Celestra Forever After (2 page)

“I think I need help.” My breathing grows erratic. My chest is on fire. I’m pretty sure I need to start hitting the panic button and getting Candace Messenger on the red line because something akin to a celestial ambulance is going to be needed in just a few seconds.

“God, I love you,” she whispers. Her eyes narrow in on me as if she were in pain. She places her cool hands over my cheeks and pulls me in.

Skyla hikes up on the balls of her feet and crashes her lips to mine. I don’t fight it. I twist my arrow-riddled chest to the left and pull her in close as we indulge in a deep meaningful kiss with our tongues slipping over one another for what feels like hours—weeks.

My knees start to buckle, can’t breathe. The world feels as if its spinning out of control, and I sink to the ground.

The last thing I see is Skyla’s beautiful face—then Marshall’s ugly mug as he stands over her shoulder.

“Your gift is here.” He smirks down at me. “And should you have shown me an ounce of gratitude for all I’ve ever done for you, we wouldn’t be witness to your demise.” He kicks me in the thigh before heading toward the house.

Skyla drops to my side and gently slaps my cheek, begging me to stay awake. Her voice dances around me elusive and hard to grasp, like a butterfly.

The world fades in and out.

Get your mother
, I try to tell her.

“Logan,
wait!
” she screams. “Logan, come back. Something big has happened, and it affects
you
and
me
.”

Skyla stepped out of the forest with zero regard for the arrows lodged in my chest and kissed me. Something big had happened, and she wanted to share the news.

Tell me, Skyla, I want to know
.

My eyes won’t open, all sound fades from the world.

Skyla was my gift, and now I lose her twice.

Dudley is right. I’m a bigger moron than I thought.

Her lips sink over mine, soft as a summer breeze. Skyla’s kisses are resuscitating my love-thirsty soul—her lingual affection is the exact brand of medicine I’ve needed all along.

Skyla is the cure for everything.

I’ve always known that.

And so has she.

Prologue

Skyla

They say God is often found in the coincidences—that the devil is in the details. This is the season of my life where both sing true. It’s the coincidences that place the right people beside you. It’s the most insignificant details that can bring you to your knees.

Together my love and I walk hand in hand down life’s thorny trail, only to find a stone set in our path—immovable, insurmountably heavy—far too much for us to bear.

It’s almost tragic that we pass through one struggle only to believe we’re in the clear—that life will be full of sunshine and roses. For a brief moment we forget that the sun so often hides like a coward in our world—that the roses are laden with knife-sharp thorns. Somewhere in the desperation, all hope is lost, and all you have left to hang onto is the irony. You savor it—let it rust in your mouth like old pennies.

This is the springtime of our lives where the black magic roses bloom, blood red and dangerous. Their thorns weave around my lover and me, caging us in, carving their wickedness into our flesh. But we cannot give up on our love—no matter how painful—we cannot let go of who we thought we were. It’s heartless to deny yourself the love of your life—a ruby red sin to even try.

Perhaps God and the devil are best found locked in the irony—one a distorted reflection of the other. After all, God can weave the thorns of life into a crown of glory—while the devil does his best to press them in.

My lover and I had stepped into a fire so long ago without ever knowing.

We were set ablaze with unquenchable flames.

Our love burns bright and wild—beautiful as God—sinister as the devil.

Evil had swallowed us whole. We were damned from the start.

Where would our help come from—the silent sea—the searing sun?

It would come from the secret place that lives inside us—the deepest chamber of our hearts.

Our love set the world on fire.

Unapologetically we watch it burn.

This is the genesis of who we are.

This is the twisted beginning.

1

In the Beginning

Skyla

Present Day

They say when you’re sleeping is when you really live. Deep in your subconscious all of your carnal desires play out, dark and sultry, in the theater of your mind. Some people are lucky enough to control their dreams, navigate them in the direction they wish to travel and enjoy adventure after adventure, have an entirely different life from sundown to sun up, if they wanted. Other people don’t remember their dreams. They drift off to sleep and rouse from their slumber without any record of their nocturnal wanderings. As for me, I can neither control my dreams nor forget them. Lately they’ve been rather thematic—one naughty Sector and me, the tumbling of our flesh, the tug and pull of limbs and teeth—the steady sound of skin slapping over skin—the hearty grunts, our cataclysmic screams pollute the night air with their fornicating howls.

The sand of Paragon’s salty shore warms my feet as I wait for him to find me.

The shadow of a man strides toward me, fully dressed in a suit, that sexy snarl permanently set to his face.

“There you are,” I say, waving as he comes my way. Marshall is tall and stately—comely to the point of nausea. And each night, I need his body covering mine more than I need air to breathe. “You’re a little overdressed for the beach aren’t you?”

“What—and deprive you the pleasure of undressing me?” He hooks his sultry eyes into mine.

“You know me all too well.”

He dips his chin and stares into me with demonic intent. “Inside and out.”

