Roar of the Lion : Celestra Forever After 7 Read online

  Sage smirks over at him. “I know my father well, too, Uncle Logan. And perhaps it’s you who is fooled. He is for our people, not yours. Any allegiance he had once sworn to them was a mockery. He needed Mother to conceive the boys—and me. Nothing more, nothing less. His hybrids were birthed to fight your own hybrids one day. Don’t be fooled, Uncle Logan, you can’t win. My father is relentless. He is the chosen one. He wins every war, and he will continue to win every war you dare throw against him until you are in the grave. My mother dies in a whimper, not victory. Father has one true love, and it’s the Fems and his allegiance to them. Please refrain from disrespecting him. He takes no pleasure in fools.”

  Logan’s expression sours. “Duly noted. Now, would you mind asking your father politely if I could get back to the planet? I have a son I’d like to see.”

  Sage makes a face.

  I’m not sure why, but she’s not a fan of most children.

  Sage lifts her chin. “Ezrina, please demonstrate to my uncle how Tears over Paragon operates? He wishes to see that river rat of his.”

  I draw a quick breath. “It doesn’t work. It’s been disabled.”

  Demetri shoots me a look as if this surprised him as well. It shouldn’t. He knows damn well Skyla is dead.

  Logan leans my way. “Disabled?”

  He squints over at me, filled with suspicion.

  This is exactly the can of worms I didn’t want opened. But Sage didn’t know that. Like always, her goal was to help me, further me, exhaust me. It’s unnerving to see her vie for me.

  “That’s right,” I say. “Sorry, buddy. No gazing in the crystal ball for any of you today. Why would I allow it? I’ve got a strategy to protect.”

  Sage swats me. “Let Uncle Logan see the brat. I can’t stand his moping.”

  Great. Sage has chosen a fine time to grow a heart. Maybe I should have confessed all of my dirty misgivings to her. But there’s just something inherently wrong about confessing to your own daughter that you killed her mother.

  “Yes.” Logan gives a curt nod. “Let me see the brat.” He lays an angry emphasis on that last word.

  Sage doesn’t realize she’s lighting a fire that could potentially burn down all of Eversor. Logan loves his child fiercely, and I suspect it will be moments not hours before he makes it abundantly clear he will find a way out of this hell.

  “Fine,” I say without an ounce of emotion. “Right after I hear what Demetri came to say.” I pull the old fart by the arm and navigate him out of earshot. Thankfully, Sage is right back to bossing Alice around, so I don’t have to shoo her away. “I need to get to paradise. I need to see Skyla.”

  Demetri is a dark-haired devil with dark jaundiced eyes that are usually busy laughing at the masses, but at the moment he seems to have sobered up. And he’s the exact soulless bastard—Fem—who sired me.

  He pulls his arm from my stronghold. “Have you tried on your own? You don’t need my handholding, son.”

  “Yes. I tried on my own. Believe me, you’re the last person I want holding any part of my body. Candace put up a hedge. I need to get there now. Get me to Ahava. I want to speak to Skyla.”

  “Very well.” He lands a hand over my shoulder and closes his eyes. The veins at his temples swell and his lips press tight, but not a molecule rearranges itself. We’re still standing in the shithole he gifted me. Demetri’s lids pop open. “It’s not working.” It comes out more of a question as he gives a quick—might I add, disbelieving glance around. “I’ve never in my existence been denied entry to the heavenlies before. My God, son, what have you done?”

  A growl emits from me, and I catch Logan, Nev, and Ezrina standing quietly by the fire as they look this way.

  “You know damn well what I did. If I remember correctly, you applauded my diligence to carry out the effort.” I don’t dare even whisper the fact I killed Skyla. In fact, I have one intense shield around my mind in this place. There is no way in hell I’m letting anyone else tap into the cesspool of my inner being, perhaps ever again for that matter.

  Demetri swallows hard. And I’ll be damned if he doesn’t look flustered for the very first time.

  “Crap,” I whisper. “You’re powerless, aren’t you?”

  His eyes enliven like flames, red-hot and molten, singeing me right to my soul.

