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

  My fingers work the buttons on his shirt as he scalds me with his eyes. And just like that, Marshall’s mouth collapses over mine, his hands raking off my flimsy gown. The cool night air blows in from the window and licks me in the most intimate of places long before Marshall has a chance to.

  His teeth grind over mine, and his fingers dig into my arms as an electric charge transfers from him to me. I’m naked. On my back, the heft of Marshall’s body lying over me so heavy I can’t catch my next breath, don’t want to. Every last inch of my skin drinks down his flesh, those pulsating vibrations electrocuting me with their ferocity, and I cry out in pain, in pleasure, everything in between.

  His mouth does a revolution over my body, my knees knocked back to my chest in one forcible maneuver. His hot mouth, his prehensile tongue light a fire in me from the inside out. My hands are thrown over my head with a show of violent force as Marshall pins me like a butterfly to a wax board. He takes a sharp bite out of my neck and a howl escapes me, something primal, animalistic, that echoes through the room like night music.

  In one knife-sharp jab, he’s in me, slamming against me as if he were doling out a punishment. Violent, savage thrusts that expound those feel-good vibrations and I beat him to the punch, my body seizing around his, my vocal cords testing their limit, but I transcend the sound of my voice, the feel of the bed beneath me, and detonate over and over again while Marshall makes brutal, passionate love to me.

  Emancipation at its finest. I don’t belong to Gage or Logan or Marshall. I belong to me.

  His body pulsates in strong spastic waves as he deposits an ocean inside of me. Those warm vibrations of his hit their zenith and the entire building rattles with the earthquake.

  Marshall lets out a mighty roar, deafening like the sound of a bomb shattering a city as he gifts me with one final, urgent, impassioned blow and I eject myself from his bed, through the wall, through a curtain of fresh Paragon fog that does little to cool my body. I sit up with a jolt, only to find myself back in my bedroom, on the bed I shared so many restless nights with Gage. A dark room heated with my feverish dreams.

  A luminescent body glows next to me, lying in his spot, her head over his pillow as she watches me. Rising slowly, she puts her loving arms around me and I feel those soothing vibrations once again, those of my mother.

  “You had a bad dream?” Her lips curve with a malevolent smile as the moon dances across her features. That twin face to mine looks so alarmingly sinister. And I memorize it because from here on out I will be the sinister one. “Rumor has it, Sector Marshall does tell rather disturbing bedtime stories.” She glances down at my body and I’m stunned to find the gossamer gown still clinging to my flesh, still wet from the sea.

  “Was it all a bad dream?” My heart stops cold, and I refuse to take my next breath.

  Her glacial eyes look right into mine as her features soften, so very sorry to impart bad news.

  “No, Skyla.” She gently brushes the hair from my forehead. “It wasn’t all a dream. Some of it was very real.” Her nose rises an inch. “He has done this to you, to us. The bastard you gave everything to has repaid you beauty for ashes.”

  “He married Chloe.” The words come out numb, the deceit flying around our bedroom like a poltergeist too embarrassed to be here. “He’s done it, hasn’t he?”

  “Yes.” It comes out low like the hiss of a snake. “He has done this.” Her anger enlivens, her entire being brightens like a flare with a crimson glow deep in her belly, and her face illuminates pink. I can hear the boys giggling from their beds, crammed into cribs they are quickly outgrowing. “And he will do far worse, my love, if you don’t cut him off at the quick right here, right now.”

  I flinch when she uses Logan’s infamous words, and I wonder if they were ever his to begin with.

  “I will drown him, his schemes, the evil in him, and his new wife. I vow to destroy him and all he stands for. I vow to decimate, dismantle, and eradicate him and his people.” A lone tear rolls down my cheek. The words feel like traitors as they leave my lips.

  Gage took the gold of who we were and melted it down to a molten hot stew before pouring it over my head. Killing me slowly, painfully, scalding my heart, blistering me beyond recognition.

  My mother nods, rocking me slowly in her arms. Her lips gently brush over my temple as she holds me as a mother should.

  “You must never trust him again, Skyla.”

  Rory and that glowing horse flit through my mind.

