Throne of Fire (Celestra Forever After Book 5) Read online

  “He’ll come back for me, too, so let me know if you need a hand in that department.” The boys begin to fuss and whine in unison, and Logan hands me Barron as he picks up Nathan and lands him in my other arm. “I’m taking off to the Transfer. I talked to Wes. He said he’d let me in.” He winces because he knows full well Coop and I were given an eviction notice. “I’m doing my best to befriend him. Gage would want me to. Laken doesn’t care if I’m there. I’m neutral as far as she and Wes are concerned. Don’t worry. I’ll give you an update as soon as I get there and every hour after that. Ezrina already let me know that it doesn’t look easy. Whatever they did to her—they wiped her clean after that day Wes and she were together at the lake.” He tips his head as if I should know what that means, and I suck in lungful of Paragon fog.

  “That bastard,” I whisper. “Figures. Poor Cooper. Are you keeping him in the loop?”

  “He begged me to but, of course, I would have done it.” He leans in and presses a gentle kiss over my cheek, then a quick one to each of the boys. “I’ll be back. If you need help with Dudley, call me.” He turns to leave before pausing. “What are you up to today?” He narrows in on me with his eyes as if he knows it’s not a good thing.

  “I’ll be speaking with my mom—about Demetri.”

  He frowns toward the mayhem taking place in the backyard. “She does have pull with him. We’ll talk later and exchange notes.” Logan takes off and is quickly digested by the papery fog. “I love you, Skyla.”

  “I love you, too.” Logan is back. My Logan. And he saw Gage with his own beautiful new eyes. I replay the conversation about the handshake. The lightning show and Emily’s words come back to haunt me.

  “This is the beginning of the end,” I whisper, shaking my head in disbelief. The boys take turns nuzzling me with kisses, most likely a sign they’re starving since these kisses involve their new sharp teeth. But I can’t seem to pull myself from the moment.

  If Gage comes back to Paragon, it will feel like a brand new start.

  What in the hell could Emily have meant? I hate not knowing. I hate the wait and see that life seems to specialize in giving.

  The beginning of the end. Emily must be wrong.

  Gage would never truly side against me.

  The sky lights up like a haunted chandelier, and a riot of thunder growls and crackles. I back up until I bump into the trunk of an evergreen, and Barron lands his hand flat against it. His palm comes back red with blood.

  “What’s this?” I hiss, pulling him away, only to find the bark covered in the cardinal liquid. I give a panicked glance to the trees around me, and every single one is drenched in cherry red plasma. “Blood,” I whisper as Barron lands a sticky slap over my cheek. “What does this mean?” I look to the sky as if awaiting an answer.

  “Excuse me?” The cry of a little girl’s voice pierces the silence, and I turn to find a small blonde child with spiral curls running down her back shiny as gold. Behind her an enormous powder white horse struggles and grunts, his head lashing in every direction at once. I’m so alarmed by the violent sight, my body seizes.

  “Can you help me?” She strides forward, leading the horse by a rope tied around its neck like a noose. Her eyes look void of life. There’s a vacancy about her, as well as a familiarity I can’t quite put my finger on, but a shiver runs up my spine and I hold onto the boys a little tighter. “My horse is choking,” she says it flat and even, lacking the panicked enthusiasm one might expect in such an event.

  Both Nathan and Barron ogle the poor beast snatching the air as if to reach out for him, and the little girl takes another step forward, the hint of a sinister smile on her lips.

  “Help me. My horse is choking. Come, I’ll hold the children.” She holds out her free hand, her own palm covered with blood.

  A chill runs through me as sharp as an electrocution as I take a blind step backward and twist my foot on a branch.

  “No.” I take a few more stumbling paces back. “Who are you? Where did you come from?” I shout up above the rising noise from my mother’s gathering.

  The horse rockets wildly behind her, bucking his entire enormous frame, knocking down pine needles, snapping the lower bows on the evergreens around him. The trees weep tears of blood like a river.

  Another riotous growl breaks out from above as the heavens open and rain falls fast and spastic like bullets. The girl, the horse, they’ve both vanished as Paragon does her best to wash clean the bloody mess they’ve left behind.

  I run like mad, and the boys laugh all the way to the house.

