Logan gives a long blink. “Ten bucks says that’s a bedtime story the boys have heard before.”
Gage flicks a wry smile my way as if he didn’t know what to do with it. “It is certainly the first time I’m hearing it.”
“Is that how you would do it, Gage?” I glower at this ridiculous version of my late husband. “Isn’t that what’s coming down the pike eventually? You, killing me?”
Gage inches back as if I had uttered the most ridiculous words in the world. “Why would I kill you?”
“Why wouldn’t you?” The words speed out of my mouth like the fact they are.
Chloe nods. “It would have to be passion-driven. You can’t strangle the life out of someone unless you have the rage, the desire, the all-out intense rapture propelling you on.” She takes a cleansing breath, inhaling through her nose and blowing it softly from her mouth.
I look up at the monster and frown. “Did you just have an orgasm, Chloe?”
“A small one.” She runs her fingers through Gage’s thick, dark hair. “I save all the big ones for you.” She stretches a plastic smile across her face as she pins Logan down with those dark eyes. “And you just so happened to gift me my first. Of course, I was pretending I was with Gage.” She shakes her head over at her betrothed as if no one else on the planet existed. “Every time, no matter who I was with. It was you, Gage. I have only ever craved you. I have only ever wanted you. You are of more value to me than my entire existence.”
“Isn’t that wonderful, Gage?” His name practically sings from my lips as I taunt him. “And now Chloe Oliver nee Bishop finally has her every heart’s desire and you yourself have helped her accomplish this. You have turned my life into a living hell and hers into a proverbial paradise. Do you sleep well at night?”
Chloe gurgles out a dark laugh. “He does once I’m done with him.”
My stomach turns again, hot and bitter, but I resist the urge to turn for the toilet.
Logan kicks Gage’s shoe. “Answer the question. It’s not polite to ignore the mother of your children.”
Gage takes a breath and glowers at me. “Yes, Skyla. I sleep like a baby. But you’re forgetting. I don’t necessarily need sleep, now do I?”
“Then why do you look like hell?” I don’t hesitate asking since Logan’s prompted him not to ignore me.
Gage lifts a brow as if he’s amused. “Maybe, just maybe, I’m in hell right there with you.”
“On that note,” Chloe is quick to change any subject that might make her look bad. “I’d best make plans for dinner.”
Hours drag by. I wrap my arms around Logan as we watch cartoons with the boys. We discuss the bowling alley and I politely ask for my job back, to which Logan informs me I had never lost it.
It’s planting season, so Logan and Liam will be busy at the farm Logan acquired behind the bowling alley. And he’s invited me to bring the boys out during the day to watch the big tractors move copious amounts of dirt. They will be in heaven and so will I because Logan’s land just so happens to be far away from this hellhole. Let the record show the old Walsh house, Chloe and Gage’s new abode, has never done me any favors.
We eat Chinese, then Logan helps me bathe the boys and dress them for bed. Nathan and Barron run laps around the upstairs until finally I manage to wrangle them into their beds, their adorable car beds that Logan insisted on purchasing for not only this house, but for his home as well. It’s disconcerting when your children have grown-up beds everywhere but your own home. Tomorrow, we’re picking up two toddler beds that I’ll cram into my room once the social workers leave. For now, Mom said we could just show them Misty and Beau’s room. Thank God they’ve outgrown those caskets Bree had gifted them. And both Ember and Ella sleep in Em and Ethan’s bedroom. Yes, the Landon house is filled to max capacity, but I can assure every social worker in the world that it’s filled with love.
Chloe stands at the door and rolls her eyes as Logan gathers the boys to pray with us. We pray as a family—Chloe, Gage, Logan, the boys, and me—and it feels downright sacrilegious as if the house were in danger of erupting in flames. And sadly, Chloe isn’t the only devil gracing this place. Gage Oliver qualifies as one himself.
“Skyla”—Chloe’s voice is curt and grating, her bad attitude is especially highlighted after Logan’s lovely soliloquy—“I’ll speak to Wes about having your old furniture moved from the Transfer and brought to the guest room. Of course, it will be for Tobie, seeing that the old wicker mess is mine now. But you’re welcome to use it while you’re a guest in our home.”
