The Serpentine Butterfly

by Addison Moore

  “It is a possibility.” I take up her hand without asking.

  “It’s happening,” she assures. “Why are you here, Gage?” She snaps at her husband. “Is Lexy’s Immunity League that much of a concern to you?”

  Skyla’s tone is harsh and curt. What’s this? A lover’s spat we’re witnessing?

  She plucks her hand from mine, still waiting for his answer.

  “It appears Jock Strap is in need of council,” Dudley offers like the rat he is. I’m fine with it. If Dudley didn’t say something, I would have. I’m through with keeping things from her. It’s already cost me my life. The next time it might just cost hers.

  Gage sinks deeper into his seat, his hands both collapsed over her fingers. “Skyla—Demetri wants me back. He wants me as the Videns’ leader. He wants me as Wesley’s equal, although we all know that will never happen because our morals happen to be running in opposite directions—and he wants me to claim heir to my Fem heritage. I need to give him definitiveness. I wanted Dudley and Logan to help me figure out what was best for you and me.”

  Shit. Someone should really work with Gage on how to speak with a woman—namely his wife. He was doing pretty good right up until that last sentence.

  “You need them to figure out what’s best for you and me?” Her face deepens a peculiar shade of plum. Her lips purse as her eyes roll back into her head a moment. “So, let me get this straight”—words you never want to hear from your sweetheart—“you called Dudley and Logan here for this very important life-changing, destiny-wielding, eternal ramifications decision, and yet, it never occurred to you to include your own wife?”

  There it is. A big old pile of crap just fell over Gage, and I’m afraid ain’t nobody able to dig that boy out.

  “I’d better get going.” I try to rise, and Skyla pushes me into the seat next to her.

  “Nobody goes anywhere.”

  “I’m sorry,” Gage pleads. It’s a good start, but the race is over. Skyla is already pissed into next week.

  “There’s a faction meeting coming up. You won’t be going, Gage. Logan, I expect you to take over like I asked. I’ll talk to Dr. Booth and fill him in. And for the love of God, do me a favor and make sure there isn’t a chicken in the vicinity. Deorsum is always bringing food. It’s not a damn potluck. The smell of chicken—the thought of chicken makes me gag.”

  “Done.” No chicken. Does that mean Gage can’t bunk up with her tonight? I withhold a private smile.

  “Look”—he tries to turn over the engine again—“I wanted to include you. I was going to include you, but you’ve been too sick to move, let alone sit up. I wanted to hear what these two thought, and then run it all by you tonight.”

  “Is that before or after you sneak off to be with your real family?” She smears it with such venom it almost hurts to watch.

  Gage inches back. His features pinch with grief. “You are my real family.”

  “Save it,” she snipes. “I’m the one you’re keeping things from, not Demetri or Wes.”

  Gage slams his hands down over the table so hard the thunderous clatter stills the entire oversized house. “I did not want to stress you out!” he roars. Crap. I cut my hand in the air for him to knock this shit off, because for one—he’s stressing her out. “I want to keep you and our babies safe, Skyla.”

  Babies?

  “I love you.” His voice softens. His eyes water as if there were an ocean in each one. “I would do anything for you. That’s why I went to see your mother that day and begged her to make me human. That’s why I came back to Paragon—to live as your husband—your human husband. She’s the one that told me you were expecting. She’s also the one who tossed me to Devil’s Peak—or I should say just shy of it—that’s when…”

  “Blasphemy!” Marshall doesn’t waste any time in calling Gage on his bullshit, only I for one don’t think he’s shitting us. “Candace Messenger is a lot of things, but a murderer? Of her daughter’s husband no less?” Even Dudley seems incensed by the notion.

  “Oh, come off it.” Skyla scoffs openly at her spirit husband, and a dull smile rides on my face. “You and I both know she’s capable.”

  “Perhaps she’s willing, but according to ancient bylaws, she is very much forbidden from harming your spouse. It’s not yet Jock Strap’s time, and thus she would be culpable for attempted murder. His story has more holes in it than a yard of French lace. Speaking of which—” He checks his phone and gets up from the table. “I’ve a meeting to tend to,” he grouses at me as if I were at the nexus of this unchaste exchange.

