The Serpentine Butterfly Read online

  “Actually.” She looks to Logan. “There is something big I have to tell you.” Her chest pulsates like a heartbeat all its own as she struggles to catch her breath. “I can’t believe this is how it’s going to happen, but Marshall knows, and I think I’d rather tell you both at the same time.”

  The slight curve of a smile struggles to break free, but I resist. I want to savor this moment. Candace has already told me that Skyla is having my child. It was all I could think about these last few days—weeks. She and that precious life inside her have been my motivation to get better, to get home.

  “Give me your hands.” She motions to both Logan and me. “I want to get us out of here. This is the last place I want to remember when we think back on this moment.”

  “I can’t transport us.” Teleportation is the one gift I’ll miss.

  Skyla wets her lips as she considers this. “I can.”

  Both Logan and I exchange a glance of suspicion.

  “Take my hands,” she coaxes again, and we’re quick to comply. I bend over and grab my cane in the event we don’t come back, and I’m hoping we won’t. “I’m going to take you someplace special. And after our little trip, none of us will ever be the same again.”

  * * *

  My muscles tense as every cell in my body rearranges itself from the flight over.

  I open my eyes, slow, dreamlike, my back still aching, my legs weak from standing so long. I recognize this bluff, the sound of the roaring ocean down below, the feel of the pressing dark clouds as they meet up with this dismal horizon. The world spins for a moment as that dreaded day comes back to me. I steady myself on my cane to keep from reprising that fateful fall to the rocks below.

  “Devil’s Peak?” Logan asks for both of us.

  “Yes.” Skyla walks over to the edge and peers down. Her shoulders press back, her chin up as if she’s just defeated the enemy.

  I glance around at the vicinity. A group of stoners sits in the dirt field adjacent to the parking lot, and a group of girls not too far from that sits in the flat bed of a truck. It’s all so normal. Six weeks I was gone, and life simply went on without a stoner hiccup. I’m not sure why this pains me. I’m back. I pull Skyla in and get lost for a moment in that beautiful mass of curls that surrounds her, those ruby lips that wait for me.

  “I want to make this place special—take back the power it has over us.” She takes a step toward the safety rail. “I never want to look at Devil’s Peak again and be covered with grief. I want this to be the place where I tell you both the most incredible news of my life.”

  My heart sings as I glance to Logan. I’m glad he’s here to share our news. A very small yet vindictive part of me wants him to know that Skyla and I did this. We knitted this beautiful being into existence—that despite what happened between the two of them, our love burns bright.

  “Okay.” Her hand floats back to her belly. “I thought I might be, but I wasn’t sure.” She bites down on her lip, hardly able to contain her joy. “Logan, Gage…”

  Her eyes remained focused on mine even when she said his name, and I’m only slightly ashamed at how much satisfaction that gives me.

  “Skyla, what it is?” Logan focuses on the fact her hand is pressed to her stomach. “Are you feeling sick again?”

  “No—well, maybe just a tiny bit, but with Gage back, I can handle whatever my body wants to give me.” She nods into me, her eyes brimming with excitement. “Even a baby.”

  “Skyla.” I pull her in and crush her body to mine. The waves taunt me just past her shoulder with their familiar chorus, but I choose to ignore them. I choose to focus on this one blessed moment, and all feels right with the universe.

  “A baby?” Logan is stunned. His face bleaches out, his lips pursed as he tries to decipher exactly what she means.

  She gives a furtive nod, and he lunges at her. His arms replace mine as he greedily pulls her to him and spins her in a celebratory circle.

  His laughter lights up the vicinity as he pours kisses over her face before backing away, his demeanor softening once he realizes I’m still here. Figures.

  “Skyla.” His fingertips graze her waist as if it was holy ground, and it is. Logan’s features melt with grief. “Gage, I’m so sorry.” He shakes his head as if he’s somehow responsible—wait. “It was really hard with you gone. You don’t know the level of agony we went through. It was never our intention.”

  “What was never our intention?” Skyla tries to step in front of him, tries to hook his gaze, but he doesn’t waver.

  “It’s okay, Skyla.” Logan’s nostrils flare, his eyes gloss with moisture.

