Crown of Ashes Read online

  Chloe positions her horse alongside mine.

  “What’s this?” I smirk at the sight of her. “You never were good at coming in second.” Chloe is a self-appointed leader in all areas of her mangled, mangy life.

  “I don’t come in second to anyone, Skyla. You of all people should know that.” Her long dark hair blows back, full and thick in the breeze. Chloe has a cutthroat look about her, as beautiful on the outside as she is ugly on the inside. “I come out on top if I have anything to say about it. I was your superior at West, remember?”

  “In cheerleading, Chloe. I think we’ve migrated past those pompom riddled days—hellish as they were. This is the new us, where you live in the Transfer with that lab rat brother-in-law of mine, and I live on Paragon with—” His name catches in my throat. I’m so livid with rage, I can’t even speak my own husband’s name.

  “Wow,” Chloe muses as we move through the countryside to our unknowable, yet drab, destination ahead. “One little foible and his very name makes you gag on the bile rising in your throat. Gage has turned into quite the four-letter word. You always were easy to trip up.”

  My blood boils in an instant. “Trust me, nobody has tripped me up.” I’m not entirely sure that even I believe it. “I’m not anyone’s bitch, Chloe. Most certainly not yours. Don’t you forget it.”

  “Right.” She scoffs at the thought. “You’re the one in charge.” Her foot extends to mine as she offers up a swift kick. “And you are, I suppose.” She exhales hard while taking in the evergreens quickly coming up on our left. “But you and I both know your lady boner for the dark-haired Oliver will bring you to your knees once again, quite literally.” Chloe moans to herself as if visualizing herself in a compromising position with my husband. I can almost guarantee it. Chloe has spent the last several years with a lady boner of her own to contend with for the dark-haired Oliver. “I bet Gage will make you get on all fours. You know, take you from behind. That will be his way of asserting dominance over you. He is the king.”

  “I’m not sleeping with him.” Ever again if I can help it. That little stunt he pulled last night has left both me and my vagina recoiling.

  “You will,” Chloe snaps. “He’s Gage Fucking Oliver—emphasis on the fucking. You always sleep with him. You’re a fool in many ways, but when it comes to men, you are razor sharp and greedy as hell.”

  “Shut up, Chloe.” It comes out far too quiet and morose because on an intrinsic level I know this is true.

  “You’ll sleep with Logan, too,” she goes on, unwarranted. “He won’t take you from behind like that. Too vulgar, not his style. Don’t get me wrong. He is a dirty, dirty boy. He’ll want you to ride him like that stallion you’re on now. You should have seen the agony and the ecstasy on that boy’s face as he gripped me, demanding I ride him harder, faster, stronger.”

  “He thought you were me.” Just the idea of Chloe taking advantage of Logan that way makes me want to hurl. “And would you please stop sleeping with people under false pretenses? It’s getting old. Stop using Laken’s face, and for shit’s sake, stop using mine.” Laken happens to be the woman Chloe’s husband, Wesley, is obsessed with. She also happens to share the title of my best friend along with Brielle.

  “Back to Gage.”

  “Back to Gage.” I scoff. “Anyone ever tell you, you’re like a dog with a boner?”

  “Gage can be my master anytime.”

  “He will be,” I assure her. “If he has his way, he will be everyone’s master.” I can still see him there on that stone of sacrifice toasting to his new life, one with Demetri, as the leader of everything I oppose. “Wait a minute…” I squint ahead to the tiny ramshackle town coming upon us quickly. “Something tells me we’re not on Yankee soil anymore.”

  “Took you long enough,” Chloe huffs. “I’ll give you another clue, oh fearless, brainless leader. We’re not even in the same century anymore.”

  “Crap,” I whimper as we plod closer to our temporal destiny. Music erupts from one of the establishments on the cobble-lined street. It’s late in the day, evening ready to turn to an instant midnight, as bodies stream in and out of a raucous little saloon with enough candle power winking from inside to combust everyone stuffed in that carnal hall of desires in an infernal holocaust. Women in seedy dresses pour out of the entry with drunken men pawing at their cleavage, vomiting into the streets between their bouts of heartless groping.