  “You’re not off the hook!” she calls after him as he disintegrates while walking through the wall.

  “Neither are you, Skyla.” His voice warbles as if in a tunnel.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asks quietly, mostly to herself, and suddenly, she’s the most subdued she’s been all evening.

  “What do you want me to do, Skyla?” Gage asks, a little more amicable himself.

  “Do you have to answer him tonight?” Her voice is even, and dare I say, tender. It’s as if just like that they’ve gone from volcanic to loving in a single bound. Not surprising, everything seems a little calmer with Dudley out of the room.

  “I have time.”

  “Good, we’ll need it. I’ll talk to Dudley, but I already know my answer. Tell me what your thoughts are, and I’ll tell you mine.” Skyla gives a cold look to both Gage and me.

  It feels like a trap—a trap only her husband should fall into, but technically, we both fit the bill, Gage more so than myself at the moment.

  Gage nods. “I think I should stay. I’ll still be here for you, for Celestra, minus the power trip I had the last time I joined in on the fun. I can help you from the inside. They’re going to try to derail our people with or without me there.”

  He has a valid point, although I very much hate the thought of Gage getting knotted up in the barbed wire of the Barricade once again.

  She cups the side of his face, and, for a minute there, I thought she was going for a slap.

  “And you, Logan?” she asks without bothering to turn her head in my direction. “What do you think Gage should do?”

  “Easy,” I say. “I’ve known from the beginning. Stay.” I look right at him with a genuine earnestness in my heart. “Glean what you can, and bring it all back. Demetri and Wes already know you’re going to report to Skyla. Either they’re going to feed you a load of bullshit or they genuinely don’t give a rat’s ass. And I tend to believe it’s the latter.”

  “Why is that?” Skyla twists in my direction. Her swollen lips are so beautiful it’s all I can do not to lean in and steal a kiss.

  “Because they think they’re infallible. They think they are gods—that nothing Gage knows and tells you will ever come back to bite them in the ass.” I can feel the sad truth bubbling from me, and selfishly I’m slow to give it. “And—they simply want Gage. He’s one of them, the missing link in Demetri’s eyes. Your baby has given him the thing he coveted most, dominion. Demetri has already won the prize, and Gage is the ultimate bonus. Demetri and Wes are both greedy to a fault. Neither has a friend in the world, and in Gage they have a friend and family. Who wouldn’t want Gage on their side?”

  Skyla gives a hard sniff before a flood of tears trickles down her face, her skin blotching with large, pomegranate stains.

  “Come here.” I pull her in, hug her hard, dig my face in her unruly hair, and I don’t really give a shit if anyone is watching, not even Gage. I needed to do this. God, we haven’t even talked in private in so very long. The things I need to properly apologize for, ask her about, are piling higher than my mental ceiling has the capacity to handle.

  “I’d better get going.” Gage pulls out his phone and starts texting. “I’ll be home late, Skyla. I’ll tell Demetri I’m not sure. Once you square things away with Dudley, with your own heart, let me know, and I’ll make it official. I’m just hanging out on the sidelines as less than an
observer for the time being.”

  He leans in and kisses her on the cheek before glancing over at me.

  “Why don’t you talk to Logan and fill him in on a few things?” He slaps me a slow five before heading out the door.

  “What’s going on, Skyla?” The fact Gage is intent she talk to me alone is alarming enough. “Is it bad? Did something happen to the baby?”

  She shakes her head. “Can we go somewhere?”

  “Half of West is in the living room. It’s raining sickles outside. The bowling alley is hosting the youth group from church tonight. I can’t think of anywhere.”

  “How about the butterfly room at White Horse?” Her gaze dips a moment. “Did you and Chloe?” She offers a slow nod, and I close my eyes in response. “I don’t care.” She sniffs the air hard. “I’m sick of her stealing everything that’s mine. I’m taking it back.” She holds out her hand. “To the new butterfly room built with your love for me.”

