Roar of the Lion : Celestra Forever After 7

by Addison Moore

  “All right, well, if you decide to clock him, sucker punch him once for me, would you?”

  “Will do.” He starts to jog toward the house. “Oh, and Logan? I almost forgot. Chloe stopped by the house. She was frantic, looking for you.”

  “Chloe?” I glance back to the kitchen that houses that monster I grew up with. He mentioned she was acting strange. “Thanks for letting me know.”

  Jaxson squeals with delight as I strap him into his car seat. And no sooner do I hop into the truck myself than a deluge pours down from the sky. It’s almost as if Paragon was waiting until Jaxson was safe. I’d like to think it was Candace keeping an extra eye out on my little guy.

  But why isn’t she keeping an eye out on Skyla?

  Maybe later I’ll ask Dudley if he’s up for a ride to Ahava. But right now, it’s about Jaxson, keeping him warm, dry, and happy. I bypass the turnoff for the Landon house and head for Whitehorse instead.

  It’s time both Jaxson and I take a nice long nap in peace.

  Whitehorse is lit up like a jack-o’-lantern, and I cover Jaxson’s car seat with a blanket as we head into the house.

  “Geez,” I grumble as I work off my soaking wet jacket before freeing Jaxson from his restraint and pulling him to me.

  It’s toasty in the house. Michelle and Lexy are firmly planted on the sofa with their eyes glued to some reality dating show on TV.

  “Hey,” they call out in a zombified chorus, their gaze never leaving the screen.

  Lexy sneezes. “Close the door, would you? It’s freezing in here.”

  I kick the door shut with my foot before heading to the kitchen to warm a bottle for Jaxson.

  “Sweet Jaxson!” Chloe comes at me from seemingly nowhere. “Oh my God.” She tries to land her itchy, twitch-witchy fingers on him, and I spin my body away.

  “Hands off.” I shoot the beast a dirty look for even thinking about it.

  Lexy laughs. “That’s right. Bring him to me. I’ve got baby on the brain. I’m thinking about getting inseminated. Let me feed him. I need a trial run.”

  “Don’t do it.” Chloe shakes her head, her eyes widening with a slightly veiled threat. “She’s sneezed a dozen times since I’ve been here. Why do you think I’m hiding out in the kitchen?”

  Michelle grunts, “Because that’s where the cookies are, Bishop. Now throw me that box of Oreos or die!”

  Chloe makes a face before complying. “Logan, we need to talk.”

  “Nope. I’m busy,” I say, struggling to get the top off the bottle.

  Chloe takes it from me and quickly works the nipple off and warms the bottle up a second in the microwave before testing the milk on her wrist before giving it back to me.

  “I can’t believe this,” she growls. “So Ro—so Skyla’s not feeding him? What a little whiny—”

  “No name calling. My house, my rules.” A smile flexes over my lips as I cradle Jaxson, and he takes the bottle like a champ.

  “He should be nursing,” she whispers as she ogles the poor kid. “Oh, Logan. Where is Skyla, anyway?” She lays an unnecessary emphasis on her name.

  “I don’t know. As soon as I’m done, I’ll track her down. I think she’s doing something for the wedding.”

  “Oh my God”—she pitches her head back dramatically—“the wedding.”

  “Chloe, what’s gotten into you?” I’ve never seen her this animated before.

  Michelle looks my way. “She’s not herself. She’s been a real bitch all morning.”

  A dark laugh rumbles through me. “It sounds as if she’s very much herself.”

  “Hey.” Chloe comes shy of swatting me. “Be nice. I’m trying here. Boy, nobody around here believes in second chances.”

  I can’t help but huff at that one. “We all believe in second chances. And we’ve all given them to you. It’s chance two thousand we seem to have a tough time with. You really know how to test people’s resilience, Chloe.”

  “Right.” She clears her throat, her gaze magnetizing back to Jaxson. And if I didn’t know better, I’d say there’s a touch of sorrow in her eyes.

  “Stop looking at my kid like you’re going to eat him,” I tell her. “You’ve got a couple of kids of your own you can munch on. Why don’t you head over and see Wes? Raise hell over there for a little while.”

  “Oh, I plan on raising hell.” She gives an incredulous huff. “A lot of it. But I’m bottling it all up for Gage.” She leans in. “So he had you in Eversor. Are you okay?”

  “Good news travels fast.”

