Crown of Ashes Read online

  “Don’t let the fact it’s an old coot kind of a night scare you from coming in.” I say that out loud even though Laken and Coop didn’t have the pleasure of hearing my internal tirade.

  “Don’t worry about it. We can’t stay. We’ll see you later!” Laken kisses my cheek. “We need to talk,” she whispers before trotting past Demetri. If I were smart, I’d trot right along with her.

  “Skyla, Mr. Flanders.” Demetri nods to the two of us before waltzing into the Landon living room as if he were welcome, and sure enough, my mother tackles him like a three-hundred pound linebacker and douses his face. “Merry Christmas fancy European kisses!”

  “Looks like all holy hell is breaking loose tonight,” I murmur before giving Coop a brief hug goodbye.

  “We have to talk, Skyla,” he whispers ominously into my ear just the way Laken did a second ago, and I’m left to wonder if the left hand knows what the right hand is doing.

  “What’s this about?” I try to keep my voice low and even-keeled.

  “It’s about Wes.” Coop’s eyes darken. “I think he stole something very personal from Laken.”

  “Like what? A lock of her hair? A contact lens?” God, does Laken even wear contacts? Who the hell knows, but I do know one thing for sure, I wouldn’t put it past Wes to steal an entire eyeball if given half a chance.

  Coop’s heavy eyes bear into mine, and I can feel the pain emanating off him like heat off a Transfer tin roof. “Her virginity.”

  “Her what?” I try to absorb this for a moment. I know for a fact that Laken and Coop have been the fornicating kind for quite some time because Gage and I once walked in on them doing the dirty deed—Coop does love Laken with an all-consuming passion. And secondly, they got hitched last summer, and they consummated that good time all over Whitehorse, the house that Logan built for me, that he also happened to penetrate Chloe Bishop in last spring. Ah, yes, good coital times. “But Laken said you were her first.” I bear hard into Cooper Flander’s desperate eyes, and for a moment it feels as if we’re both stretching to believe it. “Or at least she implied it because she also happened to imply that she never slept with Wesley.” Oh dear God, or did Wes and his constant desperation for the girl imply it? The good Lord knows Wesley’s desperation has commanded him to have Chloe morph into Laken’s likeness time and time again, so maybe that’s what this is about? Wes has clearly confused reality and the chaos that goes on in his sex lab with Chloe.

  Coop shakes his head, slow and dazed, his gaze still transfixed onto mine.

  “The past is not always our friend, Skyla.” The muscles in his jaw pop, and he looks vexingly like Logan, a hot twin, if I may, although I’m presently pissed at Coop’s hot twin. Coop and Logan, it turns out, are long-lost relations of my dear and deviant spirit husband, Marshall Dudley himself.

  “That past!” I close my eyes. “I will hang Wesley Edinger by his jingle bells if I find out he’s manipulated his way back in time to steal Laken’s V-card.”

  “Did I hear my name?” Wesley Edinger pops up behind Cooper and jolts us both to life.

  There he is, looking every bit the Gage Oliver knockoff. That midnight hair, those eyes so bright, and the dimples that beg forgiveness. A horrible grief rinses through me, leaving me thick with its aching residue. But it’s that cherub he’s holding tight, dressed in her crimson velvet dress and arms that stretch to me, that makes me melt. It’s safe to say, Tobie, October Edinger has stolen my heart.

  “I’ll take the baby. You deck him.”

  Wes pulls baby Tobie out of my range and dodges past the two of us on the way in.

  “Merry Christmas, Coop!” he has the nerve to call out.

  “I’m going to kill him.” Cooper nods and leaves for the car, but there was something about the nonchalant way he said it, the complacent smile that ebbed at the edge of his lips that has me believing every word. I’m not convinced any of Demetri Edinger’s children could ever really die, but if they could, Wesley would be a good start in cleansing the planet of all its ills. And horrifically, Gage might be a close second.

  I close the door, and no sooner does the latch connect than a gentle knock emits from the other end. I pop it back open only to see Wesley again, and then my tired, newborn fried brain does the Edinger Oliver math and deduces that no, in fact, this isn’t the least nefarious of Demetri’s children. It’s the most wicked of them all—Gage.

