Coop backtracks a step. “I’ll get my car and meet you at Dudley’s.”
Ellis and I pick up our clip, and soon enough Dudley’s spectacle of a house is before us. The house is lit up, the music trembles from the windows and spills into this early hour of the morning as a rather oddly dressed couple is getting down to business against the side of the house.
“Costume party?” Ellis says as we walk the behemoth beast past them.
“I’m thinking throwback Thursday.”
“The seventeenth century never lets you down, dude.”
We crest the side yard and enter into the back of Dudley’s expansive property, and low and behold there he is, arms folded across his chest, dressed in a three-piece suit, that permanent scowl he holds just for me etched on his face.
“This beast needs a new home,” I say, taking the threadbare rope from Ellis. “We chose yours.” I open up the gate to the corral and the beast moseys on in as if he belonged there, and I’m betting he does. “What’s with the party?” I nod to the house with its raucous music, the half-dressed girls oozing out of every orifice.
“There’s a celebration to be had.” He glares my way before shooting a look to Ellis. “Certainly you’re apprised of the good news.”
My heart stops cold. “Gage married Chloe and you threw a party?”
“What?” Ellis squawks so loud the lazy animals in the corral stir from their slumber. “No effing way.”
“Way,” Dudley and I say in unison.
I nod for Ellis to follow me back to the side yard. “It’s nice to know where your loyalty lies, Dudley.”
“My loyalty has never wavered, unlike your own,” he’s quick to spout back.
I stop short of rounding out the corner and turn to find those bright crimson eyes focused on me like laser beams.
His chin lifts a notch. “You gave her away out of fear, for a song. Unlike you, I understand my time with Skyla tarries.”
For a second, I think of charging him, knocking him into a fresh pile of manure, but think better of it. I’m saving all of my punches for someone else.
“Skyla is mine,” I say. “My heart, my attention is right where it should be. And you’re right. I made a grave error.”
“An error that has cost your brothers and mine their place on this planet and in the kingdom. You are dangerous. And if you continue to act upon feelings, you will continue to destroy yourself and others.”
I think on it for a moment and shake my head. I hate it when he’s right.
“Duly noted.”
“Good.” His jaw redefines itself as if he were looking to charge me instead. “What comes next?”
“I find Gage. Beat the shit out of him. Don’t worry, Dudley. There are no feelings involved in this endeavor. It’s purely recreational at this point. Then I find Skyla. We identify those markers, get our people back, and get your people back where they belong. Is there anything you’d like to amend?”
“Carry on.” A sly smile creeps up the side of his face. “And Oliver? Get a good left hook in for me.”
“Done.”
Ellis and I head out front and hop into Coop’s truck.
“To the Transfer,” I say as Ellis and I buckle up for the bumpy ride.
Coop drives us to the base of Devil’s Peak, and the three of us stare at that wall of granite as he revs the engine, preparing the truck and us for the drive right through that rock and into another plane. The speedometer clocks eighty just as we crash right through the spiritual divide. The truck, our bodies, our bones vibrate like a tuning fork struck by God until we land with a hard thump on the rugged, dusty terrain of the Transfer. Coop drives straight up to the walkway leading to Wesley’s haunt, running over at least a third of the ghostly residents in our way. It’s unlikely they’re hurt, considering they’re long deceased.
The Transfer is filled with a vagabond group from ages gone by, the men still in their yesteryear suits with their spaghetti thin ties and the woman in full bustle mode, corsets, breasts hanging out like it was a sport to see how much flesh could be exposed without going full frontal. We hop out and make our way through the oversized doors leading into the castle.
The interior of Wesley’s gargantuan home is limestone and marble. A grand room the size of my entire house sits to the right with a fireplace large enough to roast an elk. The large bath with a globe rolling in it sits just past that—Tears over Creation, Skyla called it once. I’ve heard it referenced as Tears over Paragon as well.
“Wes?” I call out.
If Wes doesn’t drag Gage from the pit of hell to see me, I just might try Tenebrous to see what the fool is up to. Gage couldn’t have done it, could he? But after having both Skyla and Marshall verify the fact Gage indeed married Chloe, it’s hard for me to give him the benefit of the doubt. In fact, he lost that privilege the day he usurped Skyla as the Faction leader. His stock has gone to dust entirely with me, and yet there’s a tugging in my heart because I still love him deeply. It looks like I’m the fool, after all.