  To say my mother hit pay dirt would be putting it mildly. Since the craft fair ended rather abruptly, and both Misty and Beau are crashed on the sofa while cartoons blare in the background, my mother has taken a seat next to Tad at the table while making neat piles of all those crumpled bills she stuffed into her apron this afternoon. The boys are still taking their late afternoon nap, and even though we’ve barreled right into evening, I don’t dare wake them. I can’t help it. It feels like bliss when they sleep. And I would love to grab a snack from the kitchen without having a finger that doesn’t belong to me up my nose or in my ear—adorably cute fingers, though they might be.

  Tad fists the dollars in his hands and shakes like a lunatic. “My God, we’re going to be millionaires! There’s nothing better than the scent of cold hard cash.” He snatches a stack of twenties and fans himself. “You know what this means, Lizbeth?”

  “I can take back that pricey cologne I bought you for Christmas?”

  “Nope.” He slaps himself silly, and I watch as each and every bill smacks him over the nose. “We don’t have to report it to Uncle Sam.”

  “That’s right.” Drake and Bree waltz in with Emily and Ember. “We didn’t report half the shit we got either.”

  I can’t help but scowl at Bree. We just covered this felonious tidbit, and I still can’t wrap my head around it. Apparently, neither can they. Maybe if I prod Drake a little, he’ll see the litigating light.

  “Isn’t that dangerous? I mean, it’s like stealing, right?” Come to think of it, Bree mentioned something a while back about lawsuits adding up against them. God knows an audit is next. I needle Tad with a heated stare. God forbid he rain down that nightmare over my poor mother. “If I remember one thing from high school economics, it’s that you don’t want to mess with taxes. Avoiding the IRS is like grabbing a tiger by the tail.”

  Speaking of annoying tigers, I need to get my mother alone, and quick. I need to beg her to do whatever she needs to, sexual or not, to get that wicked Fem to cough his son up. I can’t stand not having Gage in my life for another minute. And if I thought having twins was difficult before, it seems ten times more impossible now that Gage isn’t here to help me. Of course, once he died, I didn’t bother showing up for the class I was taking over at Host. And I didn’t exactly pay attention to my online classes either. I happened to log in last night once I got home and noticed four fat Fs in a row on my grading sheet. F stands for fucked, and that’s exactly how I’m starting to feel.

  “Nah.” Drake is quick to wave me off before opening the fridge. “Em”—he barks so loud I’m shocked that she actually marches right over and stops shy of throat punching him—“make me some eats.”

  “You bet,” she says in a peculiarly chipper tone, and I’m suddenly alarmed.

  For one, Emily is never chipper. And secondly, she should be rightfully pissed. Em is a Viden—a people born through Rothello of the Soullennium and some poor skank he hooked up with, which then sponsored yet another bastardized version of humans. They’re not in the traditional five Factions, but they’ve been sistered in. The Videns were sold to Demetri, who later gifted them to Gage. Anyway, Em’s brother, along with other Videns, went to work for Wes and got themselves turned into a bunch of flesh hungry Spectators which now reside in government holding tanks. Honest to God, I’m going to turn this into a PSA to all Faction members who think siding with the Barricade is a good
idea. In fact, I’ll share it with the Barricade, too. They’ve got to see that working with Wes will only lead to a fate worse than death. I snort at the thought.

  “What’s so funny?” Em offers a harsh stare while pulling out the goods to create an organic vegan feast that I might be totally sick of.

  “You.” I step on over while Tad and Mom work themselves into an orgasmic frenzy regarding their soon-to-be red-hot loot. “What’s with letting Drake speak to you that way?”

  She glances over her shoulder and spies Drake and Bree watching Naked in Alaska. Hell, we’re all hooked on that one, even the kids—especially the kids.

  “He’s going to help give Ember a brother or a sister,” she whispers. Her lids remain hooded as if she might cut me if I ask one more question in that carnal direction.

  “Oh?” I look back for Ethan, Drake’s older, not wiser brother, in the event he’s in the room, and then it hits me. “What? Do you mean with Drake? You can’t do that.” I smack her over the arm, and she holds up a butcher knife. “But what about Ethan? It’s going to crush him,” I hiss, trying to keep my voice down.

