Ethereal Knights (Celestra Knights)

by Addison Moore

  We check out the dessert menu, and I talk her into trying the deep-fried ice cream.

  “I can tell my mother loved your parents.” Her mouth falls open once she realizes those weren’t my parents.

  “I know what you meant.” She’s cute when she’s embarrassed—hell, she’s cute when she’s not embarrassed. “I consider them my parents. To tell you the truth, I don’t really remember the original set.”

  “I’m sorry. That’s terrible.” She scans the floor as if trying to figure out a way to change the subject. “She was on the phone with you.” I’m guessing she means Chloe. “When I saw her, you were picking out a color for your truck.”

  “Oh?” I remember that day. I specifically bought that white truck because she wanted that color. “And she suggested Gage go with black. He never forgave her for that. It’s too hard to keep clean.”

  A strangled silence crops up, and I have a feeling it has less to do with Chloe or the color of my truck than the fact that her necklace is noticeably bare.

  She leans in and wands her spoon over at me. “This is really good.”

  “I know.”

  And I know exactly what she’s trying to hide.

  Gage

  Another black sand dream sinks me into Skyla’s arms. We roll around in a tiny hut built for two with our bodies tangled up in one another, her mouth so fervently hungry for me, her clothes discarded as her warm skin collides with mine.

  The next morning, I jump into the truck and just go for a drive.

  I didn’t wait around for Logan to get home from his date last night. I’m not sure which was worse—that, or hitching a ride home with my parents. My mother practically had their wedding mapped out on the way home in the car. She can’t wait to introduce Skyla to my grandparents should they ever trek back to see them again.

  I pass Devil’s Peak and keep on driving. I usually skip the hang-out nights at the cliffside. It still bothers me that they found Chloe at the base. There’s something off about that whole thing. The way she died, the way she was mutilated—finding her buried in a shallow grave as if she were there all along. Someone would have seen something. Devil’s Peak has at least six-dozen homes, facing that direction.

  I shake her out of my head as I pass the Black Forest. Black—there’s that color again.

  “Black sand,” I whisper. “Where in the hell is there a black sand beach?” Black sand? As in Rockaway?

  I let out a little laugh. No way. That was a vision. I knew it.

  “Skyla and me at Rockaway.” Just coupling myself in a sentence with her sounds like a relief.

  I take the turn-off and drive toward Rockaway Beach.

  A dark expanse spreads its wings before me like the shadow of an eagle in flight.

  “Holy shit,” I mouth the words.

  I park and run down to the shore, alive with a surge of victory.

  This is it. I recognize the boulders to the left, the cove, the beautiful spray of an all-too-familiar coral tree.

  This is fucking it.

  I drop to my knees and scoop up the beautiful onyx sand and let it bleed through my fingers. It’s happening. Whatever destiny set in motion all those years ago, it’s already channeling us in the right direction. I know it is.

  I lie back and lay my head over a stone, watching the waves as they lap the ebony shore. The sky is kissing the feet of the island today. It worships her, loves her with an intimacy reserved for husbands and wives. It lies over her, covering her dark, glittering body with the precipitous membrane of his love, and I close my eyes and dream of Skyla.

  A scene emerges—Skyla dripping wet in the shower, covered with mud from head to foot. I’m bathing her. Scrubbing her clean with my fingers as I take off her clothes. Her skin melts into me like butter. Her hot mouth rakes over my chest, alive like a fire. I’m springing to life, and it’s all for her. I can feel myself growing, the dull ache in my belly to take her. I give a hard tug at her panties, and a wave washes over me, jarring me back to that black sand beach.

  Our beach.

  It’s all happening.

  Logan’s days are numbered.

