All Hail the King (Celestra Forever After Book 6) Read online

  “It’s true, Logan. Gage’s own words were that he chose Chloe. Demetri finished out the ceremony and Gage took Chloe into a glass enclosure that had nothing but a bed strewn with roses. They consummated their union as walls of fire ignited around them. I stood in their midst, my heart burning right along with those walls. He did it, Logan.” A single tear scorches my cheek as it rolls its way down. “Gage Oliver took my people and my heart and burned them both to cinder. Gage and I will never be again. He belongs to her now.” I fall into a thick, catatonic state, gazing out into the nothingness of the fog, my thoughts pleasantly vacant and my heart comfortably numb.

  Logan yanks his hand from mine. “Shit,” he roars so loud it pulls me right back to reality and I watch as he kicks the dirt under his feet, picks up a stone and hurls it into the woods. “That fucking asshole,” he thunders, growling and writhing. I can see his soul squirming under his skin as he struggles to process what I’ve just told him. “I gave him everything,” he pants the words out in a whisper. “It’s Demetri, Skyla. He’s got to be behind this somehow. Gage would never willingly—”

  “Gage is gone.” My words ring out like a gunshot. “He died the night of the boys’ first birthday party as far as I’m concerned. I don’t want to think about what’s happened since. It’s too crushing. It’s pressing against me with the weight of the planet, and I can’t breathe.”

  It’s too much for me to deal with. The betrayal Gage has executed will have to be swallowed down in bite-sized pieces. There is one thing I can do in hopes to right this runaway train, and that’s exactly what I’m on my way to accomplish. As much as I cannot stand what Gage has done, a part of me agrees with Logan. Gage would never willingly— And that’s the unfinished sentence only my heart can complete.

  Words I will never speak.

  Deep down, I will fight to clean the grime off of the man who was once my husband.

  Actions that no one must know.

  This morbid desire must be hidden from the world to a degree. Fighting Gage and loving him will only lead to madness. Right now I need to pick a lane, and it just so happens to be the one that doesn’t include Gage Oliver.

  Logan steps in, his breath materializing in white papery plumes.

  “Let me take you home, Skyla. Better yet, leave the boys with your mother for the night. Come to Whitehorse with me.” He gently takes up my hand and reels me in as he tries to convince me to haunt that beautiful house he built for us. Logan is a master of comforting me in my greatest hour of need. And ironically, he is always the road that leads to my next greatest hour of need. And still, a debate on whether or not I should go rages within me.

  The neighing of a horse comes from the woods and this time I’m not startled or frightened of what we’ll find. I know very well what we will see.

  “My sister.” It comes from me lackluster as Logan and I head into the woods. The evergreens spray their elongated shadows among the silver spears of moonlight penetrating the forest. The scent of raw earth and night dew permeates our senses.

  “Rory?” I call out. Her relation to me was revealed to me back on that horrible night, that horrible Halloween night—an irony considering it really was an All Hallows’ Evil night. Logan was apprised of her presence while she was haunting me for the better part of last year, and then I filled him in on who she really was after both she and my mother exposed me to the truth.

  It turns out, Rory was the first biological child my father and mother conceived. My mother miscarried early on, and Rory went on to eternity without ever experiencing the sorrows that Earth has to offer. But her soul was bitter. She claims to have been the one Celestra needed. It did not please her that I, the second in line, was gifted such an honor.

  According to my sister, my mother had stripped her birthright. Rory claimed the tragedy that embroiled her was exclusively our mother’s fault—our mother, after all, is the keeper of destinies. Our mother, Candace Messenger, however, had a different spin on it, as she usually does. In her eyes, it was far from her doing. She claims she does not have the power to gift life or death. Rory was dismissed by the Almighty’s hand, not Candace’s doing in the least. I suppose the truth might straddle somewhere in the middle—a fine line of right and wrong. I’m not sure whose truth cuts closer to the godly bone, and that’s exactly why I chose and still choose to stay out of it.

  “Rory?” Logan calls out, and his voice echoes back to us like a warm embrace.