  I can see the intense level of grief in him, and a part of me wants to put him out of his misery. I know damn well that baby is mine. Candace told me so herself right before she pushed me off this very cliff.

  “Skyla and I never intended to fall into bed together. This baby wasn’t brought into being over the glee of your passing,” he pleads his case with watery eyes. “We needed one another. I’m so sorry that it led to that, but I’m hoping you can forgive me. It wasn’t my intention to take advantage of her.”

  Skyla smacks him over the arm. “What the hell are you talking about? Are you trying to steal my thunder? I’m pregnant! I’m having Gage’s baby—” Her mouth falls open as she puts the pieces together. “Why would you think I’m having your child, Logan?” Her head cocks to the side as she weighs his intentions.

  “Skyla.” He ticks back a notch. “It’s okay. Our secret is out. It’s best we not play any mind games.” He looks to me in earnest. “Forgive us for sleeping together, Gage. Please, just forgive us.”

  “Oh no, you don’t.” Skyla wags her finger, first at him, then at me. “You don’t forgive me.” Her voice is low and husky.

  Skyla is incredulous that Logan would out them this way, and, quite frankly, I don’t get it. Logan is right. It’s best we lay everything out onto the table right now. No mind games.

  “I am having your baby, Gage.” The whites of her eyes glow like hot coals. She looks to Logan and seethes, “I don’t know what you’re up to, but you are acting a hell of a lot like Chloe Bishop than you ever are yourself.”

  Logan steps in to settle her, then freezes midflight. His eyes bug out like eggs.

  “You don’t think?” I stop myself from finishing the thought. A rush of relief fills me. “Skyla? You didn’t sleep with Logan, did you?”

  “No.” She shakes her head, baffled. “He didn’t even stay the night. Laken was with me almost every night for a week. I swear, I haven’t touched him—not in that way.” Her demeanor changes on a dime from defensive to stunned. A deep guttural groan escapes her. “Chloe.”

  Skyla and I look to Logan, his face somber as shit, his eyes focused just past us at some unknowable horizon where he is undoubtedly wrapping his hands around Bishop’s neck.

  “Demetri showed me the whole thing.” I swallow hard. “In the viewing room. I saw you with her, and I thought it was Skyla. She was uncanny.” I threw that last part in on behalf of Logan’s defense. Not sure why.

  “It wasn’t me. I swear on all that is holy.” Skyla’s speech is pressured, desperate for both of us to believe her. “Oh, that fucking bitch!” Her voice twists like a tornado into the sky, piercing the thin layer of hope that divides this plane and the ethereal. Skyla lunges at Logan, knotting up his shirt with her hands with a vengeance. “You slept with Chloe?” She offers up a violent shake until he tosses his hands in the air in surrender. “How could you do that?” she rages. “What on God’s Earth would possess you to think she was me? She’s nothing but an evil chameleon! When did this happen?”

  Logan twists his lips, and that hard divot Skyla dug into his cheek years ago depresses.

  He winces. “It was a reoccurring event.”

  Skyla snaps her head back and lets out an arduous roar.

  “Enough.” I try to pull them apart, but Skyla is too hopped up on rage to let go.

  “How could
you?” Her voice breaks for just a moment before her pissed-off resolve rises again. “She will never be me! How dare you not know the difference! Chloe Bishop is a cunt who is about to have her head handed to her on a paper plate. I don’t care how many kids that beast has brewing in her belly. That witch is mine.” Skyla takes off like a bullet toward an opening in the fence before leaping off the side of Devil’s Peak like an angel who forgot her wings. Her hands lift over her head, and her wedding ring catches the light, giving me a wink as she falls through the earth, right through to the Transfer.

  “Go get her,” I riot in Logan’s face.

  “You’re coming with me.”

  “I’m human. The last fall almost killed me.”

  “You’re not human.” He wraps his arms around me and launches us both off the side of the cliff. “You only wish you were.”