  My mother’s chest thumps beneath me as if she found it comical. “I wouldn’t trust her either if I were you.”

  I shake all thoughts of my poor sister out of my mind as Gage Oliver takes the stage once again.

  “I will ravage his world,” I whisper as if I were singing the boys a lullaby. “I will be his absolute undoing. I am his ruin.”

  A watershed unleashes from me and I weep long after dawn, long after the Paragon skies growl to life and weep along with me, I soak the bed with my tears. And as much as I wish they were born strictly of vengeance, they were born of undeniable, unstable, unstoppable bone-shattering grief.

  One thing I will never forget.

  I am indeed his ruin.

  2

  Gage

  It is reported thou didst eat strange flesh, which some did die to look on.

  That line from Antony and Cleopatra runs through my mind on a loop as my fingers ride over the wet granite globe beneath them. Tears over Creation is a wicked wonder that Demetri bestowed upon me—a giant blue boulder in a bath of water four feet high, five across at least, in which you can look to see what those you love are up to—more or less. It was a housewarming gift of sorts for the dominion I inherited.

  But that line—It is reported thou didst eat strange flesh, which some did die to look on. It was Octavius Caesar speaking to Antony. A part of his soliloquy to get him to stop his hedonism. And hedonism was Caesar’s exact word choice in the matter. Chloe comes to mind.

  Fucking Shakespeare.

  It’s taken wildly out of context, but it fits, and because it fits so well, my mind cannot stop ruminating on it.

  “Gage Oliver,” Chloe’s voice tolls throughout the room like the bells of bad news. “What are you doing, my love?” She’s on me before I can turn around, her tits pressed to my back, her chin relaxing softly on my shoulder. “Spying so soon?” she groans as if she knew it were coming. “Let’s see it.” What’s the little whore doing now?

  Chloe has no clue that I can hear her thoughts, that I can shield my own from her Celestra powers.

  Once upon a time I belonged to the Levatio Faction, or so I thought, so we all thought. Levatio’s skills are pretty remarkable in and of themselves, strength and speed like the other four Factions, but Levatio also encompasses the unique ability to partake in teleportation, the ability to levitate—and for some, as it was for me, the gift of knowing. And now that I’m a fully resurrected Fem, that last one seems to have been struck from the roster because I don’t know shit.

  My hand waves over the watery globe, blue granite mixed with swirls of emerald and white as if it were the planet from an elevated perspective. An image appears, the same image I’ve rewound and inspected for the better part of an hour.

  A room emerges in the reflection, Dudley’s home, a raging fire behind him, women blitzed out of their minds in the background, but it’s not the women or the fire that I’m interested in. It’s the girl in his arms, Skyla. He’s holding her, telling her something. She’s campaigning hard for his attention, and then her lips are on his. I’ve reviewed, investigated to the tenth of a second enough to know that it was Skyla who initiated that lip-lock. I can’t blame her. I’ve watched her all evening, confused, angry, jumping off the cliff side at Devil’s Peak, earning her wings—and good on her for getting her powers back. Skyla stalking the shoreline. Skyla with Logan. Skyla running at the speed of light. Skyla with Dudley.

  “They just cut out.” Chloe taps the water and causes
a ripple that makes the picture blurry. “Where did they go?”

  “I’m assuming to his bedroom. There’s a binding spirit that’s shielding her next venue. It’s just a guess.”

  “Oh, Gage.” Chloe feigns concern as she swivels her hands over my back and chest at once. “I’m so sorry you had to see that. Skyla does have a bit of a temper. And I’m sure seeing the two of us united in a binding covenant has ignited it.” Her voice ticks up with excitement when she says that last part as if she can’t believe it herself, and I’m sure she can’t. Hell, I can’t. “And”—her finger curls under my chin as she struggles to force me to look at her—“let’s not forget that fire we started when our bodies met for the very first time.” She sucks in a quick breath as if the flames just licked at her feet.

  “We did start a fire, didn’t we?” I glance to the black water and spot Skyla in our old bed alongside a glowing being that looks just like her—Candace Messenger and that’s where I cut the show.