  The braying increases with intensity, the whinnying, the crying of the poor beast all that much more urgent.

  Logan points to the right and a spastic white flicker catches our attention. We run over and spot the enormous white steed with a noose around its neck, the rope hooked up on an elevated bough. Poor thing. The horse indeed looks to be Shaddai, the ethereal horse that stands taller than any Clydesdale. My mother said the horse once belonged to her while both the glorious equine and she were living. And unfortunately, my mother was riding the beautiful beast the same afternoon she miscarried my sister. I’m not sure Rory has forgiven Shaddai or my mother ever since.

  The fog filters in around us, unfurling as thick as batting as if Paragon itself were the underbelly of an enormous quilt. I can almost feel the needle bouncing over my head as loving hands move with determination to entomb us inside of this mess we live in, forever.

  “I don’t see her,” I pant as I try to catch the end of the rope gyrating through the air like a whip. “Rory?” I call out one last time but nothing.

  The horse bucks and pulls back with all his might at the sound of her name and the noose tightens all the more. His eyes bulge as if he were about to enter the death throes, as if he were real. Despite the fact, this is either one phantasm putting on a spectacular show or somehow this beast has managed to come to life. And judging by the way he looks less transparent and far more solid and opaque, I’m betting on the latter.

  His hind legs buck violently as the distressed horse struggles to free himself, cinching the noose with every writhing move.

  “Logan, we have to help him. Do something.”

  The beast lets out a strangled roar and Logan wastes no time in climbing the evergreen and using his shoe to help ease the pressure between the noose and the poor creature’s neck. The horse jerks while shaking himself free and falls onto his hind legs with his head to the sky, his hair wild and free.

  A jag of lightning flares overhead like a crack in the night as if exposing the brightness of heaven just on the other side.

  Logan hops down and gives a crooked grin. “I follow orders.”

  “I see that,” I say, stepping on the tip of the rope before handing it to him. “And believe me, I’m impressed.” I look into Logan Oliver’s beautiful eyes and mourn everything we once were. How foolishly everything went astray. We were full of good intentions, but it was all a jumbled mess in the end. “I need you to follow another order. Take this beast back to my mother where he belongs.”

  “Come with me.” He doesn’t miss a beat, his eyes still magnetized to mine as if he were afraid I would bolt—and he should be, because I will.

  “Not a chance,” I say, my heart is already set on where I’m determined to go. “The last thing I want is to hear my mother say I told you so.”

  The sky illuminates once again in an entire web of light, and I tick my head back and roar at the woman who is at the helm of this insanity. And I do not for a minute doubt that my mother is in control.

  “It is Gage and Chloe’s wedding night!” My voice rubs raw as the words claw their way to the sky. The disbelief shines right through my voice and ignites a pall over Paragon, this haunted island Gage and I have called home for as long as we’ve known one another.

  Logan strides over after securing the steed safely to a tree. He stops just shy of me, his legs set in a defiant stance, his arms folded over his chest, that look of anger, of outright disappointment in his eyes, and yet not one ounce of it is for me.

  No, for me I feel nothing but h
is love permeating the night, radiating through time and space—and I’m terrified of it. After that psychotic display tonight, it’s safe to say I haven’t been lucky when it comes to matters of the heart. For so long I held love in my hand like a candle—only to discover its warm wax was nothing but an illusion. And now my world is burning because of my incessant desire to prove it was whole and right. Others tried to warn me. Chloe of all people.

  Did Logan try to warn me about Gage, too? He did in the end, but by then it was all too late. I had already coiled myself so comfortably in the rope the enemy had set out to subdue me with. I was tied and bound and happily so at that. I was content in my ignorance, never wanting to believe for a moment the enemy could be so cunning, and yet I saw the writing on the wall. It wasn’t even a secret to me. The enemy was hard at work. This much I knew was true.

  But the true deception came from Gage, the fact he swore he could love me through this horror we had ensnared ourselves in. And now I’m left to wonder if it was all a part of the plan right from the beginning. Those visions he had for so long, nothing but a lie, a subtle manipulation that I bought into so willingly. He was never a Levatio to begin with. And that’s the thing. I will never truly know what Gage was thinking.

