Someone snags onto my wrist, and I spin to find Ellis and Giselle swaying on the dance floor.
“Let’s do this, Messenger.” He tries to get me in on the action, but I resist.
“Find Gage,” I pant, never taking my eyes off Logan. “Tell him to get rid of Laken and Coop, then meet me in the entry as quick as possible.” A part of me isn’t sure Gage should be anywhere near Logan and me. I want nothing more than to devour Logan in one rabid bite.
“He was just here looking for you. He said the same thing minus the Cooper part.” He rides his gaze over the top of the gyrating crowd. “Dude, effing Coop is here? I need to check this out.”
“Yes! Find him. Tell him to take Laken and stay the hell away from Chloe Bishop!” I snatch my wrist back and bolt through the crowd until I hit the entrance, but like an apparition, Logan is gone. The mouth of the entry stands wide like a gap, odd like a missing tooth without Logan glorifying its midst.
“Crap,” I whimper. It was probably some grand hallucination sponsored by the “Sexter” himself. Marshall was obviously just trying to get on my good side, or rather on my bedside.
“Skyla.” Logan’s deep tenor vibrates through the air, and I follow it out to the hall and look to my left. The whites of his eyes glow in the dark and give him that disembodied look that I’m fearful is genuine in his case.
I bolt down the darkened corridor and launch myself over him. I push him in by the back of his neck and begin on a fantastically wild kiss, my tongue as lithe as a river-snake gliding through the hot pool of his mouth. Gage and that kiss we shared earlier filters in my mind, and a wave of guilt rides through me, leaving me heavy with remorse. I slip off Logan despondent over what I had done.
“I guess you saw that,” I whisper, sweeping the floor with my shame.
“Skyla.” Logan picks me up gently by the chin. “He said you waited until today. I’m far too flattered. Please don’t lose a single minute with him. I don’t ever want you to regret something because of me.”
“You’re my husband, Logan.” I wave the protective hedge between us. “I was cheating on you.” My voice breaks with anguish.
“No, Skyla. Death broke that covenant.” He feathers his hand over my cheek. “You’re free to be with whoever you please.”
“And if I choose you?” My heart sinks because I already know the answer.
“Take it up with your mother.” His dimple inverts. “You’ll be seeing her tonight.”
I wrap my arms around him tight and don’t let go. This is our moment.
“I’ll argue the hell out of our case. I promise.” I rock him until we’re dancing to the slow song belting from the next room.
“God, I miss you.” He lays his head over mine.
I look up and soak him in. He’s still Logan, still perfect in every way.
“Are you in a treble?” I shiver at the alternative.
“No, Skyla. I’m not.”
And there it is. Logan is officially no longer with us—the final crack over my heart with the gavel of my mother’s peculiar love.
“Come on.” Logan leads me by the hand, and we walk right out the front of the hotel, straight down to the white sandy beach, and I flick off my heels. The ocean looms ahead with its precarious glow as moonbeams dance over the water in a jagged line. We walk, hand in hand, further from the hotel until the Paragon Palms Luxury Resort glitters like a Christmas tree off in the distance.
“Remember last year?” I ask as we traverse a giant piece of driftwood.
“You, me, and Holden?” Logan gives a crooked smile that looks almost sinister in this dismal light. “You saved me.” He pulls me in with our hands still laced at the fingers. Logan pierces me with those pale yellow eyes, and I’m frightened at what he might say next. “I can’t stay, Skyla.” He gives a long blink. “Your mother wanted me to warn you, myself, that the trial had come to a conclusion.” Logan rounds his gaze over my face and presses out a dull smile. “God, Skyla, you’re so beautiful.” His shoulders sag with defeat. Logan touches his lips just shy of mine. “Be good to Gage. He deserves you.”
He walks toward the shore and dissolves like a ghost before ever hitting the water.
“Wait!” I rush out in his wake, but he’s gone, vanished like smoke.
“Skyla?” Gage’s voice booms high over the pounding surf. I glance back and see him heading in this direction.