  “Father?” The tiny, yet confident sound of my daughter’s voice has both Chloe and me looking to the rear of the massive throne room as Sage stalks her way over. She’s dressed in a white ethereal gown with a golden sash, and it looks like a replica of what Skyla wore to our would-be wedding. My God, she was a beautiful bride. She just wasn’t destined to be mine.

  “What is it, sweetie?” I step over and offer a warm embrace, take in the lavender scent in her hair, and wish I could rewind time a few years as I close my eyes. Sage looks like a miniature version of me—or she would have if she had lived. Skyla lost her in utero.

  Sage frowns hard. “Demetri just informed me that he’s hosting your grand ceremony. How is a king to have a coronation if there is no throne involved? Besides, the gentry hate mingling with the living Nephilim. And I can’t blame them. Half of the Nephilim don’t even believe in their own lineage.” Those blue eyes, sweet nose, those adorable dimples—Sage is my doppelgänger right down to her long, dark hair.

  “Yes, well, it hasn’t even been an earth long day and I still very much run on earth time. I’ll tell him to put the coronation on ice. I’m not exactly in the mood to party.” I flex a weak smile as I rise back to my feet.

  “That’s too bad,” Sage says curtly. She has a natural catty demeanor about her, some might even say hostile. And yes, I shield the hell out of my thoughts around her, seeing that she can easily pick up on them. “You’ll have it here, or you’ll have two. I won’t let you get away without hosting a proper coronation. There will be royal gentry present that wouldn’t even consider spending a night on earth, so there’s that. You’ll have to have two coronations. A proper one with the gentry—and one for the ninnies.” She frowns over at me as if I’ve disappointed her.

  Get in line, kid, because I am on a freaking roll.

  “Two parties sounds splendid to me,” Chloe chirps with her hand to her chest as she looks off into space as if envisioning herself in a gown, on my arm as we wear matching crowns, and all of it makes me want to vomit.

  “I’m not having it. At least not for a good long while,” I growl. “I need to talk to Demetri myself. And Wes.” God, Wes. How can I look him in the eye?

  But it’s Skyla my heart grieves for, her beautiful spirit—how I’ve plundered everything we once were just to secure a future with her. I never imagined I’d regret it, but in truth, it’s far too late for regrets. I’ve come this far, and there’s no looking back. I’ve killed for her—and the body count will rise if it has to. This isn’t a game and there isn’t a rewind button. This is simply the kind of macabre shit that you have to own whether you want to or not.

  The entire throne room darkens, the growl of thunder erupts overhead, and jags of lightning illuminate the area a sterile shade of blue.

  “Father.” Sage steps forward and picks up my hand, her tiny face looking up at me solemnly. “I realize you’re in pain, but for your own sake, remove your feelings from the equation. All of Sheddai is gloomy no thanks to your moping. There will be no reconciliation between you and Mother. You’ll have to adjust. Granted, I see it isn’t an easy task, but you are more than a man. You are akin to God. You must relegate your emotions to a higher plane. For goodness’ sake, the entire dominion reflects your mood. It was so cheery and beautiful those blissful first few moments.”

  “Neither you nor Sheddai will get anything remotely blissful or cheery from me.” I stagger toward the throne I sold Skyla’s people out for. “This is who I am, Sage. I don’t see an improvement coming anytime soon. The gloom and the doom is fitting.” I almost want to laugh at how frighteningly accurate it is. It’s almost a relief. “In fact, I’m not calling this place Sheddai anymore. It’s not anywhere near holy.”

  An exasperated sigh expends from her. “It means sufficient Lord. But it could hold the meaning of protector as well. Is that dark enough for you, Father?” There’s an angry undertone buried in there and I can appreciate it. I demand everyone join me in my anger. Sage is a good start.

  “No, it’s not dark enough.” I take a few steps toward the golden throne and glare at it. It looks wicked in its own right, jagged peaks, a cold hard seat. Everything about it is unfriendly. Next to it there is a smaller throne, one for Sage, a look-alike to my own, with the exception she’s adorned it with pearls around the periphery. An oversized ruby footstool rests in front of it like a blood clot. I’m assuming Chloe will demand to have one next to mine soon enough, and I’ll be foolish enough to oblige her. It’s either get her a damn seat or have her on my lap, and I know which one I’d prefer.

