis gives me a bold shove back.

  “Trust me on this”—my voice vibrates with insurmountable rage—“you don’t want a piece of my misery tonight, Ellis. And if you think I’m pissed, wait until Giselle finds out. If I were you, I’d run home and hide like the coward you are.”

  Ellis stuffs his junk back into his pants as well as his drunken limbs will allow. “What the hell are you talking about? G isn’t pissed. I’m about to make her night.”

  “Dude!” I riot ten times louder than before, so loud it sounds like thunder. “This isn’t G! It’s Emerson Kragger. Would you open your stoned eyes for once?”

  Ellis’ eyes widen on cue, accompanied by a look of fright on his face, as Emerson laughs up a storm. But I don’t stick around for the fallout. I step over to the road and stand in the middle of it, just daring a car to barrel on through me. I’m not too interested in traffic. Instead, I pull out my phone and text my brother.

  Eversor, the weapons room, now. I want the Valkyrie there.

  It’s time to kill, steal, and destroy.

  “Father!” Sage greets me as soon as my feet hit the ground in what is truly panning out to be an eyesore, a play on the name of this place itself if you ask me. The sky is black, the mega mansion large enough to house all of Paragon is illuminated a dull gray, and the light shining through the windows, dismal.

  I hoist Sage into my arms as I supernaturally land us into the weapons room. The room itself is massive, the size of West Paragon High give or take the gym. Swords of every shape and size line the walls, and in the far back lies a bunch of prehistoric shit that I wouldn’t even know how to hold, let alone kill someone with.

  “What’s got you so unnerved?” Sage jumps down from my arms as I head over to the stone round table and lay my hand over the surface until the last war plan we put together pops up. The entire surface acts as a screen, medieval meets modern type of a flair. “It’s Mother, isn’t it? She’s gone too far.”

  “You got that right,” I mutter under my breath as I pull up a fresh map and begin marking it up with my anger and bad ideas.

  “She’s done it, hasn’t she? Only one thing could have you so incensed. She’s with Uncle Logan now. Am I right? She is such a pig.”

  My mouth opens as I look to my tiny female doppelgänger, and despite my rage I’m slow to speak ill of her mother.

  “You don’t have to speak ill of my mother.” A husky incredulous laugh comes from her and I quickly put up a granite wall over my thoughts. “She and Uncle Logan might think there is strength in their union, but the two of them will only sink that much faster and farther. We won’t let them have the upper hand. Shall we kill a handful of Celestra in their honor?” She blinks my way benignly as if she asked something inconsequential like whether or not we should see a movie, and a chill rides through me.

  Before I can answer, Wes strides in with the Valkyrie themselves. Barnabas, an eight-foot beast who looks as if he’s in serious need of taking a shit. Belshazzar, the one with the grotesquely huge eyes. And Micah, the one with a voice that sounds like a nuclear blast. Each one is morbidly tall and morbidly inhuman with a grayish cast to their scale-like skin.

  Wes nods my way as the four of them take a seat at the table. “What’s going on?”

  “Do you still have Luke Jenson working as a mole at the Faction meetings?” He’s the one that let us in on the fact Skyla was putting up her defenses with Noster last summer. And thanks to his two-timing heart, he essentially cost Skyla everything.

  “That I do.” Wes pinches his brows as if to ask the question.

  “Good. I want a full report. I’m positive they’re about to have a meet and greet real soon in the future.” I glance to Sage a moment. “I want to injure Celestra.” I look to the three beasts seated among us. “Where and when, that’s up to you.”

  Belshazzar touches the stone table and a map of Brazil pops up, growing quickly in size until we’re looking at a seaside town down south.

  “Big Faction meeting coming up tomorrow. Three birthdays to celebrate.” A greasy grin glides up his face. “I’ll make sure it’s a party to remember.”

  “Good,” I say. “How many are we talking? A dozen, two?”

  Micah leans into the screen. “Forty-six active members. Most should be present.” His voice booms so caustically low and deep my eardrums tremble long after he’s done speaking.

  “I want them hurt.” A vision of that Mustang rocking reverberates through my mind. “Maimed. I really don’t care.”

  Wes inches back. “What’s gotten into you? We’ve won the war. The world is responding to our presence.”

  “Responding to our presence?” A dull laugh pumps from me. “If by that you mean fallen to shit, you got that right.”

  “Why?” Wes is unrelenting with his hardened stare.

  A quick glimpse of Skyla and Logan tangled in one naked mass flits through my mind.

  “Because she needs to fight,” I roar out the words. “This is a damn war, not a tea party. I’m sick and tired of watching her rest on her laurels, that’s why.” My hands slam over the table so hard the stone splits right down the middle and the screen goes black.

  Sage places her tiny hand over my shoulder as she looks out at the four of them. “We’re going to teach Mother a lesson. You don’t forget what we’ve done or who we are. The world must remember us and so must she.”

  “Very well”—Barnabas glowers at the table until it’s functioning once again—“we’ll make arrangements. Consider it done.”

  Wes gets up and nods me over toward the window that looks out at the dark, angry sky. At first, I didn’t know how I’d feel to have this place emulating my emotions, but now I see the beauty in it. I like my world dark, just like my heart.

  “What the hell?” Wes gives my chest a small shove. “I was at that ridiculous dance. You made me leave Laken. She asked to stay in the event Coop got up and warbled out another tune. Why now? What’s gotten in your craw?”

  My chest expands with a never-ending breath. “I saw them together, Logan and Skyla. It’s done. There’s no going back.” I glance to the floor a moment as the ominous words pass through my lips. “I thought maybe—”

  “Maybe what? You could undo the damage you’ve done? You’re well past recovery. But adding fresh injuries to an already weakened Fac
tion means there will be blowback. Don’t think for a minute that Skyla will be sitting on Logan’s lap for long. She’s not going to take this lightly.”

  “That’s the damn point,” I growl it out so hard the words burn through my throat.

  Wes looks into each of my eyes as if studying them for some ocular anomaly. “You don’t know what you’re doing. You’re acting on emotion. A good king takes measured steps. He listens to counsel. You have not once asked my opinion on anything. You are impulsive, impatient, too blinded by your grief to see the big picture. I am this close to creating a permanent barrier for our people from the feds, and if this little temper tantrum of yours causes Ezrina to get there first, you will have cost us everything. We have eternity to think about. Let Skyla screw whomever she wants. This hell is temporary. You’re already dead.”

  I yank Wes in by the jacket of his suit until his nose is over mine. “I want everyone on that planet dead,” I grit the words between my teeth just as a pair of hands pull us apart.

  “Son, son.” Demetri grins that eerie smile that almost certainly means death, an irony that is not lost on me at the moment. “Please remember that your brother is on your side. What you wish will be delivered.” He gives a slight bow. “It is important to assert yourself from time to time, to let the enemy know that you still very much have the upper hand. You have my full support in the matter. Let the proverbial chips fall where they may.” He glowers at Wes. “Let this be a lesson to you. Never underestimate what those around you are thinking. Even your brother can surprise you from time to time.”

  Demetri takes off toward Sage, and Wes gives me one final shove to the chest.

  “Don’t ever grab me like that again.” He takes off right out of the weapons room and I stagger over to that demonic ball of knowledge in the corner of the room, Tears over Creation.

  “Show me Skyla.”

  The black water vibrates until an image emerges. Skyla lying naked in Logan Oliver’s arms.

  Demetri is right. Even your own brother can surprise you from time to time.