A large white mansion that seems on par with Demetri’s not-so-humble abode springs up from behind a row of hedges. I pull up on the long brick driveway where a valet waits to take my keys and thus making a quick escape nothing short of impossible. Good thing I have a handy Levatio by my side, albeit slightly battered and bruised.
Logan and Gage brazenly size me up before we head up the stairs.
“You’re too hot tonight,” Logan muses.
I excavated an old silver dress that I once wore to a New Years’ Eve party, my last one in L.A.
Since I’ve grown over two inches in that time, the hemline has crept up considerably, and with a pair of spiked matching FM’s, it’s made of some serious kick-ass win.
“I’m really trying to get Ellis’s dad to like me.” Hell I’m trying to get Arson to like me, too. I might even volunteer to open a blood bank in the back of the venue in an effort to keep me out of solitary confinement.
Who knew making it to my senior year would be my new goal in life?
“Oh, he’ll like you.” Logan averts his eyes. “He likes them young. His new girlfriend is a sophomore in college.”
“So I’ve witnessed. His poor wife.” I’d stab my husband in the eye if he even looked at a sophomore in college, well, unless the sophomore in question was me.
“Ex-wife. She’s likes them young, too,” Logan adds.
Gage gives a quiet nod affirming Logan’s theory regarding the juvenile-loving Harrisons.
Gage is tall, dark and handsome tonight and far too quiet, but apparently speaking is beyond painful when half your face is stitched up. Not that I mind. Gage is even hotter as the strong, silent type.
We enter the through a set of beveled glass doors into a sea of elegantly dressed people. The architecture is comprised of nothing but sparkling chandeliers, glossy marbled floors, and expensive artwork—your standard fare as far as megalomaniac Counts are concerned.
I spot Ellis with his parents talking to some kids I don’t recognize, probably from East. Arson Kragger is yakking it up with Ellis’s dad, most likely going over procedures on how they’ll snatch me in my sleep. Behind him, an entire wall looks as if it’s missing—the house simply opens up to the backyard where a massive buffet is set up.
“OK.” I take a quick breath while glancing at both Logan and Gage. “Maybe you guys should hang out by the food?” Because I guarantee they will not like what is about to go down.
I stride confidently in Ellis’s direction. Why do I get the feeling this is going to hurt?
He takes one look at me, and his jaw drops. His father’s eyes bulge out of his head as if he’d like a piece of me himself.
I strut my stuff, swaying my hips, trying not to wobble on my five-inch heels and ignore the fact it feels as if I’m walking on ice.
“Hey,” I squeal into Ellis who looks resplendent in his own right, and just as I’m about to enter their circle, my foot glides out from under me. I throw my hands in the air, trying to right myself with an unflattering gyration. Instead of falling flat on my ass, I manage to accidently knock Arson’s wineglass into Morley’s face. He jumps back and inspects the fresh blotch of crimson on his white dress shirt while wiping down his eyes.
“Oh my God! I’m so sorry!” I try to mop up the effort with his tie. “You can get it out real easy with hydrogen peroxide. It bubbles up real cool and everything.” Oh, wait that’s for bloodstains. Dear God, this isn’t blood, is it?
“It’s quite all right.” He pulls his suit over a notch and buttons it, hiding the hideous disaster his future faux daughter-in-law just inflicted upon him.
“How are you doing?” Ellis’s mother, Olivia, embraces me. She holds the scent of strawberries and springtime, her bright orange hair hangs almost to her waist. “Remind me to thank you for that later,” she whispers.
It’s hard to tell whether or not I’ve pleased her. She suffers a self-inflicted facial paralysis via Botox so it’s nearly impossible to decipher her true emotions.
“I might take you up on that.” I give a shy smile to the boy and to Bootsie, who inspects the awkward exchange. It’s only then I notice the boy’s arm wrapped around Olivia’s waist while Bootsie nuzzles into Morley’s neck. Seriously? Eww. And by the way, it hasn’t gone unnoticed that they’re both showing me up in the PDA department.
They’re all standing around sort of gaping at me expecting me to molest Ellis or go home, so I pull him in and indulge in a lingering lip-lock that gives homage to PDA’s everywhere. I stab my tongue around Ellis’s mouth as if I lost a diamond in there.
Crap. Kissing Ellis is worse than sucking face with burnt toast. He tastes exactly how he smells, perfectly illegal, and I don’t mean that in any good way. I am so going to have to do something about this, stat. But, really? There aren’t enough breath mints in the world.
This is all systems go, no dicking around. I have one night as far as I see it to prove to the Counts that I need to stay on this side of the island.
Ellis pulls back and tries to catch his breath.
“You’re good,” he whispers, astonished by the fact, as if he were truly expecting a less than stellar performance.
“Skyla?” A voice booms from behind.
I turn to find Tad and Mom with the baby in a sling over her chest. I hope to God he’s not sucking on her auxiliary nipple in front of mixed company. The Counts will probably want the entire family banished from the planet for that act of perversion, but then again, my mother is one herself.