  I look to Logan, forlorn. And it pains me to say I have never understood Logan all that much either.

  “Where are you going, Skyla?” It comes from him dark, demanding.

  “I’m going to right all the wrongs, Logan. And I don’t give a damn about your nephew.”

  “Good.” His eyes flare like amber flames. “I’m not sure I do either.”

  My cheek flinches as if he struck me. It’s sacrilegious to think of Logan without a heart for Gage. But then, it’s sacrilegious for Gage to have knocked my feet out from under me, to have killed my people, and to have made Chloe Bishop his bride.

  It would have been sacrilegious once for me to think that I am determined to make him pay. But he will pay. And so will she.

  Gage has become the heretic his true father has always wanted. My worst nightmare is Demetri Edinger’s dream scenario. A job well done for wickedness. My downfall, his elation.

  The horse whinnies into the night, fog pluming from his nostrils like smoke from a dragon, and I nod over to him. “Get that beast where he belongs. I have something I need to take care of.”

  “Take care of what you need to.” Logan bows his head a moment before bouncing back up to look at me. “You are not alone, Skyla. Don’t push me away. We are on the very same side.”

  “It’s not a coin, Logan. There is far too much geometry involved for that. You, me—Gage. We’re all so multifaceted in our beliefs, our wants, our desires we’ve slipped off the edge a long time ago. We’ve confused ourselves into believing the lies others have fed us, and in the end, the lies we fed ourselves were just as dangerous. We’re not children anymore. We are not pawns anymore either. We have one serious body count on our hands and the toll only seems to climb. If Gage has his way, it won’t end anytime soon. And if you and I can’t stop him, we’ll join the bloody heap ourselves.”

  I step forward against my better judgment and pull Logan into a hard embrace, stealing a moment to feel the girth of his rock-solid frame and take in the faint scent of his familiar cologne.

  I’m so close to losing it. The river of tears that’s threatening to unleash thumps hard underneath my lids as his arms wrap tightly around my body. It feels secure like this in his arms, safe, the way my celestial mother insists it should have been all along, and the thought alone sends me sailing out of his arms and back onto the road.

  “Get that horse back where it belongs,” I call out as I race as fast as I can down the long, slick tongue of Paragon highway.

  My Celestra strength demands to kick in, but I won’t let it this time. The truth is, I need this moment to myself, a few solid minutes to grieve all that was lost. It was supposed to be my wedding night to the love of my life, and instead, the night belongs to Chloe Bloody Bishop.

  How did life morph to such an incomprehensible nightmare?

  An anguished howl emits from me as the tears I’ve been holding back for so long unleash. Chloe Bishop is having the night of her life with my husband of all people. Gage has been her singular obsession for as long as I’ve known her. I’d bet good money she climaxed as soon as he touched his hand to hers at the ceremony. And to think she had me so very fooled. She didn’t wear that yellow dress tonight to represent her second funeral. It was Chloe’s true resurrection. The funeral was mine.

  An unwanted montage of the two of them unfolds in my mind. Chloe’s bronzed skin, her perky tits pointed up at him with anticipation. I have seen Chloe in the buff enough times to know what she looks like sans the stitches, and now I’m regretting ever laying eyes on her at all. I can picture his rock-hard body falling over hers. Those long stems she calls legs gleefully wrapping around his torso. Her hands demanding he touch her everywhere all at once.

  Chloe is greedy.

  Give her one Gage Oliver inch and she will steal a mile. But tonight she doesn’t have to steal anything. It’s all hers for the taking.

  I’d wonder if it were all a farce—but I was assured that the throne room would burst into flames as soon as Gage and I consummated our union—of course, that never happened. The Gage and me part. Instead, it took place with Chloe, and that entire dominion was blazing when I left. Gage didn’t consummate anything with me. It was Chloe he was plunging into. The thought of that body I loved so thoroughly—and I know every last inch of Gage’s mortal and resurrected body well, I’ve mapped it out with my tongue more times than I can number—the thought of him touching her, doing those intimate things we used to do with her of all people makes my stomach churn, and I retch at the thought.