Laken startles from the sofa, a sweet baby girl suckling at her breast. “Wes?” she calls out in a panic and the baby’s arms extend with a shock of her own. “We’ve got company.” Her hand moves protectively to the back of the baby’s head. “Coop? What’s going on?”
“Logan is looking for Gage.”
Ellis thumps his chest. “We’re going to kick some Oliver ass.” His gaze shifts to the back. “Dude, you’ve got an open bar?” He heads over and pours himself a finger’s worth of whiskey.
“What the hell?” a groggy voice grumbles from behind and we find Wes still buttoning his jeans, a flannel hanging by his shoulders, barefoot.
I could catch him off guard right now if I wanted. Pick him up and toss him into the fireplace. The world would be down one wicked idiot, but I’ve got bigger Fems to fry.
“Get your brother here. I need to talk to him.”
“My brother?” His chest bucks as he lets an incredulous laugh fly. “He’s a bit indisposed at the moment.”
Coop gives a dark chuckle. “So you’ve heard the good news?”
I filled Coop in on the way over and he’s in just as much disbelief as I am.
Wes looks to Laken and his brows lift.
Her mouth opens as she shakes her head at her bedraggled hubby. “What news, Wes?” She looks up at the man who should be her husband. “Cooper?”
“I’ll tell you.” Wes grinds a palm into his eye, still struggling to wake from his slumber. “Gage married Chloe last night in the dominion my father gifted him.”
“Oh my God,” Laken’s voice riots through the room and the baby nestled in her lap shudders. “Is that what you went for?”
“Yes.” He nods at the fact as if he were stunned. “It was supposed to be Skyla. She was there. He chose Chloe. It was a fucking mess.”
I glance to Coop when Wes lets the expletive fly. It’s almost as if he wants us to believe he didn’t approve, but I don’t buy it.
“Get him here,” I growl to Wes. “I want to hear it from his own mouth.”
Wes shakes his head at me, no words.
Laken rises and traipses over to Wes as he extends an arm to her, cradling her and the baby in his wing. It looked so natural—no, harmonious. It must kill Coop all over, every time he witnesses it.
“Look”—Wes glares at the fire a moment—“I see that you’re pissed, but I can’t help you. I can’t even help myself.” He glowers back at that fireplace before pulling Laken in tight. “Now, if you will all please leave. My family would like some peace.” There’s a heaviness in his tone, and if I didn’t know better, I’d think it sounds as if he’s grieving.
The baby rouses and looks around at our motley crew—that fair hair, those large expressive eyes, she’s Cooper Flanders’ kid through and through, and as soon as she spots her Pops, she squirms as if trying to inch her way to him.
“Come here.” Cooper gently extricates her from Laken, and neither she nor Wes puts
up a fight. Ironic since Wes made sure that paternity test ended up in his favor. I don’t believe it. I don’t care if Ezrina did administer it herself. She’s as good as on a leash around Wes. Chloe and Wes share a baby girl themselves, and since Chloe gave birth in her Ezrina-issued body, Ezrina feels a very real biological connection to October, Tobie, Edinger.
“Charlie adores you.” Laken steps over and coos at the babe in Cooper’s arms. But Wes looks as if he’s about to kill or die. Maybe both in that order.
I step over and drag Wes toward the mouth of the entry. “What’s going on? You look like you ate a shit pie and I’m not talking about your reaction to Coop holding his kid.” I blink a smile as if to let him know I’m in on it. Hell, we all are, with the exception of Laken.
His jaw squares out. His eyes fill with venom. “Like I said, I cannot summon Gage for you. I cannot control Gage. Gage is off the fucking chain, and you better believe you haven’t seen the start of this shit show.” The veins in his neck distend, and his voice is raw with rage.
I shake my head. “My God, he’s done something to piss you off, hasn’t he? He really is on a roll.”
“I am,” a deep voice reverberates from the foyer and both Wes and I freeze.
