The Serpentine Butterfly

by Addison Moore

  She giggles up a storm as she topples over me, and we land on the grass, her hair spilling around us like a love story of the ages written in strands of gold.

  Laken’s lips find mine, her tongue enters my mouth, willing and demanding as she takes me, makes me her own, and I melt into her. This, right here, is how it should be, how I hope it will be once again.

  There is nothing so pure as Laken and me rolling around in a Kansas plain with the moon bleaching us white as snow.

  Laken and I are right. We are meant for one another—in the least in Cider Plains, in the least on this magical night that I replay on a beautiful loop.

  She reaches down for my jeans once again, and this time I don’t stop her.

  I can’t.

  I couldn’t deny her if I tried.

  The Skyla is Falling

  CHLOE

  Wesley’s castle of castration is empty and hollow. The sounds of my clicking heels and the unruly child in my arms are the only things keeping me company on this dark, dank evening. Skyla’s private baby prom bored me to tears. And those good-for-nothing feds lived up to being zombie bait just like Wes predicted. He also predicted a stronger swarm of replacement G-men who will finally turn the Nephilim world on its pretty pink wings. That’s what they get for bowing down to Messenger once again. You would think once they witnessed how useless she was the first time, it would be her they’d toss out to the Spectators at feeding time.

  The baby seizes and lets out a sharp cry as if she were witness to a holy terror. Well, I have news for her. She’s the only holy terror around here. I plunk the screaming brat down into the casketnet Bree gifted me and sit on the sofa, kicking off my heels, glaring at the fire until that enormous hole in the wall burns with the flames of a thousand suns. I like it hot and bright, two things that the Transfer will never truly be.

  “I’d knock, but I really don’t care!” a girl’s voice shouts from behind, and I startle a moment to find an unwanted familiar face I saw just under an hour ago.

  “What the hell do you want, Messenger?” I shove a dusty throw pillow behind my shoulders. My back has been killing me all fucking day. Ezrina’s old body is nothing but a crap heap.

  “There, there.” She goes straight for the screaming little demon. “What’s the matter, cute stuff?” She picks up the tiny menace and manages to bring her wheezing to a minimum. “Did you just figure out who your mommy is?” Skyla rocks her on one hip, and I’d swear that little thing just cooed at her.

  “I was just about to close the lid on that casket.” True story. But it only makes the little witch ten times more agitated. Wesley said he’d pluck my fingernails out if I ever did it again. A little peace around here might be worth a fingernail or ten.

  “It’s not supposed to have a lid.” Skyla lands her hand against the baby’s head as if protecting her from me. As if.

  “I had it reinstalled.”

  “God, I can’t believe Wesley lets you near this precious angel.”

  “He’s a moron. We both know that.”

  Skyla hiccups with delight at the tiny nervous being flapping in her arms. “Did you see that? She just smiled.” Skyla doesn’t take her eyes off the little mutt. “She’s nothing like you after all.” The baby claws at Skyla’s neck, her mouth pecking at her sweater as if she might actually get lucky, and knowing the nitwit holding her, she just might.

  “When did you last feed this poor thing? Where is Ezrina?”

  “Don’t know, don’t care to both of those questions.”

  Skyla swoops in by my feet and takes a seat. She wastes no time lifting her blouse and getting my own daughter to suck on her tit. Tobie goes at it, greedy, in a frenzy as if she’s never eaten before. I’ve been telling Ezrina for weeks that she’s got some freaky food addiction. That child is never happy unless she has a nipple in her mouth. Good thing Messenger is here pulling her tits-for-humanity stunt because she wasn’t getting ahold of mine.

  “What is it with the titty toddler time? Is that supposed to be some kind of FU to me? Because I’m truly confused by this.” I flick her free boob with my foot, and she bats me away with her elbow.

  “Your daughter is hungry, Chloe. My God, she’s starved. I just fed the boys, so I don’t have much to give at the moment.” She leans back, making herself at home. Her eyelids flutter as if she actually might be enjoying this on some bizarre sexual level.