Gage runs to me. I sprint toward him until we collide, and he spins me with relief.
“You scared me.” His heart bursts over my chest in spasms. “Did you see him?”
“Yes. Did you?”
He gives a brief nod. “I’m going with you. I told him to tell your mother if she’s taking you, I’m coming, too.”
“Thank you.” I collapse my arms around him tight. “I wouldn’t want to do this without you.” Anything without him ever again.
Gage presses me in so tight, his heart drums against mine until their rhythms blend, and our hearts beat as one. “Hey”—he nods back to the resort—“you want to blow this thing off?”
“Did you see Coop and Laken?” My desire to stay hinges entirely on that and that alone.
“Yes.” His brows rise high into his forehead. “Did you know Ellis was trying to invite them to his after-party?”
“Did you send them home?”
“I tried, but they were loaded with questions. Laken kept asking if I was related to anyone back in Cider Plains.”
“She’s a little confused. I should probably talk to her.”
“She’d like that. She said they’d be back some other night. I told them maybe wait a few weeks until after graduation. Let your mind air out a little in the meantime.” Gage wraps an arm low on my waist. “How about we find somewhere a little more private to dance?” He dips a kiss just behind my ear, and everything in me catches fire. “Like the butterfly room.”
“The butterfly room.” I tip my head back, breathless from his touch.
Gage leads us over to a pigmy palm with its expansive fans as wide as umbrellas.
“Let’s leave the limo for Drake,” he says, eyeing the resort. “Who knows how many girls he’ll need to drive home.”
“Touche, but it’s a bit far for us to walk.” I hold the heels up as they dangle from my fingers.
“Who said anything about walking?” Gage dives down over me with a kiss that spells out welcome to our new relationship in every good way.
Once again my heart is nothing but a dagger. It brings only pain and death. Gage gets the heartache, and Logan gets the grave.
Which one will my mother let me spare?
***
The Landon house looks calm, tranquil even from outside the front porch.
“I thought for sure you would have delivered us straight to the butterfly room,” I blow the words over his ear, doing my best to tease him in the process.
“I would have, but I know you’d like to see if your mom’s all right.”
“Mom!” I bolt through the door and head toward the family room. The lights have been replaced with the glow of a thousand candles, and the strong scent of lavender permeates the air, cutting the oxygen right out of the room.
“Oh my, God!” I scream as I take in the satanic scene.
Isis hovers over Mom in nothing but a bathing suit with far too much flesh exposed even in this dim light. Demetri stands over the two of them with his hands spread wide, his eyes rolled back in a trancelike state. Swear to God if he starts levitating, I’ll stab him straight through the heart with a wooden stake. And where the hell is Tad?
“Careful.” Gage helps me step over a crumpled blanket on the floor, and only when it moves do we realize it’s in fact, my MIA stepfather.
Mom starts in on a demonic pant.
“Crap!” Are you OK?” I run over to the bathtub of doom just as Mom lets out a lusty cry. A bloodied missile shoots out from between her legs and launches clear to the other end of the kiddie pool.
“Catch it!” Mom wai
ls, wiggling her fingers.
“God, it’s going to drown!” I scoop the slimy being up from under its armpits and hoist it out of the water. Its little head slumps forward, its soft flesh covered with a cheese-like dew. Isis comes around and sticks a round ball with a tube attached down its throat and up its nose. The tiny being quivers and squirms and bleats to life—my heart melts at the sight, quite literally.
“It sounds like a little lamb,” I whisper.
Isis clamps down over something long and ropelike, and it’s only then I notice the infant is still leashed to my mother.
“Tad!” Mom wails, but he doesn’t move a muscle. “Someone cut the cord!”
“May I?” Demetri comes to from his trancelike state and expands his demonic grin as Isis hands him the proper tools needed to slice and dice.
“Please.” My mother clutches at his wrist before I can protest the idea, and he cuts the cord in one clean line just shy of the baby’s belly.
The candlelight shimmers off the crying infant’s flesh, and I place the dewy newborn over my mother’s chest.
