Celestra Forever After (28 page)

The sky churns a fiery red, angry yet sultry, as if it were about to rip open with a viral passion that mankind has never witnessed before. It’s sunset on Host—if there were such a thing as the sun in our part of the world. I know somewhere behind this thick veil of clouds that a giant ball of gas hides like a coward, like some salted truth everyone seems to be holding from me.

The game is just about to begin as Brielle and I make our way onto the field.

“Oh, look, there’s Em!” Brielle points to the sidelines where Emily is yapping it up with the coach. “She’s talking to her dad.”

“Her dad is the coach?”

“Yup. Her mom does something here, too. I forget what. Em’s whole family practically runs the school.”

“Oh, so that’s where the dragon’s head mounted above their fireplace comes from. It’s the mascot.” I hold back a laugh. “And here I thought they were part of some odd, freaky cult.”

Bree pulls back. “You don’t know anything about Host or Em’s family, do you?”

The giant dragon painted on the side of the stadium catches my eye. He’s lit up an eerie blue. His eyes illuminate with oversized red bulbs that glow in the night like terrible warnings, homages to his name—
Omen
.

“So there is something,” I whisper.

“Skyla!” Gage calls from the field.

“Go on.” Brielle gives my shoulder a squeeze. “I see Laken over there.” She rolls her eyes. “We’ll save you a spot.”

I run over to Gage with his shoulders spread wide as wings, and my stomach clenches with heat at the sight of him. His uniform is white just like the one he wore at West. And I still can’t get over that unlucky 13 scrawled on his back. I want to rip it off and reverse the numbers, but right above it is spelled out Oliver,
the most perfect surname in all of history, so I can almost forgive the jersey. My wedding dates run through my mind. It’s funny because those don’t feel unlucky at all. I guess 13 is just a number, and, for me, it happens to be damn lucky.

“I know you.” I wrap my arms around him and bump my fingers across the sticky lettering over his back. My favorite letters all in a row. “I love you,” I whisper, examining him here in the shadows. A thick black line lies under each of his eyes, making his cobalt beams that much brighter. “You’re so damn hot.” I slip my hand up his shirt. “I can’t wait to do a little cheer for you in private.” In fact, I think I’ll put on my West uniform and surprise him with just that.

“I love you, too.” He melts a juicy kiss over my lips. “And I’m going to hold you to that cheer. In fact, I can’t wait.” His dimples dig in one last time before he takes off.

The cheerleaders run out on the field, and one of them tackle hugs Gage.

“Excuse me?” I lean in for a better look at who this dark-haired skank might be. Kresley. I shake my head. “In Emma’s dreams,” I whisper. I’ll have to make it clear as crystal to this Kresley chick that Gage is officially off the market, but, with my luck, she’ll blab it all to Emma, and then my mother will find out the entirely wrong way.

Crap.

It looks like we’ll have to fill our families in on the good news sooner than we hoped. I was really starting to enjoy our little secret. It was as if we were able to have a honeymoon right in the open without the prying imaginations of my sisters and the onionskin walls at the Landon house. Gage has spent the night with me up in the butterfly room for the last solid week. We’ve morphed into a thing of beauty, startled by our magnificence, electric and bold just like those butterflies pinned to the walls.

I head up into the stands and nestle myself between Laken and Brielle. They look tense, unhappy. Laken looks either scared or pissed—knowing Bree, it’s probably a safe combination of both.

“What’s up?” I pull out my phone and get the camera ready to zoom in on Gage.

“Nothing.” Brielle looks more than mildly guilty, so I know it’s definitely something.

“Brielle was just filling me in on all of the
awesome
things you’ve done together.” Laken says the word awesome as if she were mocking Bree, but under the radar, so only I would notice.

Crap. It’s like Brielle is threatened by Laken for no apparent reason. Well, other than the fact Brielle is my one and only close friend. I’m sure seeing me hang out with Laken is setting off all kinds of BFF alarms, and I get it. I’ll have to reassure Bree she’s still my girl once the game is through.