  “Is that what you came for? Are you making your wet nurse rounds for the night? Why aren’t you home fucking your husband?” Skyla obviously doesn’t know a good thing when it lands on her mattress since she’s often drifting from Gage Oliver’s side. “That man is a coital playground I would have bound to the bedroom every dirty loving minute.”

  “Leave Gage alone. It’s bad enough you had Logan.”

  “Are you kidding? He was no thrilling, all drilling.”

  “Well, thank God you have Wesley. I’m sure he’s attentive to all the dirty details.”

  The thought of Wesley ever taking Gage Oliver’s place makes me scowl. Everything about him annoys me. “Does Gage leave the toilet seat up?”

  “No, he’s a perfect gentleman.”

  “Wes leaves the toilet set up.”

  “That’s because all he cares about is himself. He’s a megalomaniac. You have to lie down for the master, and you have to lower the toilet seat. That’s his way of exhorting power over you.”

  “Speaking of power—heard your people kicked you to the curb once they discovered you were useless.”

  “Not true. I’ve been reinstated. There’s a rebellion against the Justice Alliance ruling, and I’m spearheading it.”

  “My, my—someone is smugly proud. Too bad you’re going to fuck this up like you do everything else. The tunnels are open. Those blue death tubes of Ezrina’s are percolating once again—and Celestra are the new Counts. Way to lead a revolution—morph into your enemy. Who are you strategizing with these days anyway? Demetri?” I scoff at her ignorance. “For once, would you take some solid advice from me? Go home and bed that husband of yours before I figure out a way to do it myself.”

  She narrows her gaze a moment. “Did you miss the show tonight, Chloe, or are you playing dumb?” Skyla is the queen of playing dumb, so it’s hard not to laugh.

  “Miss the show?” I stall for a moment. “Last I saw you, Dudley was yanking you into the woods for a quickie.”

  “Mmm.” She shakes her head and moves Wesley’s river rat to her other rack. “I saw Gage—he made a covenant with the dark. He’ll be your king soon enough—fighting against my people, against Celestra.” She blinks back tears. Skyla has always been an idealistic do-gooder who, for fuck’s sake, could never actually do any good. If I weren’t so bored by her, I’d laugh in her face.

  I yawn for effect, but I’m surprised at how heavy my eyelids feel regardless. “I’d say sorry to hear it, but I don’t much care. Was there a blowout? If so, I’ll catch the next light drive over.” I offer her a wink. “Care to join me?”

  “No,” she says it stern, with enough force to affirm the trip will be worth my effort.

  “So it’s safe to assume things will end for you and Gage.” Something wrenches deep inside me, and I can’t figure out why. I should relish the fact Skyla and Gage will part ways once and for all. God knows they’re nothing but a nightmare together. Am I secretly rooting for them? Or am I afraid that without Skyla in the picture, Gage still wouldn’t pick me? Oh, who am I kidding? Gage Oliver will pine for Skyla until he’s blue in the face and then throughout time immemorial. He’s as ridiculously idealistic as she is. I think they both need a dose of reality and heartache—a few dozen broken bones wouldn’t hurt either.

  “Things will end for Gage and me,” she says the words stunted, like a question, as if testing out the theory for the first time on her lips. “His days are numbered.” Her eyes flit to mine. “It’s written in stone.”

  “In stone?” God, I have a babbling Messenger here to entertain me and keep t
he river rat quiet. I should be both amused and grateful, and I’m neither.

  “Yes. Just a few more—days, months, you get the picture.”

  “Do you know how long?” My throat constricts as if waiting for the noose to cinch.

  “Yes,” she says it almost catatonic. “The prophecy was a gift from my mother.” She glances toward the ceiling as if making known which one.

  “Oh, come on—snap out of it, Messenger. It won’t be long before you have another mustache to ride. Got to love your intergalactic mama. She knows exactly what to gift you for every occasion—Logan. That woman has one serious lady-boner for that boy.” My finger falls into my mouth involuntarily, and I pull it out slowly. “I sort of have a lady-boner for the fair-haired Oliver myself. He’s no slacker in bed, honey. That boy has a tongue, and he knows how to use it.” My thighs quiver on cue.

  “Oh?” She holds back her amusement. “And what was all that BS about no thrilling, all drilling?”

