Celestra Forever After (45 page)

“Be gone.” My mother raises her fingers and Chloe’s body bursts into a billion microscopic pieces that buzz around me like a swarm of angry bees.

I hold my breath in the event Chloe tries to worm her way into my system. Evidently nothing is beyond her grasp. I wouldn’t put it past her to nestle in my vagina and wait for Gage.

“See?” I point hard at the arid space she’s left behind. “Her leash is far too long. I thought the terms of our agreement were to keep her bound in the Transfer for all eternity?”

“The terms of our agreement were to give her Ezrina’s punishment. The Counts dictate where she’s bound. Ezrina was free to roam the earth, as well as the ethereal plane as long as her captors allowed it. When I punished Ezrina and sent her to the Transfer I gave the Counts free reign over her comings and goings.” She leans in. The muscles in her jaw clench as if I had exasperated her. “Her punishment stipulated servitude to the Counts. She is a charge of the Countenance.” She reiterates as if to make things as clear as that crystalline lake behind her. “I knew they would be lenient.” She gives a little laugh as though it were common knowledge.

“Holy crap.” I throw my neck back, and a cry escapes me because, dear God, I think I’ve just been bested by Chloe once again.

“Of course, I
am
your mother—and, as the overseer, if you see her as a threat to your personal safety—”

“
Yes!
” I shout so loud the water ripples straight through to the falls.

“Skyla.” She gives a sly smile as if she’s keeping something from me—and she probably is. “Banishment of this type would ensure you have no access to Chloe nor she to you. It would be a variant of the protective hedge. Binding spirits are involved.”

“Chloe must smell this coming from a mile away. She’s been after me for weeks to keep her around. She’s even promised to tell me
secrets
she thinks not even you would let me in on.” I put air quotes around the word secrets, but I think we both know I’m patronizing her. “Now, are you ready to answer my questions?”

Her pale eyes settle over mine, and it’s like looking in a mirror.

“You, my love, came very close to allowing Gage to plant new life in your womb.”

“
You,
my love, are skirting the question. The dragon—what does it have to do with Gage?”

Her features harden. Her lids slit to nothing.

“Do you love him?”

“Do I love Gage? I think we’re back to you being out of your mind.” I take a step in until we’re just about nose-to-nose. “I love Gage Oliver as much as you love toying with my life. I love him more than anything in this universe. I would sacrifice the world and everything in it just to have him. And I’ll make sure death comes nowhere near him for the next several decades. He’s mine, and there’s not a soul who could ever take him away.”

“Very well.” She raises a hand and the ethereal plane evaporates in a lavender fog.

“Wait! You didn’t answer my question!”

“Yes—you love Gage. Let me put it in words you can understand; you answered your own damn question.”

I land back in my bed and feel around for Gage, but he’s gone. The room holds the scent of spring flowers and stale pizza. Oddly enough it smells startlingly familiar. The moon casts a shadow along the wall, and I catch a glimpse of my four-poster bed with the canopy on top. I’m in my old bedroom right back on Paragon.

Candace Messenger doesn’t make a mistake. She wanted to separate me from Gage—my own husband—by an entire body of water.

“Very funny, mother,” I whisper, leaning over to turn on the light.

The cool comforter washes across my skin, and I peer down only to confirm that I’m naked as the day I was born. At least my clothes are still with Gage. Speaking of Gage, I’ll have to borrow Mia’s phone and text him.

Chloe wafts through my mind like the wily horned devil she is.

And, after I send my sweet husband a quick message, I think I’ll take the Mustang for a drive—right through the granite wall at the base of Devil’s Peak. It’s the only portal I know of that will land me right in the pit of hell—otherwise known as the Transfer.

It’s time to end a few mysteries, and, as fate would have it, the only one willing to help me do so is the devil herself.

I send a text to Gage and let him know I’d be home in the morning. Home. Everything in me warms at the sound of that.

