He leans in with a storm brewing in his eyes. “Emerson Kragger,” he says her name lower than a whisper, and I nod as the beauty of his idea takes flight like a Gothic owl in my twisted mind.
The sound of a gavel tapping over marble has us all facing the front at attention.
Candace eases into her seat. Her hair fans out around her in tendrils as if each lock had a life of its own, glowing resplendent and glittering like the finest gold.
“Wesley, complimenting my hair will get you everywhere.” She gives a subtle wink. “On Earth, not here.” The glee drops from her face like a stone, and she’s right back to scaring the hell out of me. “It appears you’ve imprisoned one of your own within the confines of the most powerful government in the history of the planet. That, in turn, puts your people unnaturally in peril.”
“He’s done it to the Viden’s, too.” Skyla is quick to throw gasoline onto the fire in hopes to watch me burn. “He’s transformed them and set them into the world for capture.”
“They’re Spectators.” I shake my head as if it were a ridiculous claim, but my balls are sweating like nobody’s business.
“They’re Videns,” Skyla snaps. “They’re ultimately my people.”
Gage tips his head back. “They’re mine. The Videns are mine. They’ve sided with the Barricade. They are effectively under Wesley’s charge. Yes, he’s sent them into the world. But you, Skyla, sent them to Raven’s Eye.”
Holy hell. It takes everything in me not to break out into a shit-eating grin. I would not want to be in the proverbial car on the way home. Gage is willingly setting his dick on fire to save me.
Candace takes a moment to smirk at her daughter. “How quickly he turns on you.” Her glittering nails claw at the marble in front of her. “Skyla’s decision to send them to Raven’s Eye is dismissed partly due to the fact it was a corporate decision to save her people. She ascertains the right to move some before others for the greater good of the Factions. Keeping the human parasites on Raven’s Eye occupied derails them from further discovering the Factions.” She pins me with her palpable hatred. “As some are determined to have happen. And you, Wesley? You’ve keenly anticipated the possibility of Laken’s captivity and planned accordingly. Kresley Fisher willingly submitted to altering her features under the pretense of finding her way into your bed, and when the time came to unfold your sinister plot, you hesitated not.” Her lips pinch in a judgmental frown. I glance to the rest of the judges, and they remain stone-faced, not one impressed with the devious nature of my plan. Not that I am. I’m more than pissed at myself, but my hands were tied. Laken bound them with her heart a long time ago.
Candace sighs as if she read my mind, and I know for a fact she most likely did. “Though your heart was in the seemingly right place, your actions have further endangered your people as a whole. It’s one thing to endanger the enemy. It’s another matter to inflict grief upon a lamb who has thrown her allegiance to you. Cooper Flanders was correct in bringing you to court. What do you suggest your punishment be, Wesley?”
Coop chokes as if the court just threatened to chop off his dick.
What do I think my punishment should be?
Candace gives a subtle nod, affirming the fact she’s prying into my gray matter.
I know for a fact if I go too easy on myself she’ll multiply it by the power of ten. And if I don’t punish myself at all, she might ask Coop and he’ll hand me my ass before giving me a shovel to bury it with. I think on it for a moment.
“Since I’m the reason Kresley is there, I’ll devise a way to rescue her.”
Candace balks, “You won’t devise a way, Wesley. As charming and wise as you might be, this is beyond your understanding. I will devise a way. I already know this. Is that all you can come up with?”
“No.” Crap. I glance to Coop, and that F-you grin of his just keeps expanding. “If the court will find it in its great mercy to exonerate me on the matter, I will allow Skyla to sit in on any meeting Gage and I have with the Barricade.”
Skyla belts out a laugh. “Please, as if you tell your people anything. How fun it would be for you to confuse us both with your double speak.” She raises a hand, and her mother nods her way. “I have an idea.” She steals a moment to glare at me. “If it’s not probable that Laken’s memory will restore itself, I think it’s only fitting that you allow her to view her time at Ephemeral in a series of dreams, ones in which she can feel every emotion, just as she did at that time. Right up until she chooses—”
“No,” I say it before she has a chance to spew Cooper’s name. “Laken is in a delicate state. Giving her nightmares for the next several months won’t be healthy for her or the baby.”