  In that single moment, it feels as if an eternity slips by. I see our bumpy past, our heartbreaking future all in one swoop as I gaze deeply into his ocean blue eyes. I wonder what he sees when he looks at me. Does he see the heaven we once shared or the hell he thrust us in? Yes, everything I whispered to Chloe last night can be squarely pinned on Gage Oliver’s Italian suited shoulders.

  And it’s only then I notice the scruff has been clipped from his face. He’s clean-shaven. I almost want to laugh. He’s let Emma groom him. Worse yet, he thinks I prefer this choirboy version of him. Mr. Clean Cut. Mr. Innocent. This version would no more take a walk on the wicked side than he would drive a digit over the speed limit. Clean-shaven, licked clean, spit-shined just for the occasion to placate my good senses. Like I would ever fall for that.

  My thighs tremble at the sight of him, and my knees beg to fall to the ground in worship. Damn traitors.

  “I like you better with the scruff,” I muse and ironically mean it even though my body is about to have the big O simply from that lust-riddled look he’s shooting my way. I bet that’s one of his new superpowers. Big Daddy reissued him all of his oldie but goodie Femtastic powers last night. That was one part of his rambling dissertation I did understand. The rest of it was hocus-pocus, welcome to the dark side for the most part. Gage had both abandoned and betrayed me—that much I know is true.

  Gage moves from the shadow and into the light, and then I see it and my heart thumps once with the requisite pride. A bright pink handprint stains his left cheek. The exact spot where I belted him last night in a fit of primal rage. Yes, I am damn proud of that token of my affection. My one and only Christmas gift to the boy I once would have died for. Dear God, a part of me wants to slap myself.

  He frowns, sending his dimples digging for attention, and it’s then I notice that his hair is crisply parted on the side—and no doubt licked back by his mother.

  “Skyla,” he whispers in that low, achingly desperate way only Gage knows how to do. He leans in, pleading with me before he ever says a word. “Do you trust me?”

  “No. Not really.” There. I didn’t miss a beat because honest words are rarely hard to come by.

  Gage closes his eyes a moment, the look of defeat marked over his features. “Merry Christmas, Skyla.” He holds out two gold boxes between us, and I step aside to let him in. If this horror of an evening is bound to take place, I say let’s get this holiday hoedown over with.

  “Put them under the tree.”

  He steps in, full suit, cobalt tie the exact color of his eyes as if he had it dyed to match, and knowing Emma this is a very real possibility. He probably woke up and found it in his stocking with a note reading, From Mommy Dearest! The one and only woman you will ever be honest with in your life and love and cherish forever and ever!

  “Skyla,” he whispers, heated into my ear, and his cologne, a new and unfamiliar scent, assaults my senses with its violent seduction efforts. “There are things you need to know.”

  “I know enough.” I make an attempt to step around him, and he blocks my path with the wall of his body, leaving me eye to eye with his dress shirt. The crisp white fabric is hypnotic. The way it creases with the tautness of his rock-hard chest is criminal. My fingers tremble to touch him. My lips part for just one simple kiss. I hate the way my hormones render me defenseless around him. I haven’t always reacted this way to Gage. In the beginning, I was too sidelined by Logan. I’d do anything to have that mild indifference back if only for a while.

  Gage latches his eyes over mine, and I’m forced to look at him. I spin m
y wedding ring with my thumb like an absentminded habit. For a moment, I toyed with taking it off last night, chucking it in his face, but nothing in me was able to pull off the feat.

  “You and I will speak,” he says it with a firmness unfamiliar to me, his demeanor unforgivably demanding. He bears in hard with his gaze, his anger percolating just below the surface. “You will hear what I have to say.” And with that, he turns and walks into the party, to the triumphant cries of his mother and mine.

  My heart gives one last wallop in his honor as if it needed to stabilize itself again after our brief exchange.

  My eyes snag on Marshall’s, and I head on over.

  “Ms. Messenger.” His lips twitch with that you-will-come-hither-and-we-both-know-it look of affection. He’s so infernally arrogant it only adds to his charm. “You appear well-rested, considering your little side trip to the Mother Country just a few short hours ago.”

  “Yes, well, vengeance does become me.” And, apparently, a little light drive doesn’t hurt either.