Some time ago, Chloe bought my old wicker bedroom set at a garage sale my mother threw. I had never wanted to part with it and now it’s been defiled by Chloe first, and then the Transfer. But I do hope Tobie enjoys it.
I grunt at the thought, “I’ll have the boys sleep together. Logan and I will sleep in this bed.” I pat the side of the red plastic sports car I’m currently lounging in.
Gage’s eyes round out. “Not under my roof.”
The boys continue to giggle, fight, and wrestle, blissfully unaware of their parents’ discord.
“It’s my roof, too, Gage. And don’t worry. I won’t make a habit of sleeping around. It’s just Logan for me from here on out.” I reach over and pick up Logan’s hand and a devilish smile glides up his lips. I look back to Gage. “You’re finally with who you were destined to be with and so am I. Only in my case, I’m truly happy.”
It’s as if the lights go out in Gage Oliver’s eyes. A tangible click of that last morsel of sanity extinguishing itself. As if the obvious had the power to finally push him over the edge he’s been teetering on.
“I just got word from Demetri.” His lips flicker with the hint of a dangerous smile. “The inaugural ceremony is in a few days. The boys will be there.”
“And so will I. I’ll be with them.” My heart thumps out a protest but my lips won’t give it.
Logan groans, “And as much as I’d love to miss this, there is no way you can hold me back.”
Chloe offers a soft applause. “I’m so glad neither of you will miss this miraculous event. It’s never happened before in all of human Nephilim history. Trust me. I’ve dug my claws into this.”
“Just like you dug your claws into Gage.” I force a smile to come and go at the unlucky couple.
Chloe waves me off. “Your mother and I are putting together the details for the after party. I thought we’d host it in the heavenlies, but Demetri has informed me that was a no-go. All partial humans are getting the big heave-ho soon after the big moment.”
“I won’t be leaving soon thereafter, Chloe. Neither will Logan. But have fun falling back to earth. We’ll be speaking with my other mother. Besides”—I look to Gage—“I wouldn’t miss the opportunity to congratulate you on your new accomplishment. You’re making history, Gage.”
Logan’s chest expands as wide as the world with his next breath. “You might say you are royally screwing up.”
I nod, my gaze still pinned to my former husband’s. “It’s such a unique error in judgment—that as your wife pointed out, has never been done before.”
Gage averts his eyes a moment as the boys giggle and box with their feet.
Chloe takes up his hand and Gage doesn’t flinch. My stomach does a hard roll at the sight and makes an egregiously loud noise as if protesting the malfeasance at top volume.
“If you would just answer one question for me.” I may as well throw it out there while I have his full attention, a rare feat these days. “Why? Why vie for the Fems? Why become their king? Kill my people and break my spiritual neck?”
Chloe lifts a finger. “Let the record show, I would literally love to do that.” She gives a soft wink to go along with the threat.
I openly frown at her before reverting back to Gage. “Why Chloe? Why all of it?”
My heart thumps wildly in my chest as if I just started a revolution, ran a mile in under thirty seconds, and decapitated every Fem on the plan
et. I’m not sure why, but it felt dangerous asking Gage those questions. God knows I don’t expect an answer.
Chloe gives his arm a rattle. “Go on. Tell her.”
Logan taps my foot with his as we both wait hypnotically for Gage to utter a single sound.
“Let’s hear it, man,” he chides. “We’ve got all night.”
Gage twists his lips as he bears those cobalt blue peepers hard over me. He looks beyond angry. He looks downright furious that I even bothered to ask.
“Don’t you look at me like that.” My voice shakes as I say it. “I bore your children. I deserve a simple answer.”
“Three children, Gage.” Logan shrugs. “Skyla deserves answers, and we both know it.”
Gage shifts on his feet. His hand dislodges from Chloe’s and he stuffs them into the pockets of his jeans.