  19

  Logan

  Lock Down

  Skyla called and asked me to drive to her house after practice. She said she had a big blowout with her parents over the newspaper clippings and cash that she discovered in their closet. Her mother openly admitted it was hers, and I can tell it irritated Skyla that her “psycho,” as she put it, stepfather was in no way involved. Tad, however, upheld his psychotic label by giving her some odd abstinence contract to sign. I’ll have to tell Gage about the “no sex, no boys” clause that’s cropped up unexpectedly. If anything can pull him out of his funk, it’s the fact Skyla has to keep a ten-foot clearance away from my dick at any given time—his, too, but his anatomy is thankfully far from the point.

  Skyla greets me at the door with a sultry open-mouthed kiss that tastes of cherries and candy before snatching up my fingers and leading me all the way to her room. She locks the door and slides her dresser over to barricade us, just the way I did the other night. All promising signs of where this might be leading.

  Gage knocked me down at least a half-dozen times during practice today. Damn near broke my back, so I lie flat on the floor, hoping the hardwood will do me some favors.

  “Hey, you’re not sitting.” She taps my knee with her foot.

  I crack an eyelid open to find her hovering above me with her hands on her hips, her legs perfectly parted in her barely-there cheer skirt, affording me a view straight up to heaven.

  “Am I supposed to be sitting?” Judging from this vantage point, I’m pretty damn lucky I’m not.

  “Yes. It’s rule number five hundred sixty-nine. When a boy enters the house illegally, he must be in a vertical position at all times.”

  I predict a very special part of me will be vertical in less than a minute. “Does that mean my pants have to be buckled, too?” The devil is in the details.

  “I’ll get you a copy of the aforementioned document so you can go over it with your attorney later.” She holds out a piece of paper.

  “I broke my back on the field today. Is there an exemption for broken backs?” I leave out the part about it being a special-delivery rib-cracking expressly from Gage.

  “Oh, yes, it’s under the no-mercy law. Tad will personally kick you in the balls when you’re down, and you’ll probably be forced to like it.”

  He has more in common with Gage by the minute.

  “Not funny,” I say. “I have something you might like though.”

  “Oh yeah? What’s that?”

  “The results of your blood test are in.”

  ***

  I drive Skyla down to the morgue through the storm of the century. But Skyla spurs me on to “drop the peddle to the metal” despite the all out assault nature is impinging upon us. You’d think the island were going to detonate if we didn’t hightail it faster, never mind the fact it’s raining hammers and nails.

  Miraculously, we arrive alive at the cemetery and wait patiently in Barron’s office while he finishes up in the “kitchen.” That’s the room where the body prep is done. Barron seems to believe the term “kitchen” takes away the stigma from the corpse depository. I think it opens another can of worms, but that escapes my brother.

  “Sorry for the delay.” He scoots in on the other side of the expansive wood desk.

  He looks official today with his lab coat and clipboard. He picks up a manila envelope off his desk and plucks out its contents.

  Skyla takes up my hand and squeezes it. Whatever it says in that report, however much a percent I am Celestra, or even if I have mixed blood, it was a gift from my father. How I wish he could have been here with me so we could discover our family secrets together. I bet he didn’t have any idea about all of the factions and variety of gifts.

  “Good news.” Barron glances up at the two of us. “First, about that moisture sample.” He plucks his glasses off
and chews on the tip. It’s a bad habit Emma has unsuccessfully tried to break him of. Much like she’ll unsuccessfully break Gage of his mental porn addiction with Skyla cast as the leading role.

  I jolt in my seat, realizing we’re still conjoined at the hands but she’s unmoved. Either she’s too preoccupied to listen, or I’m better at putting up a mental block than previously thought.

  “Unusual amount of plasma.” Barron looks over at me as though I should know what this means.

  “What’s plasma?” Skyla exhales an enormous breath.

  I land my fingers on his desk. “What kind?”

  “Plasma,” Barron says, directing it toward Skyla, “Is the fundamental liquid component found in blood.” He looks over at me again. “It was human.”

  “What the heck is human plasma doing floating around my house? Is my house really haunted?”

  “You’re a spiritual being, Skyla.” Barron offers a placid smile. “Don’t you live in your house? Haunted is a relative term these days.”

