Celestra Forever After (53 page)

Marshall has a sickly grimace expanding over the girth of his face. His eyes glow a peculiar shade of rose.

“What the hell are you supposed to be?”

“A clown.” He offers a Cheshire cat grin, and his painted on smile expands like an accordion.

“That you are.” I take a deep breath and close my eyes because
I’m not afraid of clowns, I’m not afraid of clowns.
And if I say it enough I might escape this night without pissing in my glittery tights. I pry open an eye and inspect him further. He’s wearing a pinstriped suit and Italian loafers that shine even in this dull light. Marshall has the ability to make even something as demented as a demon-spawned clown look sexy as hell. “I have something to tell you.” I clasp onto his hand and let his fine-tuned vibrations wash over me, instantly calming my nerves.

“I’ll listen to anything you wish to say.” He picks up my hand and kisses a finger.

“Whoa,” I whisper, carefully extracting myself from him. “I’ve got a husband around here that I’d like to keep.” I glance toward the crowd. Gage is still nowhere to be found. God, he’d better not be a clown. A clown Fem!
Double gah!
I take a deep breath. “Marshall”—I stare up at his intense glowing eyes—“I’m going to make up with Gage.”

“But the pain he’s caused you—” He shakes his head and that eerie grimace bobs back and forth. “Nevertheless, I place the blame with your mother for relegating you to the beast to begin with.”

“He’s not a beast.” Maybe a little. In bed. “And you’re right. She should have filled me in on this tiny detail months ago.” But a part of me is glad she didn’t.

I press my lips together because it was Chloe I extracted the truth from. Which leaves me a little more than ticked at my mother for the deal I was forced to make with that scourge who keeps interfering with my life. I glance around because I fully expect Chloe to use her license to
thrive
and show up dressed as the most hideous creature of all—herself.

“Know that I’m here for you, Skyla. Together we shall overcome this evil you’ve bound yourself to for the rest of his unnatural life.”

I avert my gaze. Gage is a lot of things, evil isn’t one of them.

“Then please”—I lean into Marshall and his heady cologne tries its best to seduce me—“I beg of you to end the mystery of Emily’s family. Is there something I should know?”

His chest expands as he takes in the scene. “They’re a wicked brood.” A look of discontent crosses his face, but that painted on grimace still unnerves me. “Steer clear.”

“I knew it! She knows things. She does these drawings in a split second that are spot on. For a lack of a better term, it’s freaky.”

“Freaky indeed.” He frowns into his words. “Artistic prophecies such as theirs can be traced back to the Roma people—gypsies as you’d know them.”

“Gypsies, huh?” A chill ripples through me as if my intuition was keyed into something far more nefarious. “She said they were waiting for the
chosen
one.” I grip his arm. “The dragon,” I whisper because we both know who that might be.

“Skyla.” He closes his eyes a moment. “The Morgan’s are—”

“
What
?” I jump a little when I say it.

“There is a small migratory band of Roma who were mixed with a very powerful being from the Decision Council centuries ago.”

“A powerful being? As in my mother?” God this is far more bizarre than I ever imagined.

“Heaven’s no—as in Rothello.”

“The long-haired dude with one eye?”

Marshall plucked the eye right out of Rothello’s skull and gifted it to me, which in turn I stupidly gave to Chloe.

“Yes, well, that ‘long-haired dude with one eye’ has had his fair share of ill-excused behavior.”

“Like starting the faction war in my name.”

“That was destined to happen—as was this. His offspring—the Videns, have been reduced to vagabonds who await supreme leadership, and only then can they be recognized as an enclave faction. For now, they’re nothing short of cursed sorcerers.”

“Lovely.” I swallow hard. “My father said the Master hates sorcery and fortune telling.”

“Unless it’s issued to you as a prophecy from the Master himself, it is abhorred in the Kingdom.”

I breathe a sigh of relief because Dad said that, too. “And the rest of the story?”