  Em makes a face while mincing garlic so fine and precise it’s a bit mesmerizing to witness. “He’s okay with it. And before you ask, so is Bree. She’s going to watch Ember for me while we do it.”

  “Holy shit,” I bark so loud, and both Mom and Tad bark my name right back at me. “You’re not doing this.” I lean in until I have Emily’s full attention. “Do not spread a single thigh before I have a chance to talk some sense into both you and Brielle.”

  “Relax, Messenger.” Em drops her knife as her shoulders sag. Clearly, she’s exasperated with my maternity-based meddling, and I do not effing care. “Drake and I have done it before—plenty of times. Before he was with Bree, he was with me.”

  “What?” And I thought I was up on all my Paragon gossip.

  “We fooled around at Harrison’s parties. Anyway, it’s boring. Sex with Drake is basic. I don’t even get off on it anymore.”

  “I heard that!” Drake shouts, and I cringe because I so do not want to be in the kitchen discussing Drake’s basic sex life.

  “Just remember,” I grit through clenched teeth. “Do not pass go. Do not collect another fetus until I have had a chance to speak with Bree alone.”

  “Fair enough. I’m on the rag. We have some time.”

  My thoughts circle right back to the man I desperately miss baby-making with. “So, anything new with Gage? Any visions? Any good ones?” My anxiety is ramping up just at the mention of his name.

  Her tired eyes look up, and if I didn’t know better, judging by that zombie-like affect she likes to don each and every day, I’d swear Emily Morgan is soulless. “He’s done, Skyla. Dead. What happens next is out of the ordinary. You, of course, will think it’s a blessing, but it’s your worst nightmare.” She blinks a dry smile. “I drew it out for you and left it on your bed earlier. That vision will come true today.”

  “Today?” My heart ratchets into my throat, and it feels as if my body is about to bottle rocket right out the ceiling.

  Mia and Melissa stroll in, and I charge them with watching the boys.

  I head over to my mother and grab her by the wrist, snatch my keys off the sofa table, and drag her out into the Paragon rain.

  “Skyla!” she screams as I toss her into the minivan while I jump into the driver’s seat. “Where are you taking me, for God’s sake!” she shouts, shaking the rain off her fingertips.

  “To get back the man I love. And, unfortunately, the only way to do it is through yours.”

  The storm rages over the windshield as if someone were spraying it down with a hose. Visibility is nil, but I’ve managed to barrel my way to the Paragon Estates by way of memory, by way of rage. Emily said what happens next is out of the ordinary—that it will happen today. I shake the part about it being my worst nightmare out of my mind. It’s not true. Just having Gage back is enough. Everything else is simply a detail. I want my husband home, in my bed, in me.

  I pass the Olivers’. I pass my own home. The Harrisons’. Marshall’s. Nicholas Haver’s.

  “Skyla, slow down!” my mother screams as I take the left to Demetri’s, and the van spins out three times fast, making my head stick to the driver’s side window with the gravitational pull. I hit the brakes and spot Demetri’s mansion sitting on its haunted hill and charge up his snake-like driveway. That night Gage and I drove up comes back to me. The last time I was here with Gage, he was alive until he wasn’t.

  “The Bastard’s Ball,” I hiss under my breath as I get out, and my mother follows me up to the tall, iron and glass doors. “Demetri!” I roar over the driving rain, but there’s no answer. That percolating rage that’s been brewing in me ever since I was robbed of my husband rears its beautiful head, and my Celestra strength kicks in. I initiate every last bit of it as I crash my shoulder to the seam of the doors, and they split wide open so fast and hard they slam into the walls with a horrific echo, causing the glass to shatter, and it sounds like an otherworldly applause.

  “Skyla!” my mother rages with her own level of unrepentant anger. “How dare you ruin Demetri’s home!”

  I turn to her slowly, incredulous at the ridiculous words she just threw in my face.

  “How dare I?” I roar back. “How dare HE! Demetri has destroyed my house!” My voice echoes like a tuning fork, forcing my eardrums to tremble. “Demetri has destroyed me!” I stomp forward in a fury and pluck a mirror the size of an SUV off the wall and launch it across the room like a Frisbee. Glass explodes, shattering in a delicate soprano compared to the doors, and my mother howls as if I just plucked a kidney from out of her body.