“Hello there, baby boy!” Mom coos.
“Actually”—Gage leans in close to me as we inspect the tender scene—“your baby seems to be missing some vital parts to qualify for the boys team. I’m pretty sure it’s a girl.”
“A girl!” Mom’s voices rises with surprise.
“A daughter, Lizbeth!” Demetri tucks himself behind her and caresses my new sister over the top of her precious little head.
“Well…” Mom rubs the baby’s wrinkled back. “I’ll have to come up with a name that fits you.”
“So Landon Landon is out?” I glance back at Gage. “Sounds like she was spared.”
“Oh, Skyla.” Mom laughs while looking up at the ceiling. “Maybe you and the girls can help me come up with a name for her. We’ll make it an official Landon family project, that way we can all feel like we had a hand in naming our little precious angel.”
Demetri touches his fingers to her barely-there dark hair and sighs. “I always thought if I had a daughter I’d name her Mystery.”
I roll my eyes over at Gage.
“Mystery?” Mom flinches as if she’s actually considering this mockery. “I love it! Mystery it is. We can call her Misty for short.”
“Wait a minute,” I protest. “What happened with turning her into a Landon family project? I thought the girls and I were going to come up with something?”
“Why waste time?” My mother balks. “Besides, Mystery is a perfect name. It’s just what I was looking for. I swear, Demetri, sometimes I think you know me better than I know myself.” She lets out a soft groan, and something swims from beneath her.
“I got it!” Isis calls out, dipping into the pool with a giant fish net.
“What the hell is that?” It’s probably Demetri’s satanic spawn! I knew no good would come from him being here.
“It’s the placenta,” Mom pants while observing Isis and her big bloody catch.
“I think that’s our cue,” I say, ushering Gage quickly out of the room with me.
“Skyla!” Mom calls out, and I step back in for a second. “Don’t feel bad. One day you and Gage will have your own beautiful baby to name.” She points over to Isis. “Get the casket ready.”
I look to Gage and give a shy smile. I’m sure after all the blood and gore of tonight, the last thing Gage wants to do is procreate with me.
***
As soon as I scrub down like a surgeon, I whisk Gage to the butterfly room. He taps the wall, and the butterflies electrify, each one of them a bold cobalt blue just like his eyes.
“You’re amazing,” I whisper, catching his gaze and holding it.
“No, I’m not.” His dimples float in and out.
“Yes, you are.” I pull him in as I refute the theory. “For starters, you didn’t run like hell when you saw the gory scene taking place downstairs.” And, sadly, he’s seen more than his fair share of gory scenes at the Landon house alone.
“That couldn’t scare me off. A baby was born. It was beautiful. One day Mystery will be at West, and, who knows, she might even end up dancing with some boy in the butterfly room after prom.”
“She’d better not.” I tweak his ribs, and his chest rumbles with a dry laugh.
“Regardless, she’s a miracle. And that’s no mystery.”
“I think you’re a miracle.” I lay my head over his chest as we start to sway. “Can you believe next fall we’ll both be at Host?” My stomach pinches at the thought. So much is changing so fast.
“That’s going to be amazing.”
We sway ever so slowly as our hips brush over one another.
“What do you think is going to happen tonight?” I whisper warm into his chest.
“I don’t know. But I’m willing to do anything to protect you and Logan.”
“You’re far too kind,” I say, looking up at him. “But, trust me, there’s nothing you can do. My mother isn’t exactly known for her mercy.” I slip my hands into his jacket, and Gage warms me like a heater. “I wish there was some way we could speed things along. I can’t wait to get to the bottom of this, to have some resolution for once. There’s no way she’s going to find Ezrina and Nev guilty, or Logan and me for that matter. The Counts’ wickedness precedes them. The Celestra tunnels are proof alone that they need to be stopped.”
“I might know a way to speed things along.” Gage lands a measured kiss over my temple, and it sears me to the bone with his undying affection. “I’m not sure if you’d be comfortable with it, but I’m pretty sure it’ll work.”