  “Don’t you ever say that about me again. Do you understand? I am many things, but I am never powerless.”

  I lean in, my own anger reaching a boiling point. “This might come as a shock, but you are powerless without me. Got it? I’ve been doing your bidding like a good little bitch this last solid year, and it’s about time you paid back the favor. I don’t care if you need to tear a hole into the heavenlies with your pointed little tail. You land me in Ahava as soon as possible. I’m not fucking around.”

  I begin to stalk off, and he yanks me back.

  “Where the hell do you think you’re going?” he growls.

  “To Paragon before you get us kicked out of there, too.”

  A husky laugh belts from him. “When things don’t go your way, you blame others. An admirable trait, but it doesn’t work on me. Whatever disadvantage you’re facing, it is of your own accord. If you remember correctly, I had begged you to stay with Skyla. It was your decision to leave her, not mine.”

  It’s true. Demetri was suddenly a champion of young love, but only because he thought it would be a great way to subdue Skyla. And he would have been right. She was ready and willing to gift her people to Logan, to lay down arms and be my wife. As if that were some great title worth giving up everything she stood for. I wasn’t going to let her do that. Demetri must have known it.

  Logan, Ezrina, and Nev settle back on the sofa while Ezrina shuffles that deck of cards they’ve put some serious mileage on.

  I nod their way. “Why don’t you see if they can deal you in? They’re getting restless. I can’t keep them here forever.”

  “Then get a move on and finalize that serum. Once you have it, they can leave.”

  A heavy sigh expels from me. “You know I hate it when you’re right. I’ll be back.”

  “Bring what you can from the lab. We’ll start back up at the Transfer.”

  “Sounds good. But first, I’m going to find Chloe.”

  Logan shoots a glance my way as if he was listening in the entire time.

  That’s right, Chloe Bishop, you little bitch. I’m coming for you. Only, I’m not entirely sure who you are anymore.

  But deep down, I know.

  Yes, I do.

  Paragon in autumn is just like Paragon any other time of the damn year. It’s cold, gray, and foggy. You can’t see three feet past your own hand most days, and it creates one heck of a problem on the island’s only main artery. But lucky for me, I no longer have to rely on vehicular transportation, I can simply materialize wherever the hell I want to.

  The next day, the storm has blown over and the island streets are still slicked with dampness that will never leave us.

  I had breakfast with the boys, took them to preschool myself—even if it was easier for my mother to take them along with her. After all, they are in her class. She’s the director and owner of the pint-size learning establishment. And since the boys are there, she is right back to teaching. I saw Wes as he was dropping off his daughter, Tobie, and he all but gave me the finger. He’s been moping around this haunted rock ever since Laken walked out on him. It hurts to see him so miserable. Mostly because I happen to know what it feels like. Laken is to Wes what Skyla is to me. But then, there is Cooper Flanders. Fucking Flanders. None of this would have happened if it weren’t for his existence.

  That little snub Demetri threw in my face last night comes back to mind. Yes, I might be a finger pointer. And who the heck cares? I certainly don’t.

  Even though Wes has shirked off the Fems and the Barricade he loved so much, he’s still my brother. I care for him. And hell, it surprises even me. In the beginning, I couldn’t care less about Wes o
r the fact anyone was ripping his heart through his ass. But I care. I care deeply, and I wish I could be there for him right now. But I get the feeling this relationship won’t go the way that Logan and I took ours.

  No, Logan and I were able to rise above our differences and maintain a certain level of civility, a sense of brotherhood despite the very raw facts. But Wes is like an injured animal, feral, dangerous, snapping at whoever comes near him whether or not they’re a threat to him. And I’m sure Wes sees me as more than dangerous. What I stand for has cost him everything. The stupid idiot can’t see how he risks losing eternity with Laken. But my big brother doesn’t have to worry. I have his back. I’m taking this victory all the way to the bank and cashing in on a win for the both of us.