  “And who would it be that fills your pretty little head with such a diatribe?” His brows dip in that panty melting way that only Marshall’s can, and for a brief moment, I’m ashamed that my raging hormones still succumb to his sexual superpowers. As much as I might have extreme displeasure with Gage, he is still my husband—still the one and only person who has the God-given right to melt my panties. A few fleeting thoughts of those perverse dreams I’ve had starring my favorite Sextor flit through my mind, and I don’t bother to catch them.

  Marshall growls low and aggressive like a rabid dog ready to attack.

  “Down, boy,” I whisper. “You know, you don’t have to read every thought I’m having.” I glance out at the motley crew my mother has amassed. “Where’s Logan?”

  “Recuperating. I’m sure he’ll drag his carcass in shortly.” He smacks his lips.

  “What do you mean recuperating?” Come to think of it, I did dole out quite the beating last night, but mostly it was Gage who bore the brunt of my rage. I glance across the room and spot him holding one of the twins while speaking to my stepbrother Ethan, and Emily, and that handprint I gifted him calls out to me like a siren, waving back at me as he turns his head from side to side. My ghost hand it seems is congratulating me on marking him with humiliation. “Did he spend the night with you?” I’m sort of hoping Gage did choose Marshall’s instead of his mother’s. Although, either way I’m sure Emma helped lick his wounds.

  “They both did.” He gravels it out in annoyance. Both I assume includes Logan in the mix. “I disdain the way they insist in suckling off my teats as if I were their mother. It’s time to wean them, Skyla.”

  I offer up a blank stare at my most treasured Sector. Though inappropriate almost ninety-nine percent of the time, he’s as entertaining as all hell.

  “Language.” He gives a sly wink.

  “I think there’s a correction to be made. It’s my teats they’ve been suckling off. I glance back and my gaze snags on his. Gage is watching me. Everywhere I go I can feel his eyes digging in like claws.

  Brody and Brookelynn, Brielle’s sister and Brody’s one true love, file between us, and for once I’m relieved to see a Bishop. They’re either back on again or they’re making nice for the holiday. Either way, I’m glad to see them. Behind them streams Darla, or as I like to call her, the entertainment for the evening.

  “Gimme those grandbabies!” she whoops, snatching one of the twins from Demetri’s clutches, and I shiver. I hate how accessible my entire life has become to the man who killed my father. I’d give anything for my father to stroll through those doors next. After all, this is Paragon and stranger things have happened, like Ethan strolling in with Logan’s soul embedded in his body, but that was high school and even that shit parade seems like a glory day memory in contrast to this new and unimproved shit parade I’m dealing with. I shoot Gage a curt look from across the room only to find him standing next to his nefarious twin—glaring at Marshall as if an ass beating were imminent.

  I turn my body just enough to deny him the privilege of gaping at my countenance—now there’s an ironic term.

  “Where’s Ezrina?” I ask, trying to sound chipper, begging to sound as if I care about this gathering at all. I did invite both her and Nevermore—Heathcliff, myself. I realize that Nev is going by his more formal name these days, but he’ll always be Nevermore to me at heart. Once upon a time he was trapped in the body of a raven and gifted to me by Gage. And there I go perseverating on those dammed good old days once again—and I mean dammed as a literal term.

  “Rina isn’t feeling well.” Marshall’s brows furrow at the thought. “She’s decided to convalesce at Whitehorse. I’ll stop by in the morning and give them your love.”

  “Thank you. I would appreciate that. And what’s up with not feeling well? If anyone should be feeling well twenty-four seven, it’s Ezrina. She’s got an entire state-of-the-art lab at her fingertips. If she can zap dead counts back to life, I’m sure a little head cold has nothing on her.” Ezrina happens to occupy Chloe Bishop’s old body and vice versa. Only, Chloe is now relegated to Ezrina’s old servitude in the Transfer per post war orders. The war that I won. The war Celestra won, and apparently didn’t have to because another war looms in the not-so distance, and this time it involves a much closer, much more clean-shaven enemy—my darling dimpled husband. “Don’t tell me Chloe’s body is defunct already.” I smirk at the thought of the murderous wench I’ve chosen to lie in bed with. I may have made a proposition she couldn’t refuse last night, but, in the end, it’s a benefit to the Factions—more to the point, a benefit to me. Sometimes you need to offer a personal sacrifice for the greater good of all mankind.

  I glance over my shoulder at Gage. I’m sure that’s the exact logic he used to trot over to the malevolent side with Daddy Dearest.