“What’s that?” I pull back and appraise him in the faint blue glow.
“Do you remember what launched us into the war nearly every single time?” His cheek digs in, and his dimple suctions deep as a bowl.
“Gage Oliver.” I bite down on a seductive smile. “Are you trying to get down and dirty with me?”
“I’m just saying, we could probably get your mother’s attention by kicking it old school,” he growls with a naughty look in his eye.
Oh shit. I give a little laugh before peeling off his jacket.
He moans into a kiss. “We’re going to change the world with our love, Skyla. I already know this.”
“We are?” It seems like such a tall order, like a curious choice of words, all together.
“We most definitely are.” Gage winces for a moment as if his words weren’t at all meant to be the cheerful battle cry I thought they were.
“Well…” I unbutton his dress shirt slowly only to discover he’s got a white T-shirt underneath, and I give a coy smile. “This might take a while.”
“Maybe we should speed things up?” He groans while riding his heated palms over my thighs.
I tip my head back with laughter.
“This is why I love you,” I purr.
“You love me?” He tilts in with a teasing smile. “I love you, too.”
Gage pulls me in by the cheeks and drops one luscious kiss over my mouth as if he were savoring his favorite dessert.
I rake his shirt open and the buttons fly off from the tension. I unbuckle his belt and pull his T-shirt off, scratching his flesh with my nails in the process. Gage reaches down and unties the bow on my hip. His dimples dig in as he looks right at me. He reaches for my hemline. His fingers tickle my thighs as he slowly lifts the dress right off my person. His gaze dips down and rides over my curves as he takes in my black lace bra, my barely-there G-string. My entire body flushes with heat having him examine me this way. It feels intimate, brazenly beautiful, and now the last thing I want is to see my mother tonight.
I jump up on his hips and devour him in a sea of sugared kisses that taste like the future—that taste like incredibly beautiful love.
The room gyrates around us, we sink into the floor like quicksand as Gage and I disappear.
The day Ezrina, Nev, Logan, and I have waited for has finally arrived.
Justice will be served.
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And if not, I just might have to twist the hands of fate quite literally.
42
Judgment Day
The heavens growl and hiss as Gage and I land safe on the grass of this questionable patch of paradise—me in a white robe with a gold sash and Gage with his T-shirt back on. I appreciate this small bit of mercy from my mother.
Ahava shimmers. Its bruised sky percolates with dense navy clouds, the nest of lightning snaps and crackles over the water as if picking up steam for a climax yet unseen.
My mother, Rothello, and the Marshall twins appear, standing in the center of the mirrored sheet of the lake. Off in the distance the waterfalls dull to a quiet roar.
Then one by one they appear, first Ezrina in her haggard state, then Nevermore as the raven he is today, then, like a much needed glass of water, Logan blinks by my side, and I wrap my arms around him, surprised by my own bitter tears.
“It’s OK.” He lands a kiss over the top of my head before pulling away and looking at my mother.
“Welcome.” It streams from her as if we were guests at some celestial dinner party. An intense gust of wind pushes through the vicinity, and her hair blows back, annunciating her carved features, her glowing eyes, and it sends an iced shiver through me.
Logan and Gage each take up one of my hands.
“Sector Marshall.” She no sooner spills his name than he materializes and takes his place by Ezrina’s side.
Ahava blooms with people. Ellis, and the girl I thought I killed in the war, Natalie, Pierce, Holden, Lexy, Chloe, Demetri—Cooper, Flynn, and Wesley. Every person alive and deceased who fought in the faction war appears among us, and before we know it, Ahava is filled with throngs of Nephilim beings.
This wasn’t the judgment I was expecting at all. For some reason I envisioned my mother stalling for years, for decades, as she twisted through each microcosm, sifted through every detail the faction war had to offer. But this is happening, and now I feel afraid like an animal who accidentally stepped into a box trap. Gage and I had done this, called ourselves to court, to the final battlefield of the war, and we didn’t even know it.
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