“Look”—his affect softens toward me, his dimples dig in deep inadvertently in the process, and it makes me want to jump up and shake the old Gage back to life—“there isn’t an answer that will please you, Skyla. I’m not under a spell. Not one being in the universe is twisting my arm to do the things I’m doing.”
I search his features for clues, as if every word that came from his lips was a riddle.
“And so that means you’re doing them of your own volition,” I say mostly to myself.
Chloe belts out a laugh and the boys stop rolling around like bear cubs for the briefest of moments before resuming their pre-bedtime anarchy.
She caresses his cheek. “Skyla isn’t the brightest bulb. I can see why you left her.”
“He didn’t leave me because he wanted to.” I shake my head, trying to force the pieces to fit. “Believe me, Chloe, he’s not with you because of your cerebral appeal. Nor did your face or body finally manage to woo him.” I glance to Logan, hoping he’ll fill in the gaps for me.
Logan tips his head toward Gage. “You did it because you felt you needed to.” He swallows hard. “You felt trapped.”
“There’s no other way.” My voice increases in excitement an octave as I look back to Gage “You convinced yourself you had to do this.”
Gage blinks hard. “And that’s exactly what I said. Maybe Chloe’s right.” He gives a sly wink her way before giving each of the boys a quick kiss goodnight.
Right about me not being the brightest bulb? I’m suddenly moved to strangle them both.
His finger caresses Chloe’s cheek a moment. “Let’s get to bed.”
Chloe glows under the white-hot spotlight of Gage Oliver’s affection, and everything in me rages with the desire to take Logan and the boys and burn the house down with Gage and Chloe in it. But Gage is indestructible, and for the most part so is Chloe. They’re like cockroaches. You couldn’t kill them with a blowtorch.
Gage takes off and there is an ache in my chest, an emptiness in my heart whenever he leaves the room. No matter how big of a monster he’s become, a part of me demands to love him through it. I know Logan feels the same.
“Well”—Chloe arches her back, rubs her protruding belly—“you heard my husband. I’m wanted on a mattress in five to perform my wifely duties.” She gives a wiggle of her fingers as she leaves then quickly backtracks. “And Skyla? Have fun with Logan. You were half-right. We’re both with the people we were truly destined to be with all along. But Gage is truly happy with me and our new life.”
She leaves before I can correct her. Before I can remind her that she used to love Celestra. That she is being used. That Gage has never looked more miserable. That Gage is faking everything in that bed with her. But not a word can get past the boulder forming in my throat—the exact size of this horrible house. I hate that we bought it. I should have known buying anything in such close proximity to Emma would have been a curse. And it has been.
Logan gets up and shuts the door, dims the lights—a feature Gage and I once thought was brilliant—and the boys begin to whine on cue.
Logan and I each crawl into their bed and Logan whispers a quiet bedtime story about a dragonfly family—the continuation of a story he tells them each time they’re ready to fall asleep, be it a nap or bedtime.
If anything, Logan is consistent in just about every single way, especially in the way he loves us—even Gage. Barron succumbs first, snoring softly. Not long after, Nathan curls into a ball at the opposite end of the bed and we gingerly climb off the mattress and cover them.
Logan flicks off the lights and pulls me onto the next bed with him. He pours deep, dark, delicious kisses straight down my throat and I drink him down as if he were the exact elixir I needed to survive this nightmare. He is definitely a major component. But I can’t make the mistake of having someone outside of myself be the cure, the end all. I only have one savior, one God, and He reigns on high. Everyone else is so very fallible.
Our kisses soften a notch. As much as I want Logan, I’m exhausted emotionally from this mind-bender of a day. He doesn’t seem to be pressing me for more, but if he did, I’d give in to him. I couldn’t deny Logan Oliver anything after all we’ve gone through. But he does not press and I fall deeply, blissfully into an unknowable oblivion where nothing at all seems to exist.
Dreams come to me, fast and furious, anxious dreams about fire. I watch as it comes my way, as the flames race toward me and I’m frozen, completely unable to move out of the way of its fury. I contemplate how it will feel, explosively painful. I’ll go into shock quickly and pass out if my body is at all merciful. Then God Himself reaches down, touches His hand over my shoulder and reassures me that will never come to pass—never happen to me nor my children. I start to rouse from my dream, comfortably assured by his blessed words.