  “What the hell is going on?” a female voice demands from behind, and I turn to find Melody Winters and her twisted mother, Dominique, both with their crimson hair, long and sultry, their paper-white faces contrasted by their blood red lipstick. My eyes fall to their necks, directly to those twin vagina-inspired necklaces my mother fashioned out of my boys’ feet, and I lose it.

  “AAARRGGHH!” I charge at the nearest witch—Melody, lucky for me—and grab a fist full of hair while spinning her in a circle. I twist the necklace around her neck and bring her putrid face to mine. “Did you kill him? Did you kill Gage Oliver?”

  A hand slaps over my forehead, gouging at my nose, my eyes, until I’m forcibly twisted in their direction, only to find my mother’s horrified face gasping my way.

  “Would you stop!” I give her a violent shove back, and she takes me with her. I roll my body to avoid sending my mother into the spray of shattered glass as shard after shard embeds itself into my back. A dull howl comes from me as if I were dying, and it certainly feels as if I am.

  “Skyla!” she shrieks as she struggles to subdue me.

  “Enough!” a male voice thunders, and the floor shakes beneath me.

  My mother and I look up to find Demetri watching over us, panting, his features set with anger—something I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. And then it comes to me. The answer to a question I never knew to ask. What is Demetri Edinger’s weak spot? My God, it’s my mother. Truly only she can elicit this much emotion in him.

  “Demetri.” I slither from my mother’s grasp as Melody and Dominique scurry out of the room as if they were expecting a detonation. But I don’t detonate a thing. Instead, I land prostrate before him, bloodied, tired, so very weary, and he pulls me up abruptly by the hand before assisting my mother to her feet as well.

  “I won’t have this in my home.” His voice booms with the fervor of a cannon. The shattered glass begins to quake and quiver as the pieces slowly then frenetically shift to the center of the room. The glass trembles furiously, drifting gradually, gaining height until a tornado of glass whirls before us. One by one the shards piece themselves back together mid-air, the mirror spinning like a top until it hurls itself out of the room with a suction. The entire house explodes with a boom as the haunted speculum adheres itself back t
o the wall.

  My mother’s mouth falls open as she claps up a storm. “Bravo! Bravo! Wow, oh wow, Demetri! You never cease to amaze me!”

  “Oh, knock it off,” I shout in an effort to dampen her enthusiasm. “Do not fall for his party tricks, Mother! This is no man. This is a beast. You’re in love with a monster! Do you hear me?”

  The color bleeds from her face. Her eyes look sunken as if the reality of my words finally penetrated her on a cerebral level.

  “Skyla,” Demetri says it tenderly while offering me a hand.

  “Don’t you Skyla me! Where is my husband? Why did you have to kill him?” My throat rubs raw.

  “I don’t have him, Skyla.” He shakes his head, never breaking my stare as if talking me down from Devil’s Peak.

  “Liar!” I shove him in the chest, and he staggers back just for show, to both impress and piss off my mother. “I hate you! I hate you!”

  I bolt out of the room, away from the two of them, and into the grand ballroom where my precious husband drew his final breath. My numb feet carry me to the exact place he lost his life, the wood still stained from the wine poured from him. My legs give way and I land over it, lay my body over that horrific stain, and sob. It all comes to a head, the anger, the pain, every unbearable emotion in between. I should have known. I need someone far more powerful than Demetri.

  I tip my head back, and everything in me cries out, “MOTHER!”

  My eyes squeeze tight, my voice giving one last aria for the night as every cell in my body joins in on the fight. And then something shifts. Like the snapping of a rubber band, my body loosens and I slowly blink to life to a whole new world.

  Ahava forms around me, powder blue, ethereal with its fiber optic sparkling grass, the lake that shines as bright as a sea of stars. Standing before me is my exact representation—long, golden, iridescent hair, eyes as bright as noonday, a gown made of light—my mother.

  “Skyla Laurel Messenger,” she growls as if I had just eviscerated her favorite Sector. Her eyes ignite with a fiery wrath as she strides toward me with heated determination, and I stagger backward in an effort to escape her. “How dare you embarrass me—embarrass yourself as if you were a commoner. You do not trample and destroy at your leisure. Demetri has gone through measures for you.”