  But not this afternoon. Nope. This afternoon I’m on the hunt for Paragon’s resident witch, Chloe Ball-Buster Bishop. I try a few of her usual haunts, the Gas Lab—the eatery that Nev and Ezrina own and run—the gym next door to the bowling alley—Logan’s baby—and then Brody’s rental, where Chloe has been squatting since that infamous night, all of which turn up empty. I drive around town, secretly hoping Chloe took a dive off Devil’s Peak, but instead, I spot her at the strip mall across the street from West, standing in front of a small boutique called The Enchanted Closet. The boutique is a business venture that Michelle Miller, Lexy Bakova, maybe Nat, and Chloe all went in on. I guess it makes sense she’s standing out front talking Michelle’s ear off.

  I park at the supermarket at the end of the lot and jog on over. No need to startle her from the get-go. If I’ve learned anything about Chloe, it’s the fact you need to catch her unaware. I think she likes it that way, too.

  Michelle spots me first with those dark glowing eyes. Michelle and Chloe have always reminded me a bit of sisters, same long dark hair, tawny colored skin, same angry disposition in life. Her expression sours as she looks right at me, and Chloe is quick to follow her gaze.

  Chloe’s eyes expand in size a moment before narrowing their hatred for me.

  “In need of a dress to go with that pussy of yours?” Chloe doesn’t miss a beat. And something about that snipe warms me. It is very much something Chloe would say. I don’t know why I thought Skyla might be lurking in the skin of hers. Paranoia, I guess. But I’m not entirely satisfied just yet.

  “I thought I’d ask my wife out to lunch.” I shed my signature grin that Chloe has never been able to resist. Come to think of it, neither has Skyla.

  “I’m not your wife, Gage. After all, it wasn’t you who I made it official with here on Earth, now was it? That would have been Wesley. The man that looks like you, who actually has a pendulum swinging between his legs. You don’t have a dick, Gage. You are one.”

  Michelle breaks out into titters. “You really screwed up good this time, Gage.” She ticks her head to the side. “I never thought I’d see the day Chloe Bishop gives you the finger.” She leans my way. “And I think she means it.”

  “I mean it,” Chloe assures as she molests a blouse on the table next to her.

  I press my hand over it until she’s forced to look me in the eye.

  “Lunch, now.” It comes out curt, like a demand. And then I soften because I have to. It may have been acceptable to speak to Chloe that way at one time but not anymore. Michelle is right, the spell is broken. And if I’m right, and Skyla is on the other end of those dark sinister eyes… “I’ll make it easy. We’ll go next door.”

  Tasaka is Skyla’s all-time favorite sushi restaurant. She has never turned it down, and we’ve been known to pop into that establishment twice in one day. Chloe hates the thought of raw fish. Or at least she did while we were joined in holy matrimony, and despite her denial of it, it was true. She’d no sooner pluck her eye out and eat it—sort of the way Skyla almost did to mine yesterday.

  I bear hard into those cold eyes. Who are you? Tell me now.

  But she doesn’t. Instead, her lips quiver the exact way Skyla’s used to when I looked at her that way.

  “I’m buying,” I say.

  “Why would I go with you?”

  “Because you might just like what I’m going to say.” Heck, I don’t know what I’m going to say, but it’s irrelevant at this point.

  Her feet are moving and so are mine, and before I know it, we’re inside the small sushi restaurant, seated at a table in the back. It feels like old times, sans Chloe’s body being in the way.

  We put in our orders, two dragon rolls for me and two Hawaiian rolls for her, Skyla’s go-to staple.

  How do you like that?

  I lean back in my seat and stare her down.

  “Why?” It pumps from me before I can decide if I want to go there.

  “Oh, Gage.” She gives a sly wink. “I bet you really think you’ve pulled off some big psychological coo. Testing me with sushi.” She shakes her head. “You knew I’d do just about anything to get a bona fide aquarium floating in my belly. And here I am, with you.”

  “So it’s true.”

  “You seem to need an awful lot of validation these days, Gage. I’m not here to validate your doubts. I’m here for the fish.”

  My features harden. I don’t like this version of her.