  “I don’t spray my plasma all over the place.” She sags in her seat. “Excuse me, but I’m a little more than freaked out.” She looks to me. “You think it was Chloe?”

  “No.” Barron is swift with the answer. “It was more than likely one of the Fem minions doing the bidding of the Counts, I gather.”

  “Why would they bother?”

  “Why would they bother?” He repeats shrugging his shoulders. “They would bother, my dear”—he waves the results of the blood test in front of us—“because you happen to be a rare and wanted species. Your levels came in as pure.”

  Pure? I shake my head over at Barron. There must have been a mistake.

  Skyla leans in with suspicion. “How can I be pure if my mother’s not a Celestra?”

  “It’s impossible,” Barron agrees. “Your mother must be a Celestra for you to be a pure breed.”

  Skyla gives a hesitant smile. I don’t know which I dislike more—the fact that I’m being compared as though I were a horse, or the fact my mother is indeed a Celestra and finds the need to hide it from me, even after I grilled her.

  “Pure.” I test the word out on my lips. This could very well be the best and worst news she’ll ever here.

  “It’s not good news, is it?” she asks. I think the answer is obvious. In a perfect world there would be more Celestras and the Counts wouldn’t feel threatened.

  Barron leans in and smiles. He looks just like our father when he does it that way, or at least according to the pictures I’ve seen. “Normally, it wouldn’t be good news, Skyla, but Logan tells me you have my mother’s pendant. Wear it. It’s the only one of its kind.”

  “The only one?” A surge of panic prickles her features.

  Barron expands his fingers as if he’s about to espouse the obvious. “It’s been passed down from the ancients—the heroes of old, the men of renown.” He presses in with a polite smile. “It needs to be gifted to you for it to work. And Logan here generously gifted it to you at his own expense.”

  Skyla swallows hard. “I’m very thankful.” Mournful, is more like it. I’d love to blame Logan for not highlighting the finer points of Celestra 101, but it’s my fault for not heeding his warning to begin with. If I knew he was going to be right all of the time, I would have taken him much more seriously.

  “So now that you have the pendant, I don’t feel too bad sharing this last bit of unexpected news.” Barron dips his chin.

  “What?” I have a dislike for “unexpected news.”

  “The blood sample has been stolen. There was a break-in at the lab—after I ran the tests, of course. It doesn’t surprise me. Those Fems can smell Nephilim blood from thousands of miles away. Put them on the right scent, and it’s not a challenge anymore.”

  “What do you mean, put them on the right scent?” Skyla looks as if she might pass out at the idea of blood-sniffing Fems.

  “It means that someone directed them to you first, then they went hunting for your blood. They probably found it in minutes. Decimated the lab.”

  “That means they’re already after her,” I whisper.

  “They will be until she dons the pendant.” Barron turns to Skyla. “And after that, too, waiting for it to disappear from your neck. Oh, they would have a field day with you. You’re young and beautiful. They might even try to breed you with their kind to empower their gene pools.”

  I shake my head in disbelief.

  Barron can be such a doofus sometimes. It’s like he can’t control what flies from his mouth. It’s all facts, all the time, regardless of how the other person might feel. He means no harm, but often brings it.

  “Breed me?” Skyla jumps a foot in her seat. “I’m not some animal you can lock up in a cage and force to have a litter of babies.”

  Way to go, bro. I raise a brow at him.

  “You are if they catch you,” he continues, unmitigated. “It’s a part of the price of being pure.”

  Skyla’s face melts with fear. A part of me wants to ask if by “pure,” he means virgin. Because if my virginity ups my value in any way, then by all means, I’ll do whatever it takes to save my life. But I know better.

  Maybe I should step in and clarify. But I don’t. Instead, I turn to her with all of the tenderness pouring from my heart. “Put that pendant on as soon as you get home.” God, I pray it’s at her house, or in her purse, or at the bottom of her gym bag—as long as she can find it.