  “What are we doing here, Messenger? Aren’t there enough men in the twenty-first century for you?”

  “I don’t know what we’re doing here, or where here exactly is, but I have a feeling we’re about to find out on both accounts. And I’m pretty sure we’re not here for the men, Chloe. Put your ovaries on ice for a minute. Your brain might actually kick in and function.”

  Chloe and I park our exhausted horses alongside a few other majestic steeds tied and bound near the entry. It occurs to me as we stand outside of the open mouth of the establishment that I have no clue how to get us out of this dated, musty, dusty, rusty hovel for wayward women.

  “It’s a bar,” Chloe muses.

  “It’s a whorehouse,” I correct.

  “Well then”—Chloe threads her arm through mine—“it looks like we’ve finally found that home away from home you’ve been looking for.”

  Inside, music belted out by a live band accosts our hearing, five overgrown men with missing teeth and lewd intentions stitched in their greasy smiles fog up the stage. It’s loud as hell, the entire place is brimming with both boisterous activity and body odor—with wall-to-wall people—highly intoxicated as they might be—women in large bustling dresses, the backs longer than their short suggestive fronts, full and heavy breasts heave over their corseted tops, and suddenly the urge to nurse the twins hits me hard. I fed them just before I left. I nursed Tobie, too, Chloe’s poor speck of a daughter who is only a month older than my twins. My heart tugs at the thought of the boys’ perfect dark heads knit to my breasts. They’re my two precious little olives, and I miss them with an indescribable ache.

  “Maybe we should go?” I shout up over the roaring laughter, the howls of drunken men, the shrieking of cackling women. The entire place has a Halloween night appeal, something otherworldly, something out of an old silent movie, and right about now my exhausted eardrums crave a lull to the madness.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t.”

  A lone man sitting in the corner smoking a cigar catches my attention, and I recognize those blessed by God features, those whiskey-colored eyes, those lips that I’ve tasted while drinking down his kisses.

  “Logan,” I whisper and suddenly this entire new world feels like a dream. I take a step closer and the veil of smoke evaporates from around him, and just like that, his face morphs into someone else entirely as he speeds out of the room. “That was weird.”

  “You’re weird.” Chloe leans in as we absorb the scene together. “Looky there.” She motions to the rear of the facility where a pianist tries to keep time with the band, invoking a disastrous sensory experience that I’m sure has long been declared illegal.

  “What are we looking at? You want to dance on the stage? Introduce them all to a little Bishop twerking magic? I’ve got news for you. You’re on your own.” I take a few strides out in that direction and stop short. No, it wasn’t the piano Chloe was pointing at. It was the girl in the red satin dress with a corset I’ve seen before—the exact one I sported on a ski trip once. “Oh my dear God.” I walk numbly in that direction with Chloe on my heels. I see her, and not only do I know who she is, but her very presence puts in perspective where we are and the precise century to boot.

  “1645.” A dull laugh comes from me. I should have known. This harried, whorish scene has unfurled many a time in Marshall’s living room. And a part of me very much wishes I were in Marshall’s living room instead.

  Marlena. I smirk at how much she looks like the witch by my side. Marlena is Chloe’s long-lost something or other. For so long she’s
inserted herself into our narrative, our century, our world, and now here we are crashing hers. I suppose it’s only fair. Although, I have no clue what good could come of this.

  “I’m guessing she holds the key to this debauchery,” I say as we fast approach her, and just as we’re feet away, a man in a suit—dated as it might be—gropes her breast from behind. He buries his caramel-colored head into her neck and continues to squeeze the living shit out of her boob as if he were kneading dough. Normally I wouldn’t think twice to interrupt, wouldn’t care who the hairy scary man in the distinguished suit is, but I just so happen to recognize that head of hair, those strong hands that are currently exposing her left nipple as my very own spirit husband.