“Rothello was kicked out of heaven’s good graces and forced to live among the filth and blight of the race he created until one day he crawled back with his wings tucked between his legs. He sold his lineage to your father-in-law for a pittance, then was restored his position alongside your mother, and the rest is as you say—
his-story
.”

“My father-in-law? Barron has something to do with this?”

“Your
other
father-in-law.”

I glance over and spot Demetri at the edge of the driveway, making his way in this direction, and a rage boils through me.

“Oh, that one. Newsflash, he’ll never be my anything.” My hands clench into fists, and it takes everything in me to keep from running over and throat punching him. “What does the dragon have to do with any of this?”

Marshall holds a finger in the air as an epiphany comes to him. “It would seem it was the exact same century I boldly asked for your hand in marriage. Which makes sense”—he momentarily glares at Demetri—“the devil himself made the same request.”

“Really?” I blink back with surprise. “But my mother said Demetri was led to believe Chloe was the Celestra born to lead.”

Marshall looks down at me lovingly as if he was about to break some real crap news over my head, and I’m betting he is.

“It’s becoming clear why Ms. Bishop is exceptionally obsessed with your betrothed.”

“Fill me in because I’m still stuck in the fog.” Literally.

“To be sure you would fall in love with his heir, he needed to know the attributes you desired most—looks, personality, physique—he then tabulated it all into one, Gage Oliver—and his predecessor, Wesley the Wicked One. Although, he has a different task, I assure you.” He gives a long blink as though he were disgusted. “Nevertheless, it’s an old trick used to create soul mates. Crawl into a waking dream and delicately pique the arousal factor until a fitting specimen appears in the minds eyes of the victim.”

“I’m a lot of things but I’m not a victim. So, Demetri crawled into my dreams centuries before I was born…” Why does this not surprise me?

“With your mother’s permission. I’m assuming he touched on a few candidates, such as yourself and Ms. Bishop. He might have thrown in a few Counts as well.”

Laken and Kresley Fisher come to mind. They both have a heart for Wes. Of course, Laken has been forever inoculated of the desire to have him, but I’m sure her heart still aches for the boy she grew up with.

I shake all thoughts of Wes out of my head. I find it interesting that Demetri went through all that trouble, and, yet, that day at the bowling alley when I first moved to Paragon, it was Logan I was initially attracted to. It was my mother’s and Demetri’s wills colliding that afternoon. And, now, here we are with all our hearts strung out on a line, including Marshall’s.

“Let’s get back to the Videns.” I shiver. “After Rothello sold them for a pass back to the kingdom, what happened to them?”

“The vagabonds then became charges of Demetri’s.”

“But he hasn’t lead them. She said they’re still waiting.”

“Yes.” He takes a cleansing breath, and a plume of fog swirls around us from the effort. “You see, if Demetri isn’t leading them it only means one thing. He’s reserved them for his heir.”

“Wesley?” I ask, hoping for the best—or in his case the worst.

“No love. Its clear one son is to serve and the other is to rule. You, Ms. Messenger, are bound in union with the most powerful ruler of the Viden people. And, once he procures dominion through your loins, he will be your biggest foe.”

“Are you trying to tell me that I’m married to my enemy?” I whisper low, shaking my head in disbelief. “Demetri forgot one detail. Gage isn’t a Count. He still shows Levatio markings.”

“I’m guessing the latter was to give Barron a level of comfort. No reason to blow his cover too early. As for the Counts, Wesley will lay them at his brother’s feet. Gage has enough Fem markers in his blood to qualify as close to pure as possible.”

I sway on my heels. The thought of Gage being a pure form of what I’ve come to associate with evil is wrong in every capacity.

“Gage will be in charge of Wesley?” I ask as if it mattered.

“If Jock Strap so wishes. The only being he’ll need to submit to is his demon of a father.”

Demetri nods as he passes the two of us. “And he will.”

“Like hell he will,” I shoot back. He won’t will he?

“Skyla.” The warm baritone of the sweet boy I love booms from behind, and both Marshall and I turn around. Gage stands there, gorgeous as a dream. His eyes siren out into the night the color of the ocean bathed in midnight. “Can we talk?”