Here he is, Gage Oliver in that all too familiar body, those expressive eyes—and by his side stands Chloe Bishop—Chloe Oliver.
After all we’ve been through with her. After all Skyla has been through with her. This is a nightmare we never saw coming.
It’s as if the entire damn house collapses on itself, time rolls up like a scroll, and the stars extinguish themselves as I walk over with tunnel vision, on a mission to strangle the hell out of this piece of shit I don’t even know anymore.
I lunge on top of him and my fists rail against his face, his chest, his neck, any and every place I can reach. Gage fights back, doing his best to restrain me, but I’ve unleashed every last ounce of my Celestra strength on his grimy ass, and I can feel he’s done the same with me.
Power against power. Might against might. Light against darkness. I gift him that left hook from Dudley, then a dozen more from Skyla, a couple from each of the boys, and finally one from the father who raised him.
How did it all go so wrong? How did Gage, this seemingly perfect resurrected version of him, fall to hell so quickly?
It doesn’t seem possible that the boy I grew up with had somehow gnarled himself into the twisted monster Demetri so desperately craved he would be. It doesn’t seem even remotely possible that Gage would do what he did to Skyla and her people. And it sure as hell feels like an impossibility altogether that he would marry Chloe Bishop. He hated her with a fierce passion. There is no logical reason for this union. Not one.
Gage Oliver was the most logical person I have ever met. I’m the one that ran off emotion. Numbers, charts, and sage advice fueled him. I took off running before I knew where I was going. Gage bought a map. I threw darts blindly, hoping they’d hit their intended target. Gage walked that shit up to the board and spiked it.
A thought hits me like a house crashing over my head, and I stop cold and stagger backward, looking at his lip already swelling, the half-moon darkening underneath his left eye.
Gage is logical. I pant as I struggle to catch my breath, but I don’t dare take my eyes off his. Gage is black and white, not one shade of gray in his psychological makeup. Sure, he was a writer, a poet, but you could be creative and still very practical about life, and that’s what he was.
“Shit.” I wipe the spit off my chin as we look at one another, each hunched over, aching and out of breath.
Chloe runs over to him and his initial reaction is to lift his elbow as if he were about to bat her away, but his arm falls and he lets her blotch his cheek with her fingertips. She looks my way and her lips are moving, but I’m not too concerned with whatever it is she has to say.
Gage is logical; therefore, he is driven by logic. Whatever had him start that war—marry Chloe, it has to have made perfect sense to him. A desperate attempt at helping Skyla in some way. Gage lives to please her, to help her.
I shake my head at him. You missed by a mile, buddy. You have taken a page from my book—and markedly fucked things up far better than I ever have.
Gage lowers his head, those glowing eyes still pinned on mine as if he were trying to read my thoughts from afar, a skill I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have. But it’s almost as if he’s speaking to me, saying something that words cannot or should not express.
I twitch my head just a bit and he nods just enough.
There, he’s said something. Exactly what, I’m not certain. It’s almost as if he’s a hostage in his own skin, locked in a cage of bones that no one realizes. Something has happened to Gage Oliver, and I’m going to get down to the bottom of it if it kills me.
“I’ll see you around,” I say it harsh, but my eyes are pressing in, begging him to find me, to get me alone so we can figure this out. I want to help him, pull him from the muck and the mire he’s drowning in. And at the same time I don’t.
But Gage simply takes a breath and straightens, scooping Chloe in close with his arm.
“This is my new wife, Logan. Get used to it because it’s never going to change.”
Chloe bubbles with laughter as she looks up at him adorningly. Her hair is slightly mussed, her lids still hanging low. Chloe’s sexual charge for Gage has only grown stronger this night. Her strange obsession has come to fruition and she doesn’t know what to do with herself. I’m sure it’s been a nonstop orgasmic experience ever since they said I do.
I take a deep breath. “Normally, I would welcome you to the family, Chloe. But I can’t bring myself to do that. The spell you cast is strong. It’s potent and dangerous.” I look to Gage and he’s gone cold on me. That look of his could burn down Paragon. “You, my friend”—I look right at the nephew I love so dearly—“were better off dead.”