  She lets go of my hand, and her lips give a nervous twitch.

  Just as I thought—we’ll have to find another way to protect her.

  ***

  That night, Skyla calls and relays the news that her sisters ratted her out. Turns out they knew I was over, and now her parents are threatening to move clear off the island to keep her safe from me and my private parts.

  “It’s my fault,” I say. Most things are.

  “No, trust me. Everything is my fault these days,” she counters.

  I don’t think I could deal with Skyla moving back to L.A.—or anywhere off the island for that matter. I have to be near her. I’d give up the bowling alley if I had to and become something just this side of a stalker to cut the metric distance.

  “I can’t believe this.” My lungs deflate. “I can visit.” Like every single day.

  “I doubt they’ll let you.”

  “We’ll apply to the same universities.” We will anyway, I can feel it.

  “And if we don’t get in the same ones?”

  “Paragon has an awesome community college.” I’d turn down a dozen football scholarships for Skyla.

  We talk for a little bit longer before finally hanging up. As soon as the line goes dead, I miss the sound of her voice—the steady rhythm of her breathing.

  The thought of Skyla moving lies over me like a stone ready to crush my chest. I’m not sure Gage would mind is she left town. Not having Skyla around means that neither one of us gets her.

  But I do get her.

  This much I know is true.

  Gage

  It’s after two in the morning when my cell goes off, and strangely enough, it’s a call from Bree—most likely a butt dial rather than a booty call.

  “What’s up?” I say, lying back on the couch while Logan, Ellis, and I watch the tube.

  “It’s Skyla!” She screams so loud that Logan sits up abruptly. “She stabbed Darrell with scissors. But she totally didn’t mean it. She thought she was protecting us from some homicidal maniac.”

  “Who the hell is Darrell?” The thought of Skyla stabbing anybody throws me for a loop, and the room sways for a moment.

  “My mom’s boyfriend. Or at least he was. I totally wouldn’t blame him if he, like, never spoke to her again—that is, if he survives.” The line goes to static. “I gotta go. Mom wants me to drive her to the hospital. Tell Logan I’m not coming in tomorrow.”

  The phone cuts out.

  I glance up at Logan who’s already texting Skyla. He might be her “boyfriend,” but I’
ll do whatever it takes to comfort her.

  ***

  Logan latches on, and we teleport to Skyla’s house, but she’s not there and neither is her parents’ minivan. I finally get Drake to confess that they hauled her off to the fucking psych ward.

  “I don’t have enough juice to get us there and back,” I say. “I knew we should have driven.”

  “Go up there by yourself.” Logan pants as we head outside. “Take me home.” He looks into the woods, frustrated by his inability to help her. “I’ll wait for her in my dreams.” Logan has the ability to draw a person into his dream world. It sucks the life out of him when he performs the nocturnal feat, so it’s rare. And as much as I hate to admit it, I know Skyla would appreciate the escape, so I take him home and wish him luck.

  For a brief second, I consider hopping in the truck and heading to the hospital, but it’s a clear forty minutes from here, so I blink away and hope to God I arrive.

  Paragon Hospital stands out like a sore thumb against the expansive, lush hillside. The moon shines clear from above, and the fog is already dissipating. I head inside and take the elevator to the top.

  I’ve never teleported so much in one day. Logan was right—I should have spent more time honing my powers. I was too far gone with the visions, too addicted to seeing Skyla brighten my mental horizon to even care about other things.

  The elevator doors open, and I shoot a glance around the sterile environment. I try to think about Skyla—where she might be on the unit until my body dissolves to a fray of disorganized molecules.

  A neat box of a room appears around me, and I find myself staring down at a girl in a disheveled gown—Skyla. She sobs over a small wooden bed, her back trembling with fear. It’s dark in here, save for the light streaming in from a tiny window in the door that leads to the hall.

  “Skyla.” I make my way over to a narrow strip of light so she can see me. I’d rather not get my balls yanked off from scaring the junk out of her.