“The Counts are white-knuckling this entire event and here we are in the heart of a map,” he marvels.
“Weird, though. This is Demetri’s mirror. If it could have given an edge to the Counts, why put it in my possession?”
“Maybe he wants to balance out the scales for killing your father.” He raises his brows slightly at the demented possibility.
“He said he’d give a kingdom in exchange for the love of a lifetime.” I remember Demetri uttering those exact words at Logan’s unbirthday party. “A kingdom—this kingdom,” I whisper.
“Before we go painting him a hero, wasn’t he the one that cost you a region with that faulty disc?”
“That’s right. Plus he’s the ass who has me locked in a dungeon to satiate the junior council.” Wesley runs through my mind—aside from sucking the lifeblood out of me, he doesn’t seem that bad. I swear this would somehow be easier if I could hate them all.
“What could possibly be in downtown Paragon that would be a portal to the next region?” Logan scrutinizes the bony structures that surround us.
“All of the other regions were a blend of hills and flatland, the lake, which we hit twice, in fact.”
“No, the first lake was different.” He jabs his finger in the air lost in the memory. “That’s a small watering hole on the other side of the island by Pike’s Reef. We’ve been moving east to west.” He lifts his head to the sky and looks around. “Ahava is paradise so what would be paradise to you, Skyla?”
“Paradise? Like Hawaii?” I think of Gage and that aching kiss on Hanalei.
“No.” He gives a quick smile. “Here on the island. The butterfly room?” His face creases, perplexed by the idea.
“No, definitely nothing near that Count coven I’m holed up in.” I tap my finger to my chin as we continue past the burnt out bank, the bakery. “Oh!” I take in a quick breath. “That one place, across from the bowling alley. You said you wanted to build a house there. It was beautiful.”
“Our house.” His dimple gives a sideways smile. He presses in a kiss that flames over my lips. “I’m building it for you—for us.”
I nod and wrap my arms around him.
“That will be our Ahava.” My chest heaves as the words vibrate past my lips. The disturbing footage from Demetri’s haunted castle springs through my mind. I can still see it, Gage and me, moving in—his strong arms carrying me over the threshold.
“Let’s get over there.” Logan rushes me past the downtown district and over to the bowling alley. Its burnt-out shell lies like a relic of some ancient monster with pale limestone set in a circular pattern.
“Logan.” I tug for him to stop. “Look at that.” Its startlingly familiar, something we had bore witness to once, long ago.
“Strange.” Logan dips his head in. “It looks like a miniature version of the Coliseum.”
“What do you think it means?” My heart thumps. Adrenaline spikes through my bloodstream as I stare out at the skeletal structure. I half expect an entire herd of lion Fems to sprout up through the middle.
“It means I’d better do this—” He rips a kiss off my lips and pulls me across the street in a slow hypnotic dance.
On the authentic version of Paragon, the ocean would be visible by now. The shore would be battered with large crushing waves. Beautiful hemlocks would bat their long lashes and flirt with the sea.
“I don’t get it,” Logan says, landing us in a barren space of lavender clouds mixed with fog. “There’s literally nothing here.” He raises his hand and the air ripples. It radiates out with a powerful light.
“It’s another plane. It must be.”
“How do we get in?” He slashes through the air and it spins like a circle of mirrors reflecting the sun—blinding us momentarily.
“How do we get anywhere?” I nod.
Logan and I ditch across the street. We hold hands and run as fast as our bodies can carry us, crashing through the curtain of fog and light in one spectacular blaze of glory.
***
We land hard with our backs nailed to the ground as a phosphorescent plume explodes overhead like a rocket. Beneath us, blue grass carpets the soft flowing hills. It comforts us, begs us to stay awhile and sleep under its hypnotic spell. We know this place, this familiar setting. Elysian Fields—Ahava.
“Skyla,” Logan shouts victoriously. He lands a kiss over my cheek and holds me while tumbling us down the hillside. He kisses my lips, my nose, my eyelids. “We’re here. We made it.” He jumps to his feet and pulls me up.