  I take her hand, and the room disappears in a swirl of iridescent blue. “To the butterfly room.”

  * * *

  The butterfly room at White Horse is more or less an exact representation of the one at the Landon house with the exception of its size. This one can easily swallow Skyla’s entire bedroom, let alone the original room above her closet at least twice over.

  I casually take in a deep breath, looking for the slightest incriminating evidence as if the room still might hold the scent of Chloe and me fucking. I cringe at the thought while detangling my hand from hers.

  “That’s not necessary.” She pulls me down until we’re seated on the floor, the light of the cobalt wings fluttering around us. “There will be many seasons of our lives that we will not be able to hold one another—this isn’t one of them.” She wraps my arms around her, twisting to look up at me.

  “This reminds me of that day back in the old butterfly room when you asked what we had to do to be together, and I said—”

  “Take down the Counts,” she finishes.

  “We’re still taking them down.” I swallow, waiting for some inevitable news, something so horrific that Skyla is willing to whitewash my oversight with Chloe.

  “No. Chloe is responsible, not you.”

  “In my heart, I was making love to you, Skyla.” Tears burn as I struggle to keep my gaze on hers. “I was loving you, only you.”

  “I know. And had I needed that, I know it would have been special.” She shakes her head. “There was something strange happening at that time—I was having these dreams of you and me. We were—” She motions with her hand.

  “Together?”

  She nods. “While Gage was away. I’m forever having these sexed-up dreams—they usually star Marshall, but for those six weeks…” She looks up at me, her eyes shining like stars. “They were so real, Logan.” She nods. “We were in every single room in this house. Right here in this room.” She looks to the sheath of cobalt fluttering wings. “You had me up against that wall. The butterflies flew all around us. You spun me in a circle and said—”

  “I will love you through this.” Tears come to my eyes, but I don’t let them fall. Someway, somehow, I was indeed making love to Skyla.

  She shakes her head, her steely gaze never leaving mine. “I don’t know what this means. I’m sorry. I didn’t want to upset you.”

  “No. I’m the one who needs to apologize until I’m blue in the face—no pun intended.” Counts are spiritually blue. That is, after all, how Dudley exposed me as such.

  “I wish I knew about the baby sooner.” Her hand floats down to her belly. “I didn’t know until that day, Logan, or I would have confided in you as soon as I found out.” She readjusts herself until her beautiful face is close to mine, her features serious as stone. “Gage and I are having—”

  “Twins?” My gut wrenches with both pleasure and pain. Of course, that’s why Gage said babies.

  Skyla shrinks in my arms as she holds up three fingers.

  “What?”

  “I know.” She covers her face with her hands. “It’s freakish, but it’s true.” Her body turns until we’re facing one another fully. “And there’s one more thing you should know, Logan.” Her chest hiccups as she struggles to hold back tears. “My due date is December thirteenth.”

  “December thirteenth? That sounds so far and yet so close. God, three,” I say through a huff of a laugh. Then it hits me. Skyla is having her children with Gage on our wedding anniversary. “Yes—the thirteenth.” My eyes close involuntarily. Even I know that babies rarely arrive on their due date, but the irony is symbolic for everything we have ever been—that we are. “Skyla, this is a blessing. I couldn’t think of a better day for something so wonderful to happen in your life—in all of our lives.”

  Skyla lets me hold her, and I rock her slowly in my arms for hours. And for hours, I ponder just what kind of message the universe is trying to send me.

  Skyla reaches up and offers a simple pat to my cheek. “I’m heading home.” She rises, and I join her, wobbling on my feet a moment. “We are going to take down the Counts, Logan—the Barricade to be exact. I want you to talk to Ellis for me—Brody Bishop, too. We’re going to start our own version of the Immunity League.”

  “What for?”

  “We need to stop this insanity before it stops us. Who knows—” Skyla’s body, her clothes take on a transparent state—“we might even get back into the killing game.”

  The killing game.

  What’s gotten into Skyla?

  Three Fems, that’s what.