Laken takes up my hand and gives it a squeeze. “I agree. Please, for the love of all things good, anything but that. Cooper and Skyla have already alerted me to the fact my time at Ephemeral was nothing but a nightmare.”
“Fine,” Skyla spouts off once again. “I’m in agreement with that. How about using that watery globe in the Transfer to give her a peek into the past, sort of like a movie? There’s a binding spirit preventing me from taking her back there. I wonder where that came from.” She’s right back to glaring at me. For all the energy Skyla puts into hating me, it must feel odd going down on my brother.
Candace and her cohorts mumble amongst themselves, and I start to sweat it out ten times hotter than before.
“I’m sorry, Skyla.” Candace shrugs as if there were nothing she could do to accommodate her only child, and I’m damn glad about it too. “That would go against the binding spirit, treating it as a meager technicality. You are free, however, to detail to her the events that took place as much as you like.”
“I’ve heard enough, thank you.” Laken’s cheeks burn with fury, and her alliance with me is both exhilarating and frightening. If the old Laken ever comes to, she will slap the shit out of me for three days straight.
“I have a suggestion.” Eriel the Fem, who looks as if someone has pissed in his coffee, glares over at me with fire in his eyes, and as much as I probably shouldn’t fear anything he has to say, I very much do. “Deliver Wesley into the hands of the enemy. Offer your fair daughter an opportunity to delve into his mind.” His black lips curl up at the tips, and as much as I’d like to break into a cold chill, I’m pissed that’s he’s even suggested it. We are on the same side, you moron. I openly glare at him, hoping he’ll get the message. And then it hits me. I can just as easily deceive Skyla with my mind as I can with my mouth. I could toss her to left field while I run like hell to the right. It’s genius.
“No,” Candace flatlines, smacking her lips in my direction. “I’ll have it done my way. You have been very generous to Cooper Flanders upon snatching his wife to freedom from the government and depositing her into the captivity of your bed.”
Laken bucks. “Nobody is holding me captive.”
Candace raises a finger, and Laken shudders. “Duly noted, my love. However”—those diamond hard eyes revert to me—“a punishment is necessary to teach Wesley that bringing great peril to those that look to him as a savior could rain down damning consequences over his own head and that of his people. Perhaps now he will think twice before initiating his wicked schemes. Cooper, tell us what your thoughts are.”
I’m fucked.
Cooper sniffs the air with pride a moment before glancing my way. “I think that Wesley should have his relatively newly gifted powers revoked, those granted to him through the lineage of his father, Demetri—and those he held as a Count before that.”
Revoking my powers? If that isn’t hell, I don’t know what is. And my father? The jackass who didn’t bother to show? I’d love to kick in that smug look on his face with the heel of my shoe after smearing it with dog shit. He’d be here for Gage. I think everyone present knows that.
Candace nods as if she’s okay with this lunacy. “For how long? A day? A year? A decade?”
“Whoa.” I lift a hand involuntarily. “
I humbly ask the court not to consider such a harsh punishment. I stand before you with heavy remorse in my heart over my actions that have not only endangered Kresley and my own child, but the Nephilim people as a whole. I have an alternate solution, if I may.”
“You may,” Candace says it in a chiding manner as if my words won’t matter at all in the end.
“I’m close to discovering a way to shield the genetic markers from the government. If you allow my powers to remain intact, I will gift any knowledge I incur regarding the markers to Skyla”—shit, I’m not selling the farm, I can’t do it—“once the upcoming war is complete.”
A heavy groan comes from both Skyla and Coop and understandably so.
Candace gives a hard blink. “Six months. No powers. Your sentence begins once you return to that hovel your father has placed you in.” She seals my fate with the clamor of her gavel, and my insides drop right along with my spirit. Six months. I’ll be nothing but human. It’s a fate worse than death. I glare over at Flanders, and as much as I want to hate him for it, I can’t. When my six months are through, I’ll still have Laken in my arms, and he never will again. I can promise him that.