The hush of quiet waters fills the expanse with its gentle purr.
“The falls,” I say, pulling him toward the peaceful sound.
A broad lake sparkles to our left, sharp as shards.
“Oh no.” I pant, deathly afraid my mother and her homies are going to spring up over the water and tell me we’ve done something terribly wrong, but they don’t.
Logan walks us to the south side, toward the back where a red glow emanates from inside the divot behind the lower fall.
“That’s it.” Logan rubs my shoulders. “That’s where the sword is.”
We push in close to the rugged granite, directly behind the wall of water. The roar from the falls is deafening.
This is it, I say. You think there’s a sword here?
Doubtful—a replica maybe. He pauses just shy of the final turn where a bright orange glow illuminates him from behind.
Knowing Demetri, it’ll throw the last two regions in his favor.
Logan presses into me with all of the skill and mastery his seduction can afford and wraps his arms around my waist.
We’ll get the real sword. He lifts a finger and the rush of the water reduces as if he had just turned down the volume.
“How’d you do that?”
“I believed,” he says, pulling me past the falls and toward the water. Before I realize it, we’re walking over the lake as if it were made of a solid sheet of sapphire.
“Logan?”
“I don’t think right now is a good time to doubt.” He says it calm, full of patience with my display of exuberance. “Skyla…” He bears into me with those hazel stones and his features soften. “I know you’re with Gage, but in my heart,” he whispers, raising my hand over his chest, “I never let you go. Our love has grown inside me.” His eyes glint with moisture. “I’m going to ask you something—I don’t want you to answer. This is a question for another time in our lives, but I would be remiss to be standing in the most beautiful spot in the universe with the only girl I will ever love and not do this.” Logan drops to his knee, never taking his gaze off me. “Skyla, would you do me the honor of spending your life with me? Gracing me with your presence for as long as I have breath in my body? Every day on Earth would be paradise a thousand times richer than this with you by my side. Be my wife—marry me.”
I take Logan in as all of the splendor of Ahava glitters around us in a parade of unspeakable joy. The landscape lights up with jubilation at the prospect of our union.
“Logan.” I take up both his hands and smile wide. “I—”
The sky blackens. It expels a thunderous clap—flattens like a lead blanket over a house of cards.
I already know my answer.
And when the time is right, I’ll give it.
Chapter 99
Tunnel of Love
A black mist takes over.
The horrific sound of people screaming fills the air. This place, this stench, it’s all too recognizable—the Tenebrous Woods.
I try to run and smack into Logan.
“I’ve got you.” He pushes a quick kiss over the top of my head.
Ahava spins through my mind. It was so beautiful, so serene. Everything was perfect with the two of us, then it was lights out. I can’t help think it might be some big analogy for our relationship—my mother’s way of warning me of the doom and gloom to come.
A dull grey light warbles in this direction and illuminates the purple tree trunks with gnarled roots that
dangle from the upper branches like dreadlocks.
“Before he gets here—” I whisper, with my chin tucked.
“No.” Logan wipes his finger over the outline of my lips. “Don’t. It was stupid. I should never have put you in that position. Promise me you won’t answer.” A broken heart just might push me over the edge.
“It wasn’t stupid,” I whisper. “It was the most beautiful thing anyone has ever said to me. I love you, Logan.” I’ll never forget that moment, the water shimmering beneath us, the sky above like one long crystallized diamond, and Logan declaring his love for me right there in Paradise. Every one of those feelings I had from the beginning flooded back. Not even Gage and his wondrous affection could dam up their efforts. “Who said you’d end up with a broken heart?” I touch my fingers to his cheek and feel his skin sizzle against mine.
“Come.” Ingram appears and funnels us through a maze as though he were directing the flow of traffic. Of course, this would be the most horrific detour ever.
What Ezrina ever saw in him I will never know, I say.
Logan squeezes my hand. From what I gather, they were sort of forced together. According to her, she only had eyes for Heathcliff.