“What’s going on?” Mom narrows in on me. Her cheeks fill with color after witnessing the spit swap session with my most favorite stoner.
This embarrasses her?
Before I can properly stutter out the lie, Demetri and Darla fill in our circle.
“Everyone looks stunning.” Demetri spews the words through his perennial smile. “Skyla—a new boyfriend perhaps?”
“Yes.” I nod into Demetri. “That stunt with Mr. Dudley was just to tick off Gage.” I try to shrug it off. “I’m one hundred percent into Ellis and secretly have been from the beginning.” I pick up his hand and press it against my lips. Gah—even his hand smells like pot.
“You two should join us sometime for dinner,” Ellis’s mother offers. “In fact, I insist!”
“Oh, for sure,” I say. “I’ll be around for a lot more than one dinner. There’s holidays, birthdays… I’m pretty much a permanent fixture.” I cut a look to both Morley and Arson, who appear a little less than amused.
“Really?” Mom squints into me. I just want to shake her. Why can’t she just accept Ellis and be quiet? Did I needle her over the fact she chose to defile someone else’s baby? And I fully expect a lawsuit in eighteen years with Beau Geste at the helm, ready to trickle every last dime out of Mom and Tad over their questionable dining practices.
“Yes, really.” I contest. “This time it’s forever.” My stomach seizes as I say it.
“Don’t worry, son.” Tad pats Ellis on the back. “Skyla’s version of forever will be over in about fifteen minutes. Some other guy will sail by and catch her interest and she’ll dump you at the dinner table like the last goof.” He and Mom turn toward Demetri and start in on their own conversation.
“Gage is not a goof,” I whisper to Ellis.
“You really dump him at the dinner table?”
“On accident.” I shoot Tad a dirty look for even bringing it up.
“If you’re going to do that to me, at least have the decency to wait for dessert.”
Morley stiffens his neck in my direction as if he’s on to my fickle love ’em and leave ’em behavior. Leave it to Tad to botch everything up.
Morley leans into his son. “She seems quite the catch.” He leers over my body with his slow as molasses gaze before reverting to Ellis. “I’d savor this fifteen minutes, if I were you.” He takes the hand of the co-ed next to him and stalks off into the crowd as our small group disbands.
Perfect. Strike one.
“Tha
nks a lot, Ellis,” I hiss.
“What?”
“You could have let him know how much you love me,” I whisper. “Or how you can’t live without me, or how you’re looking forward to seeing me, alive and well, every single day.” Honestly, you just have to spell everything out for some people.
“What’s this about?” His mother’s brows touch in the middle. Dear, God she must have figured out the fact I’m using her son and now she’s morbidly pissed.
“Skyla’s been taken.” Ellis nods as if this were banal news on every level. “And she got her treble revoked. New moon, right?” He asks as if we were talking about our plans after graduation, only I won’t have any because I’ll be an entire scholastic year behind for the rest of my unnatural life.
“Yes, that’s right,” I offer. Fantastic. Ellis could care less.
“I’m so sorry to hear that.” Olivia takes a sip from her champagne. “I had that happen to a good friend of mine a few years back.” She shakes her head. “Hey…” She brightens. “If you see Paige Carpenter, tell her Olivia from Zumba says hello.”
My mouth falls open, perplexed by the obvious lack of heart that each and every Count seems to display.
“No. I will not say hello. She needs help. I need help.” I shake my head and take off.
I walk out onto the cool patio and run smack into Marshall and Triple-E Izzy.
“I hate Counts,” I hiss it low.
“Keep it down.” Marshall slits his eyes to her overexposed rack. “Perhaps a walk in the fresh night air will calm your nerves.”
“Precisely why I’m out here.”
“Other direction.” Marshall takes me by the elbow and escorts me back inside as we meander through the crowd. “Did we lose her?”
I look back and see Tad eyeing her happy sacs like an infant ready to take the taste-test challenge.
Mom is occupying Izzy, showing off the baby. Actually… she’s exposing the udder duct taped to her chest to the horror of Demetri’s fake niece.
“She’ll be busy for a while.” I pull Marshall to the side. Marshall looks like the god he is tonight in his immaculate suit, his hair slicked back—the devil winking in his eye with a constant proposition for me. “I think you’re really great but I want you to know it’s OK for you to see other people.” I’d hate to think Marshall was saving all that pent-up aggression for yours truly, when there are so many willing females ready to succumb to his every desire.
“Perfect. I’m seeing other people right this very minute. The entire lot of them smell like a cheap insert from a magazine,” he says, pressing his hand in the small of my back and navigating me through the great room.
“I mean dating, sexually assaulting, things of that nature.”
“Nonsense. I reserve those rights for you and you alone.” He gives a sly smile and my insides melt a little.
“What if you had to wait a really long time?” Like forever.
“Six thousand years is quite enough, but I suppose a few more wouldn’t kill me outright—if I were subject to the curse of death, of course.”
We head toward the entry and a blast of frigid air bleeds in from outside.