“So how does it feel?” Laken wrinkles her nose. “You know, being a married woman.”

“What are you talking about?” Brielle belts out a laugh. “Skyla isn’t married. If she was, I’d not only be the first to know, but I’d be right there next to her as the maid of honor—we’re
that
close.” She shoots Laken an icy look before training her attention back on the field.

Oh crap.

“You’re right—you would be the first to know, and you would be my maid of honor.” I swallow hard. “Unless of course, it all happened so fast that I never had a chance to tell you.” I sink a little in my seat. “I may have unexpectedly eloped.” I wince into her. “And I may have let the good news slip to Laken this morning in class because I was about to explode if I didn’t tell somebody.”

Bree’s face bleaches out under the harsh supervision of the floodlights. Her mouth falls open, and her features sag, giving her that overall corpse effect.

“Is it because I’m a Count, Skyla? Is that why you treat me so poorly?”

I smack Bree in the arm. “Stop with the pity party. You know I’ll always love you. Besides, Laken is a Count, and I don’t hold it against either one of you. If anything, I love you more because it just goes to prove that Counts and Celestra can get along.” I lean over and pull her into a long, deep hug. “You keep me sane. Thank you for that.”

“You’re welcome.” She gives a satisfied smile over to Laken. Bree leans in hard and whispers, “So, you did it?”

I nod as a mischievous smile breaks out on my face.

“Baseball bat?” She gives a knowing look.

“One he can hit a homerun with
all night long
,” I’m quick to confirm.

She glances at Laken to make sure she’s still on the outs of the conversation. “On a scale of one to ten—how loud does that boy make the crowd cheer when he hits it out of the park?” It’s evident Bree is enjoying our little private tete-a-tete.

“Ten—
thousand
.” A heat wave envelops me. “You know, the funny thing is, after being with Gage, I no longer want to shake anybody’s hand. I mean, I know where Gage’s hands have been—I know where
my
hands have been. The entire idea of people actually touching me, or, God forbid, making my food makes me want to hurl.”

Bree shakes her head. “Only you could come away from sex with a phobia of other people’s hands.”

“Hand to God.” I sink back in my seat. “I mean, true that.” I don’t remember any revolt of the digits after I was with Logan, but then I was too lost in grief to notice other people’s hands, let alone imagine what they might be doing with them in their spare time.

The game starts, and we watch riveted by each well-orchestrated play. The Host Dragons are nailing this team from Oregon to the proverbial wall.

“Coop and Gage are killing it,” Laken says. “I never thought I’d say this, but I actually wish I was down there cheering.” She looks past me, and her expression sours. “Never mind. There are some people I’m not interested in shaking my body in front of.”

I glance back and catch a glimpse of Gage—I mean,
Wes
. I swear it’s going to take me forever to get used to seeing him outside of the Tenebrous Woods.

“I’ll save all my cheers for the bedroom,” she whispers. “Coop is the only audience I’m interested in.”

“I get it.” I omit the fact I may have inadvertently shook my body for Wes earlier today. “Have you talked to him yet?”

She blows a breath into the fog, and a plume of white feathers unfurls from her mouth. “Logan took Coop and me into the Transfer last weekend. It was harder than I ever imagined.” She shakes her head still lost in the memory.

It’s as if the world stops—time ceases to exists.

“Who took you to the Transfer?” Surely I misheard her.

“Logan.” She nods as if I shouldn’t be surprised. “Your Elysian?”

“Oh, right.” Now it’s my face losing all color.

“
Laken
.” Bree is quick to admonish her. “If you knew anything about Skyla you’d know how traumatic this whole situation is for her. Logan hasn’t appeared to her yet, and now she’s clearly in shock to hear he’s back.”

“No, it’s okay.” A smile wobbles on my lips. “I knew he was here. He just hasn’t seen me. I mean it’s been a while.” My body goes numb. It feels as if the universe just delivered a fresh slap across my cheek, and my head is still ringing from the effect.