Ironic how my mother plants three handsome prospects before me, and here Ezrina only wanted the one, and that never panned out for her.
It’s panning out for her now. Logan rubs my palm with his thumb. In bits and pieces.
Oops, sorry, I pull his hand close to my chest. I don’t mean to lump you in a group because you’re not. You’re special. I know this—I can feel it.
His brows rise and fall. Maybe when we get back, your mother can fill you in on the rest of the story.
The rest of what story?
The rest of our story. Logan stops shy of the internment Ingram has procured for us. She spoke with me again. I think it’s important you hear the rest from her.
I knew it. My mother has been withholding vital information this entire time. She’s vindictive that way.
Ingram hands Logan a long leather strap to secure me with.
“I won’t fight,” I say it with a touch of pride.
“Suit yourself.” Ingram backs up, taking the leather menace with him. “We’ve a new consumer waiting to partake.”
Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!
What if it’s some old geezer or a totally crazed lunatic that accidentally gnaws my head off? This is so going to get ugly fast I can feel it.
“She’s ready,” Ingram calls. “Elysian, step two paces to the left.”
God—Logan is going to go ape shit if this creature even makes me whimper, and of course, that will land Logan in the Elysian Fields permanently, and well, probably me, too.
A thin framed boy with familiar sandy blond hair steps forward.
“Ellis?” Logan and I say it in unison.
“Hey, guys.” He strides over sheepishly.
Ellis is here to rescue me! This is fantastic. It’s the total F. U. to his father, who by the way is a total perv, and I would have gone down fighting if he were the vampire in question coming in for a quick sip of some of my Celestra reserve.
Ellis steps forward and dusts the hair off my shoulders.
I keep eyeing Logan so he can give me some kind of signal and I’ll know when to kick Ingram in the balls on my way out of this maze. He so deserves it.
“So how do I do this?” Ellis rasps. His breath actually holds the scent of mouthwash, not pot central at all.
“I don’t know,” I whisper, trying be covert with our efforts. “How do you think we should do this?”
Ellis leans in and licks at my neck.
“Eww!” I bat him away.
“Tie her up,” Ingram commands.
“What are you doing?” Logan knifes the words while jamming his fist into his hand—I presume instead of Ellis’s face.
“I’m here to get some blood. My dad thinks it’s a good idea to start getting into this shit, so of course I’m going to request Skyla. Dude”—Ellis shoves Logan back a good foot—“it’s not like I’m going to kill her.”
“Since a struggle has ensued, I’m afraid this is mandatory.” Ingram shoves the leash into Logan.
Logan straps my arms and legs with the long leather snake. My limbs spread wide, leaving me vulnerable to Ellis’s every desire. I pull my head back, trying my hardest not to do something stupid to Ellis, like reach down and bite his ear off.
Ellis grazes my neck with his lips. He starts by giving me a hickey then quickly acclimates to the process. I can feel his teeth sink in and I draw a sharp breath as the lifeblood begins to drain from me.
Freaking Ellis.
His mind starts to wander from the memory of a cheeseburger to far more fictitious memories that involve lots of female anatomy and his partially clothed yet fully attentive body. Ellis starts in on a porno reel that makes my entire person blush head to toe from the offensive. The worst part is, I happen to be starring in said impure mental infraction along with Chloe, Brielle, and, of course, the guest of honor, Ellis himself.
I groan from the visual. This goes on for what feels like hours—for far longer than I have blood to give, that’s for damn sure. I’ve never seen anything so disgusting, so perverse. It stretches out to include such insanely vile behavior that I no longer want a bird’s-eye view of. In fact, I want off the pleasure-Ellis-merry-go-round immediately.
Gah! The bodies gyrate in rhythm and Ellis starts in on a move that horrifies me into paralysis. Ellis zooms in on a tight shot of the female anatomy I never knew existed. He pans out and to a mass of moving flesh—pale limbs intertwined with tawny limbs and Ellis’s hairy self, entangled in the middle. Little did I know he was capable of ratcheting up the heat in such a disturbing manner.