I drive through miles of crystalline Paragon fog, white as a blizzard. It’s so dense, it’s a wonder I don’t drive off the side of the cliff, let alone through it. I carefully maneuver the Mustang to the base of Devil’s Peak and give a momentary satisfied smile as I land over the exact spot where Chloe’s shallow grave once sat. I rev the engine a few times before throwing it back into drive and slamming my foot to the floorboard. It’s time to defy gravity, and, hopefully, a few dimensional planes.

The Mustang lurches forward, picking up speed like a jet engine ready for flight. The mountain of granite fast approaches like a shadow staining the sapphire sky. It comes at me with its looming ferocity as if it were charging me, not the other way around. The Mustang comes up on it, and my voice saws through the virginal silence of the island like a chainsaw hacking through the night.

The Mustang gyrates and quivers, and for a brief moment that wonderful vibrating feeling that only Marshall can exude runs through me like a pleasing electrocution. For a second I’m dumbfounded that I didn’t bother to bring him with me.

The Mustang thumps down on the depressive cracked soil of the Transfer, and I let out a breath of relief.

On second thought, Marshall would have tried to talk me out of such a stupid, stupid idea. I drive down toward the haunted mansion as far as I can without running over an entire mob of frenzied dead Counts with their yesteryear fashions.

“The hoops skirts, the handlebar mustaches”—I mutter as I get out of the car—“obviously they’re being punished for fashion crimes.” I make my way toward the dilapidated mansion, the very one that Demetri himself duplicated on Paragon, albeit a rehabbed version and stop dead in my tracks.

“Oh. Holy. Hell.” I can’t breathe. Can’t move. Situated behind the mansion and slightly to its left is a monstrosity that looks like it was ripped straight out of a horror novel. “Dracula’s castle.” It all makes sense. Of course, Wesley, Demetri’s egotistical son, is going to out douche his father, but, wow, the size and scope of this tall, dark and horrific eyesore is definitely crying out compensation issues. Big castle little dick syndrome seems to be a very real thing down here in the Transfer.

I head over in that direction instead, since it’s most likely housing the idiots I’m looking for. There’s no doubt in my mind that Chloe isn’t shaking the sheets with the heir to the evil throne—and the idea wrenches my heart far more than I ever thought possible because, well, essentially Chloe is sleeping with Gage.

I push my way through the gathering crowd while slapping errant hands away that dare tug at my tresses. I swear, it’s like they’ve never seen a person before which makes no sense whatsoever since they themselves are once-upon a people. They’re forever laughing and dancing and having an all around great time with one another, or at least it seems so whenever I pop in. It’s ironic in a way. On earth we always seem to be embroiled in one drama or trauma after another. And, here in the Transfer, these ghosts from long ago seemingly have it made—no death, no pain, no bothering to open the door. Speaking of which, I trot up the walkway to the castle of corruption.

“Knock, knock!” I shout, walking right past the opened double doors, each adorned with a ferocious lion’s head that looks pissed as hell to be here.

It’s spacious inside, dimly lit with candlelight, and the flicker of a fire brightens the cavernous room to my right. The fireplace is stunningly huge, large enough to park my Mustang in if I wanted.

A pair of overgrown glass coffins filled with blue keeping solution sit to the right and left of the entry. Wesley rises from a tufted leather chair, looking every bit like my husband, and my knees turn to water at the sight of him. “Looks like you took a cue from Ezrina in the decorating department.” Although the tanks are notably empty. “Still hunting for victims I see.”

“There’s nobody I want to bring back.” He waves a hand over the grandeur of his home as he makes his way over. “Welcome, Skyla. Make yourself at home. Stay as long as you like.”

I walk past him and stare up at the ornate gilded mirror hanging above the fireplace with its carved roses, its three-inch long thorns spiking out of it.

“Chloe’s touch.” He stands beside me as we stare up at the atrocity together.

“You know what they say—you can’t buy good taste.”

“And apparently you can’t buy good manners,” a female voice sings from behind. I turn to find Chloe herself wrapped in a flowing scarlet robe that Wes probably dyed with Celestra blood. “Let me guess, you’ve come to negotiate?”