  “Lies, I tell you, all lies.” We share a short-lived laugh.

  Wait…why in the hell is Skyla bonding with me over bedding her dead ex-husband of all things? I smell a rat, and it isn’t just Wesley’s spawn.

  “Why are you really here?”

  “I have a proposition for you.” Her eyes steady over mine as if she were pinning me down. Messenger is setting the net, asking me to venture toward the hole in the ground that she just laid her golden hair over, but I’ll outsmart her yet.

  “Concerning Terrible Tobie?” My foot touches the baby’s tiny toes, and her pint-sized leg recoils, repositioning herself to nuzzle better at Messenger’s teat. Traitor.

  “Concerning Gage.” Skyla’s eyes enliven with something I’ve yet to see before with the mention of his name. Is that anger, resentment, and rage all rolled into one delicious confection?

  Skyla leans in and dips her hot mouth into my ear, whispering away in a heated fervor. I take in her words, the heft—weighing the meaning of them with great interest.

  She pulls back, awaiting my response.

  “Oh dear, Skyla”—a dark laugh tremors through me as I stare wild into the fire—“this really does change everything.”

  “Don’t get too excited. You know what they say—the enemy of my enemy is still my enemy.”

  I cut her a dark glance and scowl. “That’s not what they say.”

  “All the rules are mine now, Chloe—and that’s what I say.”

  A scuttle of footsteps comes from the entry as Messenger and I stand to find the OG hag headed this way.

  “Explain!” Ezrina’s eyes round out, bloodshot and angry, like only hers can. Her finger points hard toward the door. Whatever twisted her granny panties in a knot is outside these haunted castle walls.

  “Watch the baby.” Skyla drops a kiss to the tiny troll’s head and hands her off to Ezrina. “Come, Chloe.” She walks stoically toward the exit, shoulders back, chin up, her tone even-keeled. I hardly recognize this poised, pissing-fire version of the shell of a person I’ve come to know. I almost admire her. A laugh tries to bubble its way to the surface, but I stifle it.

  I follow Messenger to the door like a trained dog. I’m so fucking amused, this time I do laugh, and the sound of my own voice gets trapped in my throat when I see it.

  The sky. It’s—gone. Every physicist’s nightmare brews outside this vessel, this realm that caters to wickedness. Something or someone has ripped the Countenance a new one, and no more is the dismal sky—the arid space replaced with lapping circles of stars and sprays of pastel colors as if we were somehow pulled into a psychedelic nightmare.

  “You did this?” The words trip from my tongue.

  “Damn straight.” The dark brewing clouds bubble with a volcanic furor, angry, swelling, then bursting with a sense of demonic pride. She waves at something in the distance, and a pair of majestic ebony steeds trots up, swift as lightning, each one dark as a starless night.

  “Doing a little redecorating?”

  “More like a hell of a lot of rearranging.”

  My heart thumps in my chest with a jolt of excitement at what this might mean.

  Her brows narrow as she glares at something on the dark horizon. “Get on, Chloe.”

  We climb onto the oily stallions and ride swiftly toward a wall of pulsating liquid, red and gold—the scalding oppression emanates with the heat of a thousand branding irons. It’s as if time itself were suddenly tangible, and we had harnessed the power to dive right into the beating heart, the nexus of what makes us who we are today. Time has always been honest in chronicling our scars, our hapless victories, our hard-won wounds—and now we own it, the past, the future, the imperfect present.

  The ground pulsates with the might of our angry hooves as we head straight out of this obsidian hell, straight toward the eye of this boiling foreign sun, its girth and width weighted with the truth.

  The Transfer twists in a kaleidoscope of color, churning in its own agony at the misshapen beast it had become. Messenger is alerting her foes, her adversaries, sounding the celestial ram’s horn—she is blowing loud and hard. She has singlehandedly knifed the very realm the Countenance have worked so hard to procure, to preserve, to revel in for as far back as the Nephilim themselves.

  She is twisting her enemy by the balls, saying look at me. Look into my eyes. You will know me. By my might and my strength, you will know my name.

  I almost want to laugh. And I would if I weren’t so terribly fucking glad she’s finally doing it.