  “I was in the lab with Ezrina and Nev.” She gives a little shrug, and I hate that deep down I’m finding something very endearing about Chloe Chopped-My-Head-off-for-the-Hell-of-It Bishop.

  I sigh over at her. “Maybe go back down there. No offense, but you tend to scare children. I think they sense your general disdain for their kind.”

  Her lips curl as she frowns. “I promise I’m not scaring any child, especially not any of yours.” She glances to the living room. “Can we go upstairs?” she whispers. “I really need to talk to you, alone.”

  Michelle giggles herself into a conniption. “Is that what we’re calling it now, Chloe? Talking? Logan has Skyla to talk to. In fact, they like talking—a lot, hence the kid. Go find someone else to get your rocks off with.”

  Chloe shakes her head frenetically. “I’m not getting my rocks off with you, Logan. I have something important to tell you. Don’t make me drag you kicking and screaming.”

  I take a moment to give her a wry look. “Lay a hand on me and you’ll end up on the wrong side of the front door. Come on. Give me some peace. I need to put my son to bed.” I head upstairs and Chloe follows right behind, closer than a shadow.

  We head into Jaxson’s room where I lay him down and gently pluck the bottle from the sleeping infant’s mouth. I watch as he squirms into a ball before launching his fists over his head, his eyes still peacefully sealed shut.

  “Logan,” Chloe whispers, and I hold up a finger as I lead us back out the door. “I have to talk to you. Let’s go in there.” She nods to the master bedroom, and I scowl over at her for even thinking about it.

  She holds up a hand. “I promise, I’ll behave.”

  “Fine. But make it quick. I need to call Skyla.” I lead her into my bedroom, the bedroom Skyla and I share in theory. I head over to the bed and plop down before staring up at her, bracing myself for the lies.

  “Logan.” She drops to her knees, those dark cisterns she sees the world through quickly filling with tears. She reaches up and clasps her hand to mine. “You have to believe what I’m about to tell you. This isn’t some existential identity crisis. Logan, I am not Chloe Bishop—not deep inside where it counts. It’s me, Skyla.”

  A moment of silence stops up the air.

  I shake my head at this woman on her knees.

  “I don’t know what the heck you’re up to, but I’m functioning on little to no sleep. I’m tired, hungry, and cranky. Whatever your point is, get to it quickly. I’m not entirely sure I care who you identify as today, Chloe. So if you have something else to tell me, say it or get out so I can catch some shut-eye.”

  “Oh, Logan.” She drops her face into her hands a moment. “The night of my birthday party—at Ellis’ house? My party, as in me, Skyla. You left to take some of Laken’s things to Coop’s place, but the rain picked up and you stopped by Whitehorse. Remember?” There’s a desperation in her voice, I’ll admit I’m surprised to hear.

  My eyes widen a notch.

  Would Chloe have known this? Why not? She could have followed me.

  Figures. Now that she’s not with Gage, she’s running her own scams. And I’m not liking this one at all.

  “Yes.” I take a deep breath. “So what?”

  “So while you were getting knocked into Eversor, Gage was busy murdering me.”

  “Murdering you?” I blink back. “And who are you again?”

  Like a cheetah Chloe pounces over me and pins
me to the mattress.

  “Listen to me, Logan,” she breathes the words right over my face. “I am not going around the block with you. The night of my birthday party at Ellis’ house, Gage kissed me. He pressed his mouth to mine and held me prisoner there until he snuffed the life out of me. He smothered me with his twisted love, and once my soul floated out of my body, Rory was there to step right in. Any version of me you’ve seen trampling around this island, it isn’t the Skyla Messenger you know. She’s a fraud and a thief. And Gage deserves to be strung up by his balls for what he’s done to everyone on this planet, including you, me, and our children.”

  A roar comes from me as I bounce to my feet and end up halfway across the room.

  “What in the hell?” I pant as I try to take in everything she just filled me in on.

  “That’s right.” Chloe pops up by my side. “I begged my mother for another chance, and she granted me one possession. Chloe was willing—well, not at first, but that’s beside the point. Dudley helped move things along. Now I’m the primary soul in her body. She’s still inside this earthly frame. I can hear her. But it’s my actions and thoughts that rule the wicked roost.” She cringes. “Sorry, Chloe.”

  I tip my head to the side as I examine this girl before me.