Wesley, can you hear me? A decidedly female voice encroaches in my mind, and I toss an eyebrow up at Candace. Yes, it’s me. May I proceed to speak with you in this manner?
“Yes,” I whisper hoarsely as the wind gets knocked out of me. Not even sucking down Skyla’s blood could have afforded me the privilege to hear someone speaking straight to my thoughts without touching them first.
No words! She shouts so loud my head begs to explode from the effort. Gage nudges me with his arm and nods as if to ask what’s up. Instruct him to depart from you.
“Dude”—I tick my head over to the girls—“maybe you should go and make nice with your wife.”
He closes his eyes a moment. “You’re right. I’m here for you, though. I mean it.” He takes off, and I look back to Candace, rapt at attention. Eriel stands and glares my way with his permanent scowl as if he suspects something.
They can’t hear me. Candace affirms. And to avoid suspicion, I suggest you look elsewhere. Glare over at Skyla or Cooper. Your standard fair won’t elicit suspicion in the least. Look downcast and sullen. You remember—your go-to affect before you landed the girl of your dreams in your bed. Her lips curl with a smile as she nods my way.
I do as I’m told, but the look of discontent on my face is firmly there because I have no idea where she’s going with this.
Are you ready to bargain? I have an offer, that if you are wise, you will not refuse. And you are wise in your own eyes, Wesley. Prove it to me that you are indeed.
I take a deep breath at the slight. I’m wise. Let’s hear it.
Good. She asserts. Despite what your father demands, I need you to plant the seed in your brother that Skyla does not belong with him.
I turn and shoot a sharp look her way, but her back is turned to me, and if I’m not mistaken, she appears to be having a full-blown conversation with the Sector to her left.
Shit. I can’t do that. Gage loves Skyla and vice versa. That would be tantamount to him going against Laken and me, and I could never forgive that kind of manipulation.
Yes, Laken. She pauses, dangling her name out there like a golden carrot, one that I’m ravenous to keep in my grasp, and I will regardless of how this conversation finishes. Do as you’re told and your odds of keeping the woman you love locked up in that cellar your father has set you in will increase markedly. Though I cannot sway the heart, I can sway a myriad of circumstances. Regardless of what her heart demands, her body will be rooted next to yours.
Laken will be mine. A flood of relief hits me, but an underlying wave of concern picks up right after. What about Coop? It was an errant thought, not one I could easily control. Maybe I should thank my lucky stars I don’t belong to Celestra.
Cooper is powerful. He is wise. He has the heart and the courage of a lion. Worry, Wesley. Worry about Cooper Flanders taking back what’s his. He will work tirelessly to provoke you. Sleep with one eye open. He will enlist the one who lies beside you against you as well. It is as inevitable as it was the first time.
I stagger forward a few unsteady steps, and Skyla glances my way before carrying on a conversation with Laken. Coop and Gage are talking football to my left, perfectly content with one another.
Tell me what to do, and I’ll do it. My heart bleeds for Gage, my own brother who shares my strange DNA.
That’s better. Cooperation is key in getting what you want. You will negate all reasons Gage proposes when he verbally vies for his ex-wife. They are no longer bound in covenant, nor could they ever be. The way he indulges in my daughter’s flesh is an abomination in my sight. Do what you must to convince him that it is in her best interest if he leaves her be. Move heaven and earth, tear the ground out from beneath his feet, swim the ocean deep with lies, and do not worry—all of your misdeeds will be covered under my wings. Do as I say. Rip my daughter from your wicked brother’s arms, or I’ll rip your precious one from yours. I will know your deepest ambitions, your true intentions. The window to your soul is wide open to me. Even now I see you’re vacillating, grieved by what I am asking. Perhaps it will sweeten the pot if I assure you of one thing.
My shoulder sags a moment because if Candace says it will be good, it will inevitably be very, very bad. Let’s hear it.