  “Well, well, it looks as if we have a class A pervert on our hands,” I say it loud enough for all involved to hear as a few stray women strut by and fan themselves with their feathered boas at the sight. Yes, Marshall Dudley has been cause for more than a heated moment or two in just about any century. He’s a walking, talking erection, a human bottle of testosterone that attracts even the demurest of barflies.

  “Oh, come on, Skyla.” Chloe brazenly removes his hand from her great, great, a million times great-grandmother’s tit, and Marshall opens a sleepy eye to get a better look at us.

  His eye closes once again and his lips continue to move unabated by what he’s just seen, and just like that, he freezes. His eyes spring open and he straightens rather lazily. Marshall moves Marlena to the side as if she were merely on the assembly line for the night, and knowing Dudley she most likely is. He squints into Chloe and me as if trying to place us before his eyes widen, hard and round, and his shoulders fly back as if at attention.

  “Ms. Messenger—Ms. Bishop.” He nods to the two of us before his crimson gaze narrows to mine with the slight look of disappointment. It’s technically Mrs. Oliver and Mrs. Edinger—Marshall knows that all too well. He’s simply in the business of disparaging our marital status, thus reducing us to the monikers of yesteryear while we were still his charges at West Paragon High. Everything seemed so easy back then. But the nickname makes me feel nostalgic for all things past. That must be why I rarely fight him on it. “What in the world—let me rephrase this—who in the universe has brought you this far and why?” He glances over my shoulder. “Where is your nasty supervising spirit?”

  I’m assuming he’s talking to Chloe, considering her nasty supervising spirit is Demetri—nasty being the operative word.

  “Skyla is the spirit who whisked us out to never-never land.” Chloe offers a smug grin at the women who seem to be steadily amassing around us. “And quite successfully so. What the hell are we doing here, Messenger?” She slaps away the hand of an aggressive onlooker who’s doing her best to fondle the fabric of Chloe’s jeans.

  “Ms. Messenger.” Marshall takes me by the elbow and stalks us off toward a room in the back. “I’d like a word with you in private.”

  “By all means.” I shoot Chloe a look as she continues her slapping spree with the grabby hands surrounding her. “God, wouldn’t that be great if Chloe ended up in some seventeenth-century dungeon? To the tower with her!” I laugh while shouting over the lunatic-inspired piano music. I swear on all that is holy, it sounds just like that annoying player piano back at Marshall’s estate.

  “Whose ghost do you think haunts those keys, Skyla?” Marshall lands us in a dark corner, and oddly enough the scent of his cologne, the girth of his chest, that angry yet lewd smile twitching on his lips is every bit just the way I know him centuries later—cuttingly gorgeous to a fault.

  “You can hear me.” I sigh into the idea dreamily.

  “Of course, I can hear you. I’m touching your flesh.” He gifts my elbow a quick squeeze. “What’s going on here? This isn’t your time or your place. In fact, I’ll go as far as saying this isn’t any of your business. Where are Jock Strap and the Pretty One?” He grunts, craning his neck past me. “Is this some sort of interdimensional takeover? Of what use is any of this?”

  “Trust me, I have no idea. Chloe and I were in the Transfer and we rode out on these majestic beasts. There was this tunnel of stars—”

  “Tunnel of stars?” The cords in his neck jump. “Who gifted you these beasts?”

  “They were just there.” Marshall’s familiar scent envelops me and I lean in if for nothing else but the comfort of home. “I instinctually understood they were for me.”

  “And Ms. Bishop?” His features harden as if I’ve purposefully unleashed a demon, and I might have. “What possessed you to schlep her along for the ride?”

  “I have no one else, Marshall,” I hiss so fast, it comes out like a threat.

  “What about me?” He glides his finger over the curve of my cheek and a fire sizzles along with his touch. A strong vibration, like that of a tuning fork, rides through my bones, quivering down to that tender part of me that has secretly craved him from the beginning. Marshall has always held the ability to incite me without putting in much effort. And I frown at him because I happen to know he heard. “I have crossed oceans, continents, ethereal planes, and left the heavenlies for you, my dear—and still you give me no consideration?”