  The Jackass in Me

  LOGAN

  There is something about the act of falling that has the power to lull me to sleep. It’s hypnotic, an adrenaline rush with the ability to soothe me on many levels. My life can be broken down into a series of falls, not at all hypnotic or soothing. There was the initial fall, the burn I sustained over most of my body from the Counts that sought to incinerate my parents alive. Then, there was the second fall through time where I came back, only to be raised by my brother, Barron, as his nephew. Next comes the infamous fall in which I traded my allegiance from Celestra to the Countenance all in the name of aiding the girl I love, leading to my death, of course, the day Chloe saw fit to sever my head from my body and make it bow to my own feet. Then, perhaps the lesser fall in which I accepted the Treble handed to me by Candace that allows me to exist among the living. And, last, but not least, and, in all honesty, probably far from last is the great immoral dive I took into Chloe Bishop’s body. I had been there once or twice before on a strictly voluntary basis, but this deception she’s managed to pull off only makes me want to shake her violently until her own head pops right off its base. It would be poetry in motion. I have never wanted to hurt another human being, a woman no less, in the way I want to hurt Chloe. This ordeal is over for her, but for the rest of my existence, I’ll have to live with the memory of how I loved her as if she were Skyla. For me, in those few brief moments, she was.

  The Transfer forms around us, dark as a cave. A dank blue fog is settled over the landscape that we usually don’t experience here.

  Gage and I hit the ground running. Skyla beat us to the punch, and now we’re afraid she’s literally punching Chloe’s brains out. Not that I would usually mind, but now that Skyla is with child—Gage’s child, which I’m sure he will never let me forget—I don’t want a hair on her head harmed. I’m relieved it’s his child. And I’m damn relieved he’s back.

  The doors to Wesley’s not-so humble home are sealed shut, and Gage slams his shoulder into one as he struggles to break in.

  “Let me.” I pull him back and kick down the door with all the Celestra rage I can muster. Gage winces as he holds his arm. He limps by my side with his cane as we head inside as the sounds of screaming and yelling fill the great room.

  We rush over and find the veins in Skyla’s neck bulging as she screams at Chloe, who is wisely hiding behind Wes for protection. I hope Skyla drives a stake through her temple. Hell, I might suggest it, hand her the stake just to ensure it happens.

  “Out of my way!” she roars at Wes just as he does a double take in our direction.

  “Gage?” He heads over and pulls his brother into a quick embrace. It’s eerie how much they look alike. It’s as if somehow Demetri harnessed the power to extract Gage’s reflection from a mirror.

  Skyla doesn’t miss a beat. She leaps onto Chloe, wrapping her hands around her throat until they both knock over like bowling pins with Skyla on top.

  “You bitch! How dare you! How dare you!” Skyla throttles Chloe, bouncing her head over the limestone until her eyes rattle into her skull.

  Wesley jumps to break them apart, and I secure the beast tight, channeling all my reserves to keep him immovable as stone.

  “What the hell is going on?” His voice thunders through the room, but Skyla continues, unabated. Chloe claws at Skyla’s arms, her skin enlivening in streaks of crimson as Chloe’s nails bite into her flesh. “She’s having a baby! Get the hell off her. That’s my kid in there, Skyla!” It’s his spawn Wesley wants to protect—Chloe not so much, and now I feel bad that Skyla is using Chloe as a battering ram.

  The room shakes; the fire explodes in shades of blue and crimson. Chloe’s body bucks in death throes just as Wesley breaks free from my hold.

  Wes wraps himself around Skyla, his hands hardly able to remove her grip. Chloe gasps, crawling away, clinging to her neck just as Gage throws himself over Wes, and Skyla makes her escape.

  Skyla flies across the room, slamming her body hard against Chloe, sending Bishop into the fire with a lurch.

  “Oh shit.” I’m not sure if I’m amused or truly worried for Chloe, more to the point, her child.

  “Skyla!” Wes pauses from his wrestling match with his younger, injured brother, and both Gage and he rise to their feet.

  Skyla whips Chloe around the living room. Chloe’s back is still ablaze, her hair in flames.

  “You don’t fuck with me.” Skyla thrashes Chloe’s body against the rug over and over until she puts out the fire herself. “And you don’t ever fuck with Logan again.”

  “Wesley,” Chloe gurgles out his name, her hand falling limp toward him. “Help me. The baby. She’s killing our baby.”