  “Skyla?” her name presses out of me with measured grief. “Shit.” I reach up and touch my hand to Chloe’s cheek. “That’s why you’ve been acting so erratically? You sent the kids to Emma’s—you wouldn’t have anything to do with Jaxson…” In a psychotic way, it all makes sense.

  “She sent the kids to Emma’s. She doesn’t want anything to do with Jaxson.” She picks up my hand and kisses it with such a tenderness only Skyla could bring. “Did the two of you…?”

  My eyes close as the impact of everything that’s happened slaps me in the face.

  “It’s okay.” She shakes her head as tears flood her eyes as if it’s not. “It’s still my body.” She gives a little shrug. “Just don’t let it happen again.” A small laugh gurgles from her. “And I know you must have doubts about all this, so I’m going to tell you things that only I would know. I promise this will alleviate any doubts you have, and you will know that it is truly me, Skyla, the woman who loves you, Logan Oliver—my soulmate.”

  She pulls me back to the bed and we lie side by side as she looks into my eyes and details everything we’ve ever done together, anything we’ve ever said to one another. She starts right at the beginning. She dives into that tumultuous time at West, and our rocky love story plays out like a sad, tired song. She tells me about our first kiss, our first wedding, our wedding night, and our short-lived honeymoon. She doesn’t miss a beautiful naughty detail.

  I close my eyes and let it sink in as my fingers dig into her hair, my thumb caressing her cheek.

  “Skyla.” A lone heated tear runs down the side of my face. “I wish I could kill him. I want him dead. Gone. Where in the hell did Demetri put Gage? Because that cannot be him.”

  Her lips crimp to the side. “Chloe says it’s him, all right. She also said she appreciates this soft side of you.”

  “I’m not sure how to take that,” I say. “I realize I’m looking at Chloe, but it’s as if all I see is you, Skyla.”

  “No,” she bleats it out rough.

  “No what?”

  She cringes a bit. “Chloe asked if we could—well, never mind. I don’t feel like repeating her salty language.”

  A dull laugh thumps through my chest. “Sorry, Chloe. As happy as I am that you’re housing Skyla at the moment, I don’t think I could take things that far. Especially knowing you’re lurking in there somewhere.”

  She makes a face. “Chloe says it’s nothing the two of you haven’t done before.” She holds up a finger. “I’ve got this, Logan.” She averts her eyes. “Down, Chloe. I’ll be out soon enough and you can go barhopping or standing on a corner, or whatever it is you do to find men.” Her mouth falls open. “She says she’s going after Liam.”

  Both Skyla and I groan.

  “I hope she’s kidding.”

  “She says she’s not.” Skyla lops her head to the side. “And if that doesn’t work, she’s going after Barron.” A laugh gurgles from her. “Emma had better watch her back.” She presses her nose to mine. “Logan, I’m so glad you believe me. Oh, and one more thing”— she bites down over her lower lip in the exact adorable way Skyla has done ever since I met her—“Gage knows. I had lunch with him and he figured it out.”

  “Makes sense.” I shake my head. “I let him know you were acting strangely, and he said to talk to Chloe. He said she’s been acting strangely lately, too.”

  “Gage said that?” She narrows her gaze with suspicion. “It’s almost as if he wanted to bring us back together.” She glances past me, her gaze traveling out the window at the bruised Paragon sky. “I want to romanticize that he might be lonely—that he might regret his position in life. But then I remember how he heartlessly smothered me with his so-called affection, and I want him dead, too. If he was willing to do that to me, who knows what he’s capable of doing to our children. Gage is off the chain like never before. He’s a hellhound running loose with his tail on fire, and he wants everyone to pay for the pain he’s in. He’s lethal to any and everyone. The entire world is in peril.”

  I cast a glance out the window at the ever-darkening sky.

  “He’s going down, Skyla. Ezrina is finalizing the serum we need to hide the markers, and she’s going to nail it to the wall soon enough. Gage Oliver’s days are numbered.”

  Jaxson pipes up from the next room, and I quickly bring him back to the bed with us.

  “Give him to me.” She takes the squirming prince, and I give her the bottle in case she needs it. “My perfect son. Mommy loves you so much. I’m sorry about this. I’m so sorry about everything.” Skyla raises those dark Chloe-eyes my way. “We’re getting the boys and bringing them home.” She tips her head back in a fit or momentary frustration. “Shoot. I forgot about Rory. We can’t let her know that I’m here. I need to catch her off guard. She’s just as wily and dangerous as Gage.”