  6

  Enter the Dragon

  SKYLA

  In this new world of sleeping and moaning, I’m lost in a delirious fit of physical aversion. Anything and everything makes me squeamish, and my only hope lies in a seizure-like regurgitation of food I hardly can stand to get down to begin with. I have many dreams in this—what I have dubbed the Retching Season. I dream in blues, in purples, in fog, and in rain. I dream of Marshall, stubbornly only of him. He is my anchor in this madness. And though he refuses to come to me in the waking hours, his presence is never absent in my sleep. These dreams are littered with his naked, rock-hard body pressed to mine. His hungry tongue-lashing over my quivering flesh, his strong arms pining me down with the promise of a harder lashing, a good thrusting from his body to mine. Marshall has me in ways that are inhuman, indescribable with the mere English vocabulary. He takes me to heights that are neither organic, nor in my nature. I beg him for more every hour. I can only deduce this means I need him so desperately. Just one touch from his sizzling flesh, and I’m sure—positive that my nausea will flee, and I’ll receive the respite my weary soul aches for.

  Gage comes in well after three in the morning and drops a kiss to my temple. My lids flutter to greet him. He’s holding something in his hands, a brown square that reeks of recycled dead raccoons.

  “That smell.” I push it away from me. “I can’t take it.”

  “This box? I have my father’s papers in it. Just some accounting stuff I need to go through.”

  “Ugh, I can’t stand the smell of boxes.”

  “Are you sure?” He pulls it in and takes a sniff. “I don’t think boxes smell.”

  I shoot him a look that contests his theory, and he slides the inspiring parchment to the other end of the room.

  “You’re feeling pretty bad, huh?”

  A hard moan shrills from me. After nearly vomiting on poor Logan, I barely had the energy to transport myself home.

  “Skyla.” Gage flicks off his shoes and glides in bed next to me, pulling me in until we’re face-to-face. The moonlight kisses his features, kisses his tar-colored hair until it glows an eerie shade of blue. “Do you remember how sick I would get if I teleported too much? I don’t want to make anything worse for you. I just want you to be safe—for the babies to be safe.”

  I give a furtive nod. “I’ll never do it again, I swear.” My teeth chatter as a chill spirals through me. “Gage”—I touch my forehead t
o his—“I beg of you. Call Marshall. Tell him that I’m dying. And when he arrives, tie him to the bloody bed—to my body.”

  Gage lets out a moan of his own. “I won’t go that far, but”—he fishes his phone out and shoots Marshall a text—“but consider the call done.”

  “Thank you.” Everything in me exhales. “God, I hope he shows. What did you say?”

  He gives a depleted smile before flashing his phone at me.

  “Get your ass over here, ASAP. Oh, Gage—Marshall doesn’t take well to orders. We need to ply his ego.” I take his phone and type into it, showing off my work of genius to my gorgeous husband.

  “I’m having a serious craving for a Sector. Know of any, big boy? Skyla!” Gage ticks back incredulously, but a laugh is buried deep in his chest. “And this is coming from my phone.”

  “Sorry. I can’t help it. I’m not above begging or lying.”

  “I don’t approve. But if you are having a craving…” His dimples go off as he hits Send.

  “You’re the only man I crave, Gage Oliver.” I pull him in tight, trying to quell the nausea, but nothing seems to work. This is ceaseless, endless agony.

  The room illuminates in a spray of stars before muting to a soft glow in the shape of—

  “Marshall!” I gasp. It takes all of my strength to push Gage in his direction. “Quick, catch him!”

  “Lay a hand on me and taste eternity, Jock Strap.” Marshall offers his devilish grin, his eyes speaking to mine the way they have in my dreams. But I didn’t summons Marshall here for sex, or even anything remotely inappropriate.

  Marshall bends over and smooths my hair back with his hand, and I feel it.

  A delicious moan escapes me. “There it is,” I hum. This wonderful buzzing vibration is the exact thing I’ve needed all these weeks. “How could you avoid me?” I latch on to his collar and bring his body close to mine. “Quick! Touch me everywhere.”