  “What do you think, Chloe? What should we name it?” I give the spacious room the once-over. The entire castle is made of stone and steel. It’s a knockoff of Wesley’s abode, which is a knockoff of Demetri’s celestial dumpster, but this monster is large enough to fit the entire island in. A dull sigh escapes me at the thought of having Skyla a permanent resident in my dominion. As appealing as it sounds, it would be hell for both of us. Mostly her.

  “Eversor.” Chloe lifts her chin, her dark beauty gleaming in this wicked light like the violent end of a spirit sword. “It means destroyer in Latin. That way you keep the meaning but change the language. It’s not at all considered a holy term, nor would it be mistaken for one.” She bounds her way over, her tits jumping, her hips swaying. Chloe has had one hell of a skip in her step ever since all her dreams came true right in this very room. I glare over at that rose petal strewn mattress in the chamber to my right.

  “Ever sore?” I cock my head at the sky up above—sullen stars, the blackest night, and even a blue moon hangs heavy as if it belonged there. “I like it.” I will be ever sore. I will be remiss all of my days until they bleed into eternity right along with Skyla, and even then I will forever hold onto the grief of what I’ve done. In the end, I had no choice, spending an eternity in hell, away from Skyla and my children would have been hell indeed. Yes, I sold out the Sectors to do it, but one of us had to go and it couldn’t be me.

  “Eversor,” Chloe puts the right inflection on it again. “I agree it’s far more fitting than Sheddai.”

  Sage growls like a rabid alley cat. “I’ll have you know I gifted this realm that blessed name.” She takes a few bold steps toward Chloe, and suddenly it feels as if a brawl is about to take place. For a moment, I wonder if it’s appropriate to let my young daughter, who is wise beyond her years, take on Chloe Bishop—Oliver. “Come closer, I rather have the urge to slap you.”

  Chloe leans in dangerously close as if daring her to do so. “The feeling is mutual.”

  “Father will never truly love you. His heart belongs to Mother. And believe me, I’d rather it didn’t, ten times as much as you would.”

  “Enough,” I say it without the right vigor behind it. In truth, I don’t give a shit if Sage and Chloe go at it for twenty-four eternities. “Eversor, it is. We’ll leave Sheddai to the King of Kings. He destroys nothing. I destroy everything I touch.”

  I stagger forward and sit down hard over the
cold surface of my glacial throne.

  Chloe looks up at me with those big black eyes, lashes batting manically as if she couldn’t believe the sight. “All hail the king.”

  3

  Logan

  The bond of love cannot be broken. It is irrevocable. When I lost Skyla, there was no replacement, no person, no body, no entity that could fill the void. I knew that. I knew it even when I tried my damnedest to achieve it. But this shit? This malfeasance? My blood has been boiling ever since Skyla mentioned Gage Oliver’s union with that beast.

  The mist settles over me as if I were a fixture while I stare up at Barron’s home, the lights are on downstairs at this early hour. The horse at my side whinnies and cries incessantly as if setting its hooves on this island brought it unimaginable misery. And believe me, I know that feeling.

  “Oliver?” a voice shouts from behind and I turn to see Ellis Harrison speeding down his enormous driveway. Another figure comes up behind him and I’m a bit surprised to see my look-alike Cooper Flanders there.

  “Is that an effing horse? Dude”—Ellis comes in close and takes the rope from me, causing the beast to toss its head back and wail into the sky—“get this thing back to Dudley’s.”

  “Good idea, Ellis.” I slap the back of the horse and marvel that this ghostlike creature feels so solid. “It’s not his, but I doubt that will matter much.”

  Coop stands in front of me with that heavy look in his eyes as he does his best to examine me.

  “You look like shit. What’s with the horse routine? You joining the circus?”

  “I don’t need to join. I’m a lifelong member,” I say, growling over at my brother’s house once again. “I need to speak to Gage.”

  Ellis starts down the street in the direction of Dudley’s house and we follow. “Call him.”

  “I’m guessing his connection is shot. I think Wes is my best bet. Anyone up for a trip to the Transfer?”