  “Not true. I consider you just a notch above the enemy. It was you who showed me that dreadful sight tonight. You stood by my side while you-know-who drank Celestra blood—most likely mine by the way—before locking himself in a covenant with the dark side. Which means you could have easily revealed Demetri’s nefarious plan earlier in the day, and I could have talked some sense into that stubborn ass I married.” Still can’t seem to bring myself to say his name.

  “Skyla.” He inches back a good foot. “I could no more deter what happened than you could. Don’t embroil me in your anger. Be glad I’m not above revealing the intentions of others—timely as they are. I have no alliances other than you.”

  “You have the Sectors.” Marshall is Sector of the highest order. The Sectors have outranked the Fems ever since—I suck in a breath. “Hey, isn’t this the century where the Sectors and the Fems—”

  He brings his finger to my lips and navigates us farther into the back where another little alcove reveals a tawdry looking stage and women flashing their granny panty fannies to an audience of inebriated, drooling men. It’s then that I notice a large burly looking stick that rises from floor to ceiling in which each of the fanny bearing girls in question takes it for a spin.

  “Dear God, is that a pole?”

  “Yes, Ms. Messenger.” He grunts while taking in the scene. “Of all the things human men can spend their time engineering, they build poles for naked women to spin on. Poles. Glorified sticks for topless dancing girls. Man hasn’t moved all that far from his barbarous beginnings. A naked woman is still the greatest enchantress to the beasts in question.”

  I scan the vicinity at the room full of scantily clad women and frown. “My favorite Sector hasn’t moved all that far from his barbarous beginnings either.”

  I wrap my arms around his waist and pull him in close as if we were a couple. Marshall would love for us to be one, and according to my candy apple mother in the sky, we eventually will be. “There is a spiritual battle brewing here.” I raise an eyebrow in lieu of a wicked grin. “This is where you turned the tide, and now the Sectors rule over the Fems!”

  “Hush,” he says it so sweetly, so seductively, something in me trembles deep inside. “You have it backward. The Fems turn us over for a time—and then, of course, we come through victorious.” He gives a little wink. “But there is another war brewing, Skyla. And it percolates around you.”

  A vision of me challenging Gage tonight at the christening comes to mind. I declared a new war, one between the Fems and my people—and I declared it would begin with him. My heart breaks at what’s transpired between us.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” I shake my head while plucking Marshall off me. “If that’s what this little visit is about, you can forget it!” I shout to the ceiling for my mother. God knows
she’s listening. I all but have a twenty-four seven homing device hardwired into my genes, and most likely she’s the only way out of this seventeenth-century screw-up. “Yes, I declared war against the Fems, but if I’m being honest, we both know how that last war turned out. And for what? I’m not sure I should be stepping in that pile of dog shit once again.”

  The Logan lookalike with the cigar passes behind Marshall and offers me a smile curated from sorrow. His eyes lock with mine before he evaporates deeper into the smoky room.

  “Skyla,” Marshall balks. “You have no say in the matter. What Jock Strap has done is a well-placed chess move by the enemy. They are after you, my queen. They are looking to remove your knight from his sublime position.” His lips curl up at the edges, proud of his own euphemisms. “The Sectors must remain. If you disagree in any capacity, I bid you to imagine what a world under Fem rule would resemble. Humans would lose many vital freedoms. The Factions would lose all rights, all control. There would be one law, one sage—or should I say Gage, that should and will be obeyed.”

  “He would never do that. He would never commit to evil.” The words garble as I struggle to evict them from my throat because Gage has already done it.

  “Skyla.” Marshall wipes a lone tear from my cheek that I hadn’t even realized I shed. “This war”—he nods over his shoulder as if referencing the Sectors and the Fems—“it was never over. My victory is short-lived, relatively speaking. Your victory has the ability to last forever.”

  “A war.” It comes out in less than a whisper, and the entire room seems to strum around me like a harp.