  It’s quite a romantic pairing, Skyla and I.

  We ride ever closer to the flames as they rise, higher and higher, to the hole where the sky once stood—to our destiny.

  The world will never see us coming.

  There are kingdoms, realms, dominions to dismantle, eradicate, consume.

  It’s time to burn them all to cinders.

  And we will.

  A Note from the Author

  Thank you for reading The Serpentine Butterfly (Celestra Forever After 3). If you enjoyed this book, please consider leaving a review at your point of purchase. Even a sentence or two is appreciated.

  *Look for Crown of Ashes (Celestra Forever After 4) coming soon!

  Books by Addison Moore

  Parnormal Romance

  (Celestra Book World in Order)

  Ethereal (Celestra Series Book 1)

  Tremble (Celestra Series Book 2)

  Burn (Celestra Series Book 3)

  Wicked (Celestra Series Book 4)

  Vex (Celestra Series Book 5)

  Expel (Celestra Series Book 6)

  Toxic Part One (Celestra Series Book 7)

  Toxic Part Two (Celestra Series Book 7.5)

  Elysian (Celestra Series Book 8)

  Perfect Love (A Celestra Novella)

  Ephemeral (The Countenance Trilogy 1)

  Evanescent (The Countenance Trilogy 2)

  Entropy (The Countenance Trilogy 3)

  Ethereal Knights (Celestra Knights)

  Season of the Witch (A Celestra Companion)

  Celestra Forever After (Celestra Forever After 1)

  The Dragon and the Rose (Celestra Forever After 2)

  The Serpentine Butterfly (Celestra Forever After 3)

  Crown of Ashes (Celestra Forever After 4) Soon!

  Romance

  3:AM Kisses (3:AM Kisses 1)

  Winter Kisses (3:AM Kisses 2)

  Sugar Kisses (3:AM Kisses 3)

  Whiskey Kisses (3:AM Kisses 4)

  Rock Candy Kisses (3:AM Kisses 5)

  Velvet Kisses (3:AM Kisses 6)

  Wild Kisses (3:AM Kisses 7)

  Country Kisses (3:AM Kisses 8)

  Burning Through Gravity (Burning Through Gravity 1)

  A Thousand Starry Nights (Burning Through Gravity 2)

  Fire in an Amber Sky (Burning Through Gravity 3)

  Beautiful Oblivion (Beautiful Oblivion 1)

  Beautiful Illusions (Beautiful Oblivion 2)

  Beautiful Elixir (Beautiful Obliv
ion 3)

  The Solitude of Passion

  Someone to Love (Someone to Love 1)

  Someone Like You (Someone to Love 2)

  Someone For Me (Someone to Love 3)

  Young Adult Romance

  Melt With You (A Totally ’80s Romance 1)

  Tainted Love (A Totally ’80s Romance 2)

  Hold Me Now (A Totally ’80s Romance 3)

  Acknowledgments

  A HUGE thank you to those of you who are on this Celestra roller coaster right along with me. Thank you for being so patient in waiting for The Serpentine Butterfly to finally release its wings. I hope it was all you wished it would be! Your love and support for the Celestra books amazes me each and every day. I’m so blessed to do what I love, and I’m even more so blessed to know that you are on this journey with me.

  A special thank you to Lisa Markson for being one of the early betas who viewed this beast and gave valuable input! Big beastly kisses for not balking at its girth!

  To the fabulous Kaila Eileen Turingan-Ramos, I am so thankful that you take the time to pour over each word and make sure it is in its place. I am so very grateful for your sacrifice of time. You are a true angel! I can never thank you enough!

  Thank you to Kathryn Jacoby who combed through this monolithic text to make sure all of my rambling thoughts spun out a cohesive Paragon tale. You are wonder woman in every capacity.

  And to Paige Maroney Smith, I am truly indebted to you for taking this slippery serpent of a book and putting it under your microscope to make sure it shined like a jewel. You are the real jewel! Thank you for sharing your sparkle.

  And last, but never least, thank you to Him who sits on the throne. Worthy is the Lamb! Glory and honor and power are yours. I owe you everything.