Coop and Ellis follow me out and we take off for greener pastures as Paragon welcomes us in a cloak of fog.
Everything has changed. Only Paragon remains the same.
But Gage was in there. I saw him, just a glimpse. And I’ll do whatever it takes to rescue him—rescue him from himself.
4
Wesley
There was an entire season of my life where I was cock-sure about everything. An entire season of my life that I had fire in my belly, assured I would never make a single error, and then I lost Laken and my world went black.
Yes, I had power. I had influence and the ability to lead my people in the direction I believe is best, but without Laken by my side, there was an everlasting hunger that no achievement was able to satiate. My life was empty, a hollow shell of what it should have been. And then, just like that, it turned on a dime. Laken by my side. Laken having my baby. The Factions were ours in a night. My brother finally at the helm, the fearless leader, the one I had sworn by oath to obey, his powers far more vast than my own. He owns me. And here I am—his puppet. And in one last great effort to secure our kingdom, I allowed him to do the unthinkable.
I glower over at Chloe as she waves her way past me and coos at the baby in Laken’s arms.
“Well, don’t just stand there.” She looks my way. “Get the bubbly, the good stuff from the basement. The oldest and the best. Congratulations are in order.”
Gage tips his head back and sheds a bleak smile. That about says it all.
“What’s going on?” Laken’s voice, her entire being is rife with suspicion. “Is this true?” Laughter peppers her words as she takes a few steps closer to my brother as if trying to read the lie on his face. “Gage, this is a farce and you know it. You’re not in love with Chloe. I saw the way you were looking at Skyla last night. Yes, you had great grief in your heart, but your love for her shone bright as the stars. Why are you doing this? Why would you hurt her?” Her mouth rounds out as if she’s coming to an epiphany. “It’s her birthday.” She shakes her head at Chloe. “Is this a joke? You married your wife�
�s nemesis on her birthday?”
Gage swallows hard as if doing his best not to lose it.
I blink over at him, bored. Stay strong, you bastard. You can do it. Crying is for pussies. I nod as if I had just conveyed the thought with words.
“It’s no joke,” he croaks it out. “How about that champagne?”
“How about whiskey? It’s quicker and less than ten feet away.”
“Sounds good.” He heads over to the bar with me while Chloe rambles out something about how uncouth it will seem to polite society to have married brothers.
I glower at this stone-faced version of myself. “Why are you here?” I ask as I pour us each a double and he knocks his back and drops the glass in front of me for more.
“Logan. I heard he was looking for me and I appeared. He’s still my true brother.”
“Unlike me.” I swallow a laugh. “I would walk through a fire for you, brother.” I lift my glass his way. “How about a simple thank you?”
His jaw moves side to side as if he were chewing on my words. “Thank you for being by my side when I needed it most.” He lifts his glass as Laken and Chloe meander over.
“Don’t you dare drink without me.” Chloe pours herself a generous amount and a glass of seltzer water beside that. “For the nursing mother.” She hands Laken the glass and we all hoist our drinks in the air. “Wesley, why don’t you do the honor? Seeing that we’re both with the ones our heart desires, it’s only fitting you bless this new union.”
“Agree.” I lift my glass another notch, my eyes still unmoving from his. “To my brother and his new wife. May you have a long, satisfying union that brings you both so very much joy.” I said joy, but the inflection, my heart said misery. “To a fresh start and true love.”
“True love.” Chloe chooses what she wants to hear as she lifts her glass ever higher.
Laken looks up at me with those soft eyes, the hard edge of suspicion veiled beneath them. “To true love.” She glances to Gage and Chloe. “If this is what you really want, I hope you both find peace in it. Be mindful of the broken hearts in your wake. And be careful not to trample others on your way to happily ever after. I hope you enjoy all of the happiness that Wesley and I have found in one another.” Her gaze shifts to my brother, and her affect hardens as she narrows her attention. “And if this is a farce, I hope you live to rue the day you thought it a good idea to tear the beating heart out of the girl you once professed to love. May you rot in your misery, roll in agony in your bed at night knowing you have trampled a pure light under your heel, that I now question if you ever deserved.”
All Hail the King (Celestra Forever After Book 6) Page 7