Here she is—the exact person I tore through spiritual planes to visit—Chloe Bishop. Sometimes the only person who will tell you the truth is your enemy— especially when they know it’ll hurt.

“There’s nothing to negotiate, Chloe. According to my mother, the Counts have already gifted you with enough freedom to make me miserable for decades.”

“My roaming privileges are at your mercy. You and I both know that. Looks to me the negotiations are back on the table.”

“Chloe”—I close my eyes a moment—“why do you make everything so damn difficult? Just please tell me what you know, and I’ll leave you alone.” I have every intention of leaving her alone and zero intention of leaving her to wander the free world.

She takes a step to my left with her hair flowing long like an ebony river. “Skyla, you and I both know you’ll be back at Mommy Dearest’s side once I give you the gut wrenching news. I mean I really couldn’t blame you.” She cocks her head, mocking me in the process. Even while groveling for her life, Chloe is a bitch—full steam ahead. “The devastation that will incur—the gnashing of teeth, the
tears
—will certainly call for a loving mother to wipe them away.”

“Devastation?” I pull her in, digging my fingers into the soft flesh of her arm. “What’s happened, Chloe?”

“Relax, Skyla.” She yanks free. “I’m not going to tell you without an oath stipulating that you won’t have me bound. I’ve been saving this secret for a moment like this, and believe me”— her neck arches back as though she were sexually aroused, and, knowing Chloe’s twisted mind, she probably is—“I have waited so long to tell you these words.” She cuts those wicked eyes over mine and glowers in a state of bliss that I have never seen in her before. “When you learn the truth, Skyla, your entire universe will implode into that hole where your heart once sat.”

Crap. “So—I leave you as a charge of the Counts, and you’ll tell me this so-called devastating secret guaranteed to take down my world? Why in the hell should I believe you?” I glance to Wes a moment and my chest cinches because simply looking at him makes me ache for Gage.

“If I’m lying”—her lips curl at the tips as if a smile begged to erupt with glee—“I will let you push me right into that fire.” She points hard at the blaze. “And you can even invite Gage, Logan, and your precious, useless Sector friend to witness the event.”

“And how do we quantify this?” I can’t believe a single noise that squeaks from her throat. Chloe’s native tongue is comprised of fabrication. But, either way, it’ll be a win. Either I’ll have the truth, or I’ll have Chloe Bishop’s body to warm myself with by the fire. A heated rush pulses through me at the thought. Of course, I’ll have to bring some hot dogs to grill and S’mores for dessert because if Chloe Bishop is going to roast, I damn well plan on making a party out of it.

“Your mother is how we quantify it. If she says what I tell you is false, I’ll jump into the flames myself.” She blinks a smile, and all thoughts of a good old-fashioned fireside picnic up and disappear. It would seem Chloe believes she’s about to relay a legitimate fact. It would figure. The one time I’m allotted to kill her by fire, Chloe decides to spew nothing but gospel.

Crap, crap,
crap
. What am I going to do? God, could I really live with Chloe nipping at my heels for the rest of my days?

A mosaic embedded into the ornate hearth catches my eye. A river trickles down the side of a mountain while a bird hovers in the air—an oversized black raven—Nev—or, in today’s form, Holden Kragger. My mother specifically said that Chloe and Holden could never be together. One surefire way to make certain Chloe doesn’t bother me again is to keep Holden with me at all times. Hell, it’s worth a shot. Now all I have to do is convince Holden of this.

“Sure.” I shrug as if it were no big deal. “I’ll bite. I mean, after all, my mother
is
an expert when it comes to vetting out the truth.” And what exactly is this truth if my own mother—if Marshall Dudley—is opposed to sharing it? Could it really be that devastating? “Spill it, Bishop.”

“The oath.” She knocks Wes in the ribs with her elbow.

Wesley extends his arm and both Chloe and I place our hands over his.