“No, not that,” I hiss quietly, lest the tyrant of the tunnels hears and has my mouth sewn shut with the flesh of a dead Celestra. No, no, no! Oh crap. There we are in one mass tangle of flesh, Chloe clawing over me like a lioness, ravaging me while Ellis sodomizes Brielle. Ellis quickly abandons his post at Brielle’s hindquarter and yanks me into him, and it’s a replay of those bunnies from Marshall’s backyard.
The ground shakes in rhythm to Ellis’s fantasy.
Every hint of sound, of color, of light, gets vacuumed out of existence—everything goes silent, then the world morphs to a still, beautiful, black.
Chapter 100
Love the Hard Way
A seizure of light explodes from up above.
“Move her.” Marshall’s soothing tone washes over me like the strum of a harp.
“Touch me,” I want to say, but my lips are numb, too weak to move.
“I don’t care about protocol, damn it!” My father shouts with a ferocity I’m not accustomed to. “She’s in pain, Candace. Have a heart for once, will you?” He booms.
I fade in and out, struggling to rouse from this coma-like slumber as the world bustles to life around me.
Marshall’s living room takes shape; the sofa, the coffee table, the piano in the distance—it comforts me on some intrinsic level as I relax into the loving arms that hold me.
“I’ve another vial in the humidifier,” Marshall instructs. “Last drawer in the fridge.”
A sharp jab explodes over my bottom as he pushes in the venom with very little mercy. An icy chill penetrates deep within my tissue. Another jab hits just above that, forcing my eyes to spring wide as I suck in a breath at the pain. A choking sound emits from my throat as I try to initiate a scream.
So help me God, I will asphyxiate Ellis in his sleep—first, for landing me in some depraved group fantasy, and second, for causing so much pain and suffering in the aftermath of his rather heated blood withdrawal.
“And, one last time.” Marshall sings while injecting me with another sharp bite of venom.
“Don’t focus on the pain.” My father hums from above. “Think of how fortunate you are to be out of the tunnels.” A hot teardrop rains from above and filters into my lip line, for
cing me to taste the salt from my father’s sorrow. “You’re pure as gold, Skyla. You must never forget that.”
My body contracts. Large, clapping seizures slam and retract my torso like an accordion.
White, blinding, pain—a nuclear detonation of a million tiny pain receptacles ignite throughout my body at once.
This is the end of my existence—this is how I die—raging in agony in my father’s lap. My torso bucks in rhythm. I gallop like a horse trying to hitch a ride with the Grim Reaper, but he won’t stop for me—death never comes.
A vision pulls me out of my semi-conscious state—the pain fading to the background in a fit of supernatural respite.
A dark bedroom appears. This time I recognize the bed and the man with his naked limbs. Gage bears down on me with heated passion and I push him away.
Help me, I plead.
What’s wrong? He pants, still worked up from his shower of affection.
We need to find Logan. I pull back the sheets and expose my naked body, long slender legs, nothing but skin.
You’re having another nightmare. He births the words with sweet sorrow.
I need to make sure Logan made it out of the tunnels.
Gage relaxes next to me and pulls me in lovingly. He isn’t here anymore—he’s gone. His voice breaks just like my father’s, as his dimples press in. Gage is bereaved, his expression heavy with concern. Logan isn’t in the tunnels, Skyla. He’s dead.
I sit up, startled. Tears stream down my face as I try to evict the nightmare from my mind.
“Skyla,” my father whispers, burying me in his chest, “you’re back. How do you feel?”
I dart a glance around the room and find Marshall kneeling to my left, running his hand over my arm with his sweet, soothing vibrations.
“Where’s—” I pause when I see the most beautiful sight in the world—Logan. “I’m OK, Daddy.” I relax in his arms and give way to a sigh. Logan is alive and all is right with the world.
***
Logan drives me home. He sent Gage a text as we pull into the driveway to let him know I was taken, but that I’ve recovered—that I’m all right.
Toxic Part Two (Celestra Series Book 7.5) Page 27