“I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to leave.” Marshall expands his chest, doing his best impersonation of a bouncer. “No costume, no admittance.” He says it, stern, in a way that blatantly threatens to slice off Gage’s balls if he doesn’t comply.

“You’re wrong, Marshall. He is dressed.” I take up both of my husband’s strong warm hands. “He’s a prince.”

I pull Gage back into the house.

It’s time we shared a few words. And, if I’m lucky, more than a few kisses.

I think we can find our way back to one another.

God, I hope we can.

The party is barreling full steam ahead with the music pumping so loud the house has an irregular heartbeat.

I’m about to pull Gage through the back but then remember Logan, and just about everyone we know, is out there so I lead us upstairs instead.

The noise from the party becomes increasingly muffled as we ascend to the second level. The chaos from downstairs is replaced with shrill laughter and the sounds of heartfelt slapping—flesh against flesh—as if someone is being severely punished.

Perverts.

I try my hardest to break into a few rooms, only to find two locked and the third occupied with a seventeenth-century hussy and some poor fool with a faux-hawk that has no clue he’s about to bag someone far older than his grandmother. It takes the term cougar to a whole new level—more like a saber-toothed tiger.

“Oh, hell,” I hiss as I lead Gage to the master bedroom and lock the double doors behind us. Marshall’s private abode is just as good as any, even though for what I’m about to do it feels just this side of sacrilegious.

I press out a sad smile at this god-like man before me while my chest pants up a storm.

Light pours in through the windows from the porch below, affording just enough illumination to see one another in our shadowed forms. Gage glows a pale shade of ivory. His eyes glimmer like a heated night in July.

“I promise you”—he presses a soft kiss over the top of my head—“I knew nothing about this until the other day.” He leans in, tracing my cheek with his finger. “It never sunk in.” His features pull down with the horrible gravity of the situation. “Still hasn’t.” He buries his face in my neck and gives a hard sniff. “Skyla”—he brushes slow kisses up to my lips—“tell me you still love me, that we’re going to be okay.”

My heart picks up pace—frenetic like an overwound clock just hoping to burst. I take in a ragged breath and blow it out as if I were exuding the Fems themselves from our lives.

“I still love you. I can never stop.” I dig my fingers into his hair and pull him into a hard, lingering kiss. Gage has lips like pillows, soft as down feathers, and, for a fleeting moment today, I wondered if I would ever get to experience them again. I’m greedy for Gage—desperate for him. I had expected death, seen it on the horizon, but Demetri and his great deception blindsided us, totaled our world and now we just have to figure out how to rebuild it. I pull back and take in his bereaved features. “But I have no idea how we’re going to do this.” My voice cracks. It’s all I can do not to lose it. “We can’t let Demetri win.” Tears come uninvited, and I blink them back. I love Gage so damn much it makes me wonder if Demetri has already won. I think he has.

My stomach pinches tight because I wonder if on some small, cellular level, Gage was vaguely aware of who he really is.

“He won’t win.” He pulls back with that same tragic look in his eyes that he used to wear back in high school whenever he saw me near Logan. “It’s our children that give him victory.” He touches his forehead to mine. “We don’t have to go there.”

A small cry escapes my throat because up until recently that visual of Emily’s body splitting in two still made me the strongest advocate of child-free living, only now I take it all back. I want dozens of beautiful babies with this gorgeous man before me.

“No.” I shake my head. “Gage, I want that with you.”

His lips quiver, and he takes a forceful breath. “We can adopt. I swear, I’ll love any child God gives us whether or not it’s derived from our bodies.”

“We can teach our children to stay away from Demetri—to hate him.”

“Skyla.” He touches his fingers to my lips. “Do you really want the focus of our children’s lives to be on ‘hate’ of all things?” He swallows hard. “Besides, Demetri wins as long as he has a race. As long as someone in our lineage serves him, he comes out the victor.”