  “So it’s business as usual?”

  “As unusual is more like it. I’ll stay here.” She blinks back. “Chloe just freaked out. She thinks I should stay at Brody’s place or Rory might be tipped off.”

  “Maybe just spend the night there. Michelle and Lexy spend all of their time here. No one will bat a lash if you visit.” I pull her in as she cradles Jaxson in her arms. “Now how are we going to get rid of that wicked sister of yours?”

  “I don’t know. But I’m guessing Candace Messenger is the door we need to walk through.”

  “I’m guessing you’re right.”

  “And you’re the key, Logan. I asked her to put me back in my body. She didn’t do it for me. But she’ll do it for you. She’ll do anything for you, Logan.”

  Skyla is right. Candace will do anything for me. She gave me a new body and landed me in another decade entirely so I could be with Skyla. She gifted me a Treble so that my life could go on seamlessly after Chloe killed me. She then restored my life—she reunited me with Skyla once again. And now Skyla is badly displaced and she needs to be restored. Candace may not do it for Skyla. But she will do it for me.

  I’ll make sure of it.

  And then I’ll make sure Gage pays.

  5

  Wesley

  It’s been nothing but restless nights since the moment my world fractured. I didn’t think I could breathe without Laken by my side. For certain I knew I couldn’t sleep. But that much-needed rest does come. It arrives in fractions in the night, in snippets during a stolen hour in the afternoon, and sometimes in the middle of a nice, hot shower I’ll have the sudden urge to doze off and drown by proxy.

  Last night was no different. I finally went to bed at three-thirty in the morning, the perfect hour I find to pass out into a coma if but for a few minutes. I woke up drugged at sixty-thirty, squinted at my phone in the event Laken sent a te
xt—of which she has sent two since the incident, both regarding something she needed for our son, Wes.

  But there’s no text from Laken today, so I closed my eyes and tried to drift back to that still blackness that I pray will devour me. I’ve had a headache for days. My head feels heavy, sitting like a bowling ball over my shoulders, ready to roll right off if I make one wrong move. I close my eyes and beg my body to drift back to sleep. And then the release comes. My body takes on that weightless feeling I long for, and my thoughts scatter in twelve different directions like birds in flight, as sleep pulls me under with its promise of erasing all memory of the planet for one blissful moment in time.

  The door bursts open to my room, and the pitter-patter of little feet runs this way, forcing me out of any hope that sleep could have given me.

  “Daddy!” Tobie climbs onto the bed and lands over me with a thump.

  “Oof,” I exaggerate my injuries just to hear her laugh and she does. Tobie giggles easy and light like a babbling brook descending straight from the throne of God.

  Tobie, October Edinger is the daughter I had with the beast known as Chloe Bishop. Chloe was my wife for about a year, but it felt like a millennium, and not in a good way.

  Tobie’s long dark curls fall over my face as I pull her down to me and kiss her on the cheek.

  “Where’s Mommy?” She jumps down next to me, nearly taking out my eye with her rogue knee. Tobie had taken to calling Laken Mommy. And Laken was very much a mother to her.

  “Mommy is with Charlie and baby Wes. You’ll see them soon.” I’ll make sure of it. I’m sure some will accuse me of weaponizing my kids in order to garner close proximity with Laken—and they would be right. But I won’t need to weaponize anything because Laken has a genuine love for Tobie, and I’d like to think she has that for me as well.

  It was thought for a time that Laken and I shared Charlotte—Charlie—our sweet baby girl, but as the recent paternity tests have proven, she belongs to Cooper. I may have coerced Ezrina not to identify the truth about Charlie’s paternity way back when. In fact, I told her to keep the truth from me as well. Instead, on the day of Charlie’s birth, the day Laken was determined to know who the father was, I made it clear to Ezrina that no matter what the outcome, I was the right answer. I knew Ezrina would comply. Ezrina loves Tobie as if she were her own because, well, she is her own, considering the fact Chloe had her while in Ezrina’s body. And then there is Elias—Eli—the baby boy who happened to be born on the exact day as Charlie. I share him with Kresley, a girl I dated way back in high school. Kres has been a bit obsessive with me but I haven’t exactly returned the favor. And then I’ve got sweet baby Mally, Tobie’s full-blooded sister who is just a few months old, and last but never least, there is little Wesley Cooper. I wasn’t all that thrilled with the middle name, but I am more than grateful to have a child that will forever connect me to Laken.