  “Skyla”—Marshall pins me with those molten lava eyes—“what kind of agreement have you worked out with Ms. Bishop?”

  “A delicate one,” I whisper. “And would you stop reading my mind like it’s some gossip-worthy diary entry? I happen to value my personal space, and the fact you keep prying into my gray matter unnerves me.”

  It’s a gray matter, all right. Nothing with Chloe is ever black and white.

  The doorbell rings, and my heart thumps once because I’m fully expecting Logan to show up. But it’s not the other Oliver I’m pissed at. It’s the one I happen to like, Liam, and attached to his person is a very furry Michelle Miller. She’s chinchilla from head to toe, and a part of me wants to be there when Emily spots her. Emily is as vegan, organic, nutty granola as one can get, and if you dare cross your eyes at an animal, she will knife you. No joke. And just as I’m about to head over, a pale ghost of a girl, pretty in an extra-ordinary, extra-bitchy way, if that’s your thing, dark eyes, dark hair, dark soul—Chloe Bishop stains the entry. Chloe’s skin usually holds a healthy bronzed glow, but since she’s been a part of the underground brigade, she looks like a creature that just crawled from under a rock.

  “Merry Christmas!” she chirps, sauntering inside as if she owns the place, strapped in a red bandage dress that looks as if it were soaked in blood. Come to think of it, this is Chloe. Of course, it’s soaked in plasma. Chloe accessorizes with red blood cells the way others do earrings.

  “Chloe Jessica Bishop! Welcome!” Mom is the first to throw herself at the daughter of darkness. And I’m a little disturbed that my own mother knows Chloe’s middle name, although it shouldn’t surprise me. Last year while Chloe grumbled her way through nine long months as a human incubator, she and Mom bonded over all things vaginal. I wish my mother wouldn’t bond with Chloe. I wish I wasn’t bonding with Chloe.

  “You look so beautiful!” Mom trills as the party rages on. “Didn’t I tell you that nursing would get your uterus right back into shape?”

  I smirk because I happen to know that Chloe isn’t nursing. I’m the one nursing Tobie, or at least I was last night.


  Chloe grins. “Why, thank you. I’m as happy as a cat with nine tails.”

  Marshall turns to me with a vexingly stern expression that lets me know I’m about to be admonished. “Who invited the beautiful pussy?”

  I open my mouth, then close it. I can’t tell if Marshall is simply enjoying his play on words or if there’s an iota of a literal connotation behind it. Mr. Dudley—math teacher extraordinaire—made his sexual rounds when he first came to West, and for the life of me, I can’t remember if Chloe was a victim of his one-man gang bang that seemed to span the entire female student population—sans me, of course. Oh hell, Chloe is never a victim.

  “Skyla.” Marshall closes his eyes, and my heart sinks because already I know how disappointed he is in me for befriending the viper—it mirrors the amount I am in myself.

  Ellis and Giselle pour through the door with a man in tow that is so exceedingly tall he needs to duck just to enter the lowly Landon estate. He wears a cap of red hair and has a rather dull look about him. His eyes ping around the room as if someone in the vicinity owed him money—and seeing that he’s at the Landon home they just might.

  “Who invited the Nephilim?” Tad croaks and half the room groans. Tad is such a tampon he forgets that he, in fact, is a descendant from that angelic spawned breed. Only Tad knows how to make a guest feel truly unwelcome.

  Ellis, my favorite stoner, strides over with his larger than life friend.

  “Meet Asbury Winters”—Ellis beams—“Host’s newest acquisition to the basketball team.”

  “It’s clear we’re destined to win every game,” I tease and give his behemoth hand a quick shake. I catch Gage stewing in his own jealous juices from across the room—still staunchly by Wesley’s side, but this time he’s cradling both boys, and my heart melts just a little. The twins look exactly like Gage. It’s as if I had nothing to do with their DNA makeup, and considering the source of Gage’s DNA, I pray that’s not the case. Giselle pops up next to him and plucks a twin from his arms, effectively blocking me from his line of vision. Giselle is Gage’s once deceased sister who died as a toddler but thanks to my celestial mother’s mercy, and Emerson Kragger’s body, Giselle officially lives to see another day. She’s sort of never outgrown that toddler mentality though, but to her credit she is working on it.