But before I can fully reach the surface of my consciousness, I’m sucked under again, this time to a darker place, a far more frightening sight than a living flame. It’s Gage himself hovering over me. He’s naked, we’re naked, and he’s teasing me with a devious smile. I know all of Gage Oliver’s smiles, not to mention all of his kisses, and this look he’s sporting right now let’s me know he’s up to no good.
“Do you know that I love you?” he asks as if he were determined to prove it.
I can hear myself giggling, but it’s as if I’m a visitor in my own body.
Gage leans in and I can feel the warmth of his breath pouring over my face, the weight of his body imprisoning me beneath him just the way I used to like it.
“Don’t you know that everything I do is for you—for us?” he asks with his brows cast low as if he were angry.
What about Chloe? I want to ask, but my lips don’t seem to work and he doesn’t seem to hear me despite the effort.
“Don’t forget who we were, who we’re going to be again someday,” Gage growls. “Our story is long from over. We are eternal beings. I have to protect us. Even if it means dragging us to the depths of hell to do it.” He bows down and kisses me deeply, a soft, achingly soft kiss that demands I heed his every word, that begs for me to understand things beyond the realm of reason. He lifts my hands over my head and I begin to protest.
Please don’t. There is no us, Gage. Don’t do this to me when I’ve asked you not to. You can’t just barrel into my life and have me whenever you wish. Not like this. Not ever.
The room darkens, a flurry of cobalt blue butterflies bat their wings all around us, gathering in number until it feels as if I’m smothering in them.
I wake with a start, my face firmly embedded in the pillow before I sit up and take a sharp breath. Logan doesn’t flinch. He’s dead to the world, as are the boys. Without putting much thought into it, I tiptoe out of the room and close the door behind me. There’s a nightlight in the hall, same one I put in. But I’d know my way around this place in the dark. I may not have lived here more than a day, but I’ve spent enough time laboring over this place during its renovation that I’d know my way around in my sleep. And here I am in a nightmare I cannot wake up from. Initially, I thought I’d go to the bathroom, maybe grab a quick glass of water, but my feet t
ake me right to that once sacred space, the very space Gage so lovingly installed in this home just for me, the butterfly room. The hideaway stairs are already pulled down, so I head on up to the room in the attic. The door is sealed shut. There’s a seam of blue light glowing from beneath and my heart ratchets up a notch. I land my hand against it as if it were a precious portal to a far more innocent past, and in a way it is.
The murmur of voices grows from within and it prompts me to place my ear next to the door.
A shadow crops up next to me and I jump just as I realize it’s Logan. My finger lands to my lips and he nods as if to say he’ll comply, but he’s not hiding his annoyance—with Gage, I’m assuming. We lean in and the murmuring grows clearer.
Gage is saying something. He belts out a short-lived laugh and it’s back to murmuring—only at this juncture it becomes painfully clear there’s some heavy-duty moaning involved, too.
“Whoa!” Chloe shouts. “If I were human, that would bruise.”
Logan and I exchange a wry look. At least Chloe is right about one thing. There’s not an ounce of anything remotely human in her.
Gage grunts out a laugh. “Honey, that’s going to bruise no matter what you are. Just tell ’em you walked into a wall.”
“Good Lord.” I look to Logan and he shakes his head in dismay.
The door swings open and Gage looks sweaty, hair mussed, clearly post coitus, and I’m pretty sure the odds are excellent I’ll vomit on his bare feet.
“What the hell are you doing?” he growls at the two of us.
My lower lip quivers without my permission.
“I was about to take Logan for a little tryst, but I see that the love nest is occupied. It’s nice to see you’re defiling the room you built for me to full capacity.” My voice shakes and I hate that my emotions choose this moment to betray me—but certainly not more than I hate Gage and Chloe.
All Hail the King (Celestra Forever After Book 6) Page 32