I will gift you what Demetri would never dare. I will make you greater than your brother. Try as Demetri might, Gage will never be the true king. He will be silver, and you will be gold—the true king, the leader of a fearless army. What Demetri has denied you, I will grant in abundance. Convince your brother to cut my daughter loose, and everything I have laid at your feet will be given. Look to the woman you love, Wesley. Look to her.
I force my eyes toward Laken. It feels purely sinful, hateful for me to be entertaining such things, especially since I know that Gage loves Skyla as much as I love Laken.
Admire her beauty. For if you disagree with our terms, you will once again appreciate her from afar.
I agree. I don’t hesitate with the answer. I’ve always said I’d crush anyone who stands in the way of Laken and me, and my brother is no different. I’ll do it. I’ll be the last person to advocate for Gage and Skyla.
I head over to Laken and wrap my arms around her tight from behind, drop a soft kiss to her cheek, and think of our warm bed in the Transfer as the heavenlies dissipate around us.
I’ll be the last person to advocate for Gage and Skyla, but what my brother’s stubborn heart decides is entirely up to him. I have a feeling Gage and Skyla aren’t going anywhere. And in that case, I’ll get my cake and eat it, too.
I take a playful bite out of Laken’s neck as we land back on smooth Egyptian cotton sheets, and she giggles up a storm.
“Is everything going to be all right?” She blinks back tears with a smile on her beautiful face.
“It’s better than all right. I have you in my life, and I’m never letting you go.”
My mouth lands gently over hers, and I seal the sentiment with a kiss that ignites the sheets on fire.
4
My Immortal
Skyla
Six months—that bastard won’t feel the pleasure of being the demon he’s become. I can’t help but smile at my mother. Yes, she’s a deviant herself, but at least one of my enemies is getting his just desserts if only for a limited time. Now if only she’d give him the gift of erectile dysfunction. Personally, I’m shocked Coop didn’t go there, but then, Coop is a true gentleman to the end. But I’m no gentleman. I’m not much of a lady either. I step boldly into my mother’s glowing presence as she strides over to meet me. I used to think looking at her was like looking in a mirror, but I stopped feeling that way long ago. There is a sharp darkness that emanates from her just as easily as does the light. She is as sinister as she is benevolent, as naughty as she is nice, as villainous as she is good.
“Skyla”—her bro
ws pinch in the middle—“must you be so disparaging in front of my contemporaries? Truly it’s embarrassing.” She locks her arms around me in a warm embrace, and her powerful calm radiates through me like a tuning fork struck by the Almighty Himself.
“The truth hurts.” I frown a moment before noting that the rest of the council has drifted off to the far reaches of the court, only visible now as a collective luminous ball of light. “I had a brainstorm once Wes left. How about a year of no nookie? You know, disable his joystick and make him limper than a jellyfish. I want that boy to suffer just trying to urinate, Mother. You and I both know you’re more than capable of bringing down a man. In fact, I bet before you met my father you did a few mental Krav Maga takedowns.” I offer up a cheeky wink in hopes she’ll catch the sexual-stomping spirit and nip Wesley’s teeny weenie in the bud. Not that he’s most likely teeny. Not if he’s anything like Gage.
Her lips part, but before she can say a word, we’re joined by Gage and Cooper.
“Skyla”—Gage inches back as if he were fearing for his own not-so-teeny-weenie as he should be—“that’s harsh.”
Coop grunts, “You wouldn’t think it were too harsh if it was Skyla that Wes was bedding. No offense.” He looks to me with that anguished yet pissed expression Logan has perfected so well. Coop and Logan—Wes and Gage, it seems the twinning never ends, although Wes and Gage are far more duplicates than Logan and Coop will ever be. I don’t get the pattern Demetri was going for other than a lack of originality. Hey? I’ll keep that in mind. With the war drums beating louder every day, I’ll need any insight into the enemy’s mind I can afford. My eyes draw heavy to Gage. Another good reason to remarry the love of my life.
Gage looks to Coop with a grimace. “You’re right. I’m sorry, man. I promise, I’m not standing in defense of my brother in any way.”
Throne of Fire: Celestra Forever After 5 Page 48