  Skyla’s mouth rounds out in horror as if she’s just come to and realizes it’s not just Chloe in that body anymore.

  Wes plucks Chloe off the floor and holds her stiff in his arms.

  “What the hell did you do now?” he growls at her. “Skyla, what happened?”

  I head over to Skyla and wipe the tears from her face. Her anger has her so worked up I doubt she realizes she shed them.

  “Let’s get out of here.” My stomach turns just looking at Chloe. “I feel the sudden need for a shower.”

  “Oh, Logan”—Skyla looks up with the underpinnings of her rage still very much intact—“there is not enough holy water on the planet to wash that scourge off you.”

  Gage hobbles over, and I land Skyla safe in her husband’s arms. “Why don’t you get her home? I’ll hang out here for a while.” I turn to glare at Chloe for a moment, and she lifts her chin in defiance.

  “Logan.” Skyla struggles to reach for me as Gage helps her to the door. “Don’t you let her off the hook. This is a crime subject to a higher court. I will take her to the Justice Alliance. I want her morphing abilities revoked! And I want her ass nailed to a chair in this Count coven!” She shifts her anger toward Chloe. “You will pay for this. I will not forget what you’ve done.”

  Chloe lets out an insolent laugh. “What are you going to do? Rat me out to Mommy Dearest? Newsflash, Messenger, I’m not afraid of your big, bad momma.”

  Skyla breaks away from Gage’s stronghold and takes a few bold steps forward.

  “You don’t need to fear my mother, Chloe.” Her jaw tightens as she bares her teeth in a show of aggression. “You need to fear me.”

  I nod to Gage, and he wraps his arm around Skyla’s waist, ushering her right out the door. The house falls silent for a moment as I glare over at the woman I buried my body in for the last six weeks.

  “Why?” The word curdles from my throat like a razor.

  Chloe takes in a deep breath, struggling free from Wesley’s hold.

  “Yes, Chloe?” he barks, sharp and loud. “Why are you fucking another man with my baby tucked in your belly?” His jaw pops, his dark brows narrow, thick like worms. It’s hard for me to look away when he emulates Gage so completely.

  “Look at you, so self-righteous.” She smirks, tossing her singed hair at him. It’s a well-known fact that Wesley had Chloe morph into Laken’s likeness for him on more than one occasion. I guess that good t
ime is a one-way street as far as he’s concerned.

  “I was lonely.” She rubs at her arms, and soot falls from her like necrotic snow. “I had a craving for an Oliver.” She scowls at me. “Besides, the baby is fine.”

  “You had a craving for an Oliver?” I’m stymied that she’d even consider me. “It’s Gage you’re obsessed with. You’re living—sleeping—with his twin, you dumbfuck!”

  Chloe’s mouth drops open. She gasps and clutches at her neck as if I struck her, and I might have with my words. It’s as close as I’ll let myself get to the real thing. And for the most part, it was satisfying.

  “Don’t you speak to me that way,” she seethes. “And here I thought we were friends.” That last word elongates like the hissing of a snake.

  “Friends?” A hot glowing rage boils through my veins. “Friends don’t sleep with one another under false pretenses.” I pick up a heavily carved, heavily dated, irreplaceable looking end table and smash it against the jagged stone wall. “Friends don’t decapitate friends, Chloe.” I stomp over and pant my anger, my hatred down over her face. “That’s what enemies do.”

  Chloe shrinks, her features crumbling with manufactured fear. “Oh, come on, Logan. Don’t get so worked up.” She bows her head a moment, her eyes still set to seduce. “I really think we can have a good thing going. I can be Skyla for you anytime you like.”

  “What the hell?” Wesley rages, pulling her away from me. “You will not be Skyla. You will not screw other guys while our child is growing in your womb. Get that sick filth out of your head. I am here to fill your every desire. Me!” The veins in his neck jump like cables. You would think Wesley really does care about Chloe on some level based on this visceral response. “And mark this”—he leans in hard over her—“you will never wear this face in bed with me again. Because right now, I can’t stand the sight of you.” He bullets out of the room without so much as a goodbye.