“Sorry.” Laken sinks in her seat. She looks up at me a moment before touching her fingers to my wrist.
If you ever want to talk about it, I’m here for you. I know how it feels to love two people—and how it feels to let one go. Wes isn’t a bad person. He’s just making bad choices
. She closes her eyes a moment.
At least he used to not be a bad person.

Thank you
, I mouth.

“He’s up to no good.” She shudders, pulling her coat tight as if it were Cooper himself protecting her from Wesley’s evil clutches. “Wes just might be the most dangerous person on the planet right now.”

A shiver runs through me when she says it.

“That’s a bold statement.” And most likely true.

Laken and I are lost in thought over the idea, so much so that I miss the next play.

A violent yank to my shoulder nearly pushes me right out of the stands, and I turn to Brielle who’s screaming incoherently. All I hear are the words,
Gage—hurt—the field…

Oh God.

Gage

“Shit.” I spit my mouthpiece out and squeeze my eyes shut tight, trying to will myself out of my body—away from the white-hot pain.

Fuck, fuck,
fuck
.

Coach Morgan runs over, along with Coop, and, before I know it, there’s a team huddle forming above me.

“Can you get up?” Coach offers me a hand.

I lift my shoulders off the grass, and that hot explosion of pain bites right through to my tailbone.

“Not without help.”

“I got you.” Coop tries to lift my arm, and a fierce jolt spasms through my neck, knocking the wind out of me.

I’m too jacked up to move, let alone breathe.

“We need a stretcher!” Coach shouts and calls for time.

“Shit. Sorry about that.” I wish I could say it was the sack from hell that knocked me on my back, but, in truth, some of those Pee Wee kids I worked with hit harder than what I just took. I went down like a dead man, and all the other team had to do was blow me over. I’m sure there’s some guy from Tusk laughing his ass off right now at what a wuss I am.

“Hang tight.” Coop gives my arm a squeeze. “Here comes Skyla.”

“Gage!” Skyla calls for me. I can hear the worry in her voice before I ever see her face.

Her hair falls all around me, creating a curtain from the rest of the world, and all I see are her tear-filled eyes, her trembling lips.

“I’m okay. I promise,” I grunt. “It’s probably just a bruise.” At least I’m hoping.

The coach shouts something, Skyla pulls back as they hoist me onto a gurney and ratchet it up before wheeling me off the field. The crowd breaks out into a somber applause as Skyla clasps onto my hand.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got you!” she shouts, running alongside me.

Dad and Mom come at me, running full steam.

“Gage!” Mom screams as if I just had my arms hacked off. “We can take it from here, Skyla.” She doesn’t waste any time in pushing her away. “This is a family emergency.”

Crap.

“Skyla,” I call for her, but Mom is blocking my view of where she might be.

The medics start in on a million questions, but I keep trying to crane my neck to find Skyla in my peripheral vision. A stabbing pain burrows between my shoulder blades forcing me to shut my eyes from the agony.

“Skyla,” I call out hoarse. I try one last time to find her only to catch my mother with her hand outstretched to my wife. She’s keeping Skyla at an arms length, shouting something in her face and it only gets my adrenaline pumping faster. A knife-like pain jags through my skull, speeding all the way to my toes, and I’m in too much damn pain to do anything about my mother right now.

I lay back and grit my teeth, groaning—begging my body to pass out already.

This is bad.

I pray it’s not my last night on the field.

Hell, I pray it’s not my last night on earth.

At the hospital they run an MRI and shoot me up full of morphine, tell me to hang tight.

After what feels like an eternity Skyla appears by my side, taking my hand.

“Hey.” I force a smile to come and go, still enjoying the slight rush of the drugs they just pumped through me. And, even though I appreciate my parents hovering nearby, I wish it were just Skyla and me.

“You’re going to be okay,” she whispers it sweetly, peppering my face with gentle kisses.