  “Skyla.” My eyes close a moment, and I see her there in my mind’s eye, laughing at me, angry as hell at the very same time. But when I glance across the table one again, there she is in Chloe’s skin. “Nice move.” I lift my glass her way. “And now it makes sense why you came at me like that—why you hugged the boys and told them what you did. But my first clue was when you said that I took everything good I had from Skyla, Logan, and Chloe. I thought, why would Chloe say her own name? And then you filled in the gaps for me. By the way, that ass beating was for the ages. Impressive.”

  She frowns over at me. “Chloe wants me to tell you that she was perfectly capable of coming at you like that all on her own, but she didn’t care enough to do it.”

  “I am well aware. Only you have that much passion for me, Skyla. Because unlike Chloe, you care.” I lean in as a flood of emotion rides through me, and tears come to my eyes right along with a genuine rage. “Skyla—” Her name comes from me, tense and tight, the way it used to while our bodies were conjoined as one. And as odd as it sounds, I feel the same surge of passion pulsating through me at the moment. Yes, she hates me. But at the nexus of her feelings for me, there is love. I believe it. I know it.

  She grunts as she sags in her seat. “I pluck your eye out and you equate that with me caring for you?” Her brows hike a notch, and there is something about that simple facial expression that differentiates her from Chloe.

  Skyla has permeated Chloe’s frame so completely, she’s transforming Chloe’s hard shell to something softer, something that I could love without question. Yes, you could place Skyla’s soul in just about anyone’s body, even Chloe Bishop’s, and I will love her—forever, without hesitation, the end. My love for her is infallible, indestructible, immeasurable by time or space. We are eternal, and that is exactly why I’m protecting her, us, and our children. I am loving her the best way I know how.

  Her expression sours once again. “What wickedness are you spinning in that twisted mind of yours? I can see your wheels turning, your gut churning. It’s palpable, Gage. You’re constantly on the evil move. You don’t let yourself rest. You are incapable of stopping. It’s not Demetri who has his hold on you. He’s not that good, not that powerful. Something else is gnawing on your balls. It’s me, isn’t it? It’s the boys.”

  I flinch when she calls me out on it.

  Our food arrives, and we both ignore the fact.

  She leans forward, her head tipping to the left, mimicking Skyla’s mannerisms to a T. Although in this case, I suppose she’s not mimicking.

  “Take off the gloves, Gage,” she whispers. “Remove the patina of hate and step outside of your skin, your sins for a moment, and just be you. Remember the kids, remember whatever the heck links you to a better world, the better version of yourself. Think
of simpler times. I don’t think there is a soul in the universe that you can take one relaxing breath with. Not even yourself. You know it’s true.” She tips her head back, her gaze still tragically pinned on mine. “It must be exhausting walking around in that coat of wickedness. It’s heavier than hell, smells like fear and despair. It creates a hot and cloistering existence. And it’s ill-fitting, but you can’t figure out why.” Her features harden, looking every bit like the nasty Bishop that face was designed for. “I’ll tell you why. Because it wasn’t meant for you. You have become everything Demetri hoped you would be. And do you want to know the kicker? He’s probably stunned that he pulled it off so flawlessly. In fact, I bet you’ve outperformed his expectations. You always were an overachiever.”

  A dull laugh thumps through me.

  “Funny.” I push my plate away an inch. “We’re both overachievers. I think that’s what made us good together.”

  “Or good enough for you to fool me into having your children.” She shakes her head, and I marvel at the fact I’m able to look right past Chloe and see Skyla, feel Skyla. “But that’s not what happened. It’s the narrative someone somewhere wants me to believe. The puppet masters have determined that I should hate you. That I should destroy you like you utterly destroyed me. And I agree with those things.”

  Those words are delivered like a knife to the gut, sharp and unexpected, but they are the truth and I need to accept that.

  She takes a breath and nods. “I know. It hurts you on some level to hear those words. It is most certainly not what you wanted, but it is exactly what you set out to do. I know this because I do believe you are on two opposing paths. Your heart was left behind a long time ago. You buried it in that house we bought, in our bed that night, our last night as who we thought we were.”

  “Who we thought?” A smile flits on my lips. I’m not too surprised she chose those words, but they hurt as much as the truth did.