“I wouldn’t want it any other way.” I pull him in by the waist. “Besides, I love it that you know me inside and out—especially the
inside
part.”

His chest thumps into mine. His lip twitches. “What year are we headed off to?”

He asks that very question every single night.

There always seems to be a light drive involved, and other than having steaming hot sex with Marshall, that’s the only other constant. Time travel and nonstop hookups—it would figure this was Marshall’s M.O.

“We’re headed back to Clara.” I pinch at my red bikini. “But I thought we could have some
fun
first. Just you and me under Big Yellow.” I nod up at the sun.

Big Yellow?
I want to reach into my own dream and strangle myself for being so ridiculous. And who’s this Clara chick?

“I’m all for fun.” Marshall lands his hot mouth over mine, and not one sensation is lost on me, everything is alive, heightened, the scent of his cologne balanced by the natural musk of his skin. His tongue roams over mine, quick and lithe as a serpent. I try to drink this moment down as I work off his clothes, fast and furious as if they were about to combust into flames.

Here’s the thing. I like these dreams. As much as I hate myself for having them on a loop, I find myself still heady from his kisses when I wake up in the morning. My body aches to have him thrust inside me. All. Day. Long. And I find myself having to catch my breath when I remember how it feels as he brings me to the zenith of my existence.

Marshall pulls off my bathing suit bottom nice and slow. He flips my top up with far less fanfare and reaches down and sucks my nipple with wild abandon.

I tackle him to the sand and wrench him from his boxers, thick and hard. He turns me over, and I take his weight, groaning with pleasure as his chest crushes against mine. My body writhes under his. My legs flex over his back while I beg him to impale me with his Sector eminence.

Marshall leans up on his elbows, a demonic smile building on his lips.

“You, my love, are everything I knew you could be. A vixen of the ages.”

He’s said that last sentence during a couple of our nighttime bump and grind sessions, and this realization startles me. It’s as if somewhere buried in his words is a riddle, or, at least, a red bloody flag.

“Fuck me.” I have no shame in this nighttime world. This whorish vixen I morph into routinely barks out orders, and he, of course, is more than willing to comply.

“Language, Ms. Messenger.” Marshall plunges both his tongue and his penis into me simultaneously, and a choking sound gags from my throat as I struggle to take his kisses and his thrusts. He pushes in time and time again. His fingers reach down and find me until I’m ready to hyperventilate, to pop right out of my body with the buoyancy he’s instilled in me. Forget what Brielle once told me about the bodily “sneeze.” This is an all-out orgasm building with hurricane force—Marshall and I are splitting atoms with our bodies—getting ready to detonate to the moon.

He pushes in harsh and greedy, and I dig my fingers into his back while begging for more. I want everything Marshall is willing to give me, and then that will never be enough.

His breathing pulsates loud in my ear as he growls and grinds without inhibition.

“Harder,” I command, and he covers my mouth once again with his. I soak in that fine vibration his body gives off as the pleasure builds inside me. It’s as if no one else exists in the universe—it’s just Marshall and me.

“
Skyla!
”

I jolt upright, shaking my tiny twin bed like an earthquake as the canopy overhead wobbles back and forth.

I give several blinks to find my mother at the door, her red hair set in rollers at the tips.

“Wakey, wakey! I made chocolate chip pancakes just the way you like. Get out of bed, sweetheart.” She presses out a forlorn smile while tilting into me. “I can’t believe it’s my baby’s first day of college. You must be so excited. I bet you couldn’t catch a decent wink of sleep last night.”

“Yeah, I had an indecent night all right.” A memory of Marshall’s viral assault sweeps through me like a nuclear heat wave. “I’ll be down in a sec. I think I’ll throw myself in the shower real quick.”

I cut a glance out the window. Paragon twists and quivers in the icy breeze as the forest of evergreens tower into the dismal grey sky.

“Everything okay?” Mom bears into me as if she’s onto the fact I just committed a dirty nighttime romp with my favorite naughty Sector.

“Everything’s perfect.” I wave as she closes the door.

More like perfectly
perverted
. I’m having hot sex with my high school math teacher in my dreams, and in real life I’ve yet to land on second base with my boyfriend.

I head for the shower.

Something tells me I’ll be confronting a hypersexual Sector later today and questioning him on his nocturnal wanderings. I have a feeling I know where he parks his penis these days between the hours of eleven and seven.

Well, fuck me.

That’s exactly what Marshall’s been doing.

Downstairs the scent of burnt toast permeates the air, and the sound of a baby screaming starts my head pounding. I don’t remember ever getting as many headaches as I have since my little sister, Mystery—aka, Misty, was born a couple of months ago. She cries nonstop. Her voice has the magic ability to travel through wood, and drywall, and steel, and no matter how many freaking pillows I pile over my head, I can still hear her hunting me down with her knife-sharp octaves. The only thing that keeps her quiet is my mother shoving a mammary gland in her face.