  My mind insists on delving further as I see his tongue gliding over her body, easy as a snake skimming over water, taking his time while he buries kisses between her cinnamon-colored thighs. I envision him going at it with zest, his head shaking side to side as if he couldn’t get enough of her putrid taste. An image of him impaling her with his most prized member while Chloe screams out in ecstasy is a knife in the gut and this time I stumble to the side of the road and vomit up the contents of my stomach. Birthday cake and Gage’s stale kisses all purge from my body, leaving the bitter taste of bile.

  Another cry shrills from me, harrowingly loud as it rips through my throat. My feet start in slowly again as I try to push myself toward my destination, but I can’t turn off the show. Chloe with her mouth so eager to please—on her knees, filling her every orifice with everything Gage is willing to thrust her way. I can feel her unbridled passion reverberating through the universe as unabashed joy, ecstasy beyond measure.

  How is this possible? How is Chloe opening her legs and having Gage Oliver voluntarily fall inside? He must be possessed. I can think of no other explanation.

  The Gage who was resurrected cannot be the man who loved me all those years. He detested Chloe. He outright hated her. My God, how could he even get it up for that beast? None of it makes sense. None of it feels real and yet, there they are, the nonstop porno infiltrating my mind like a sexually transmitted disease determined to eat at my gray matter.

  Gage grinds away at her. Chloe’s heavy lids are unable to open as her body gyrates back and forth, hard and vulgar. This isn’t your sweet lovemaking my mind is berating me with. This is hardcore triple X porn that would and should be illegal in all fifty states. Chloe is diving her mouth, her fingers into every one of his orifices, pressing his knees apart as she splits him and makes a meal out of her most favorite dessert. Those tree trunks he calls legs, those muscular biceps, his oven hot chest—those all belong to me.

  Whoever this demon is who took over doesn’t have the right to give away what’s mine as if it were a cheap imitation. Gage is being defiled in the worst way, and I cannot stop it. The horror of it all is the fact that Gage seemingly initiated the action himself. He is slaughtering me with every thrust,
every speck of lust he has for Chloe Bishop. He’s traded good for evil, day for night—what could have been with what should never have been allowed to be a thought.

  I believed our love was tangible, a boulder that not even God could move turned out to be soluble, a vapor in the wind.

  My face, chest, and legs are drenched with my heated tears by the time I crest Paragon Estates. I take the back entry and pass by Nicolas Haver’s house—Nicolas who Gage himself put a bullet through, ending his life so abruptly. Demetri’s haunted mansion stands proud and firm, each window lit up with a peachy glow in this early hour of the morning as if it were mocking me.

  I want to stop. I want to climb up that hill and tear the place down board by board. It is the last place I saw the version of Gage I knew. It’s the exact venue where the boys’ first birthday was held—the masquerade ball Demetri saw fit to throw. Gage was decapitated there that night. I’d like to think that was the real version of him, but after everything that’s transpired, I don’t know what to believe.

  Had he been in on this from the start? Had he been a stumbling block in my path at every turn? His end game was getting the boys and stealing my seat in the heavenlies. A Fem can never be trusted. Perhaps that’s why he masqueraded as a Levatio?

  But my feet refuse me the pleasure of tearing my way through Demetri’s oversized home. Instead, they carry me right through the winding roads of the estates until I find myself on an all too familiar street, my own. I bypass my true destination and come to a stumbling finish once I hit the old Walsh house. That’s all it will ever be to me. It will never be my true home. Technically, it was purchased with my inheritance money, but that’s simply a legal tangle at this juncture that Gage and I will have to work out.

  The structure itself refuses any of the moon’s light. It’s unbearably dark. The white paneling looks destitute and run-down in this dim light. The red door holds an unfriendly hue of bloodied crimson. That’s his home now. It’s where Gage has been residing since Halloween. Less than four hours ago, I believed this would be my official home today. I believed Gage and I would pull into the driveway with the boys and make all of my happy homemaker dreams come true. I had already lost so much and I was willing to sacrifice the rest for him.