“You would wait for me?” I don’t understand this. “What if there’s nothing to wait for?” I press in my gaze and arc my body toward his. I need for Marshall to understand in the most loving way possible that we can never be.
“Everything I’ve shared with you, the news Delphinius gave us, the prophecy regarding the birth of our child”—he narrows his crimson-colored eyes over me with a sweetness I’m not used to from him—“it will happen, love.” He touches his thumb to my cheek and his wonderful vibrations tune through me like the strumming of a harp. “I love you, Skyla. In time you will feel the same.”
I catch my breath and hold it, not sure how to respond. A part of me knows this is real. A part of me already has a very special place in my heart for Marshall. And although I’m terribly afraid to admit it, the thought of making love to him has been playing out in the recesses of my darkest fantasies for some time now.
“Really?” His brows arch in amusement.
Shit.
“I assure you”—he rakes the words across my cheek like a firebrand—“your darkest fantasies will blush at the very idea of what I’m prepared to do with you.”
“The people from the Transfer…” I change the subject with a start. “I’ve seen them. They’re trapped in the fog.” I try to catch my breath and shoo all thoughts of Marshall and his carnal affection away but it’s like trying to put out a forest fire with a squirt gun. My face flushes with the flurry of promiscuous possibilities.
“They, my love, are the fog.” His brows rise. “Temporarily, anyway. I couldn’t figure out how to make them go away once they seeped their way into existence so I’ve banished them to vapors.”
“You did this?” I have to say I’m rather impressed with his ability to banish at will. And the fact he has the ability to get my hormones from zero to overdrive in less than five seconds is pretty remarkable as well.
Chloe struts by in a cheetah-print scarf she’s trying to pass off as a dress with Holden by her side. Figures. She’s probably the one who suggested my treble be revoked in the first place. “Can you banish people to vapors?” Although, I think ashes would suit Chloe better.
“No.” He glowers over at the two of them.
“Marshall, you need to help me,” I plead. “My treble will be up soon.”
“There are rules.” He depresses a forlorn smile.
“How will I ever be your wife?” Words I thought would never leave my lips. “How will we ever delve into the dark recesses of my twisted fantasies—how will you love me with your heavenly bod if I’m captive in some cage like a zoo animal?” That’s right. I’m throwing it all into the get-me-out-of-Celestra-jail hopper, including my delicate girl parts.
“I’ll seal you as my own. Once you’re sealed, I have visitation rights wherever they drag you off to.”
“Conjugal visits?” I balk. “And this is supposed to comfort me?” I let out a deep sigh of discontent. “In all honesty, Marshall, it’s only you who has never let me down. If you could help me again just this once.” Technically, twice, when I fill him in on the Ezrina gaffe, but only if he saves Logan too. I’d go down with Logan in a heartbeat. There’s no way I’d let him suffer alone on my behalf.
He glances around as if he were about to impart some sage wisdom passed down from the ages. “I assure you, I will not let you down. I would never withhold my affection from you just because you’re bound and chained. Speaking of chains that bind, we could practice this art ourselves, if you wish.” He looks intent on starting the bevy of bondage exercises as soon as tonight.
“I’ll pass on the whips and chains for now.” I give a devilish grin because, if Marshall is correct, there will be plenty of time for this later.
He lifts my chin gently with his finger. “I promise you this. I’ll gift you a visit with one who can change everything.”
“You will?”
“I already have.” He points out the door, and I gasp at the sight.
Chapter 89
The Parent Predicament
The large gaping mouth of the door is bejeweled with two of the most beautiful beings to ever walk the planet—my parents.
I run over to my father and leap into a hug. He spins me, laughing his velvet, husky laugh. The familiar scent of his cologne serenades me with its blessings like a song written in the blood of a million yesterdays. It’s strange seeing him here at the Kragger estate, which sort of amounts to a Count convention.
“You look so good.” I kiss his cheek and run my fingers through his thick, dark hair. He’s younger and this alarms me on some level. I wonder how far back he’s traveling from.
“I’m not traveling, Skyla.” He pulls the loose hairs from out of my eyes. “Your mother here was kind enough to bring me along for the journey.”
I go over and hug Candace Messenger’s
thin frame, take in the scent from her hair of lilac and roses. It’s so much like looking in a mirror with her, but she holds the air of authority—that look of knowing she talks about is forever embedded in her eyes.
“You let him cross the chasm,” I say.
“Indeed, there is something unusual at play.” She winks. Her gold dress sparkles under the charge of the chandelier. She looks luminescent—an alluring siren who demands the attention of every living being on the island.
Marshall bristles against me. What’s a chasm or two when every dominion is at your disposal?
It’s almost as if he’s secretly trying to tell me something about my mother. Nevertheless, she can probably hear his thoughts—and mine.
“You guys look great and everything,” I say, “but there’s no way you two can come inside.” It might be a dead man’s party if you’re a resurrected Count, but for sure not of the dearly departed husband variety. “Mia’s here,” I add to my father.
“I’ll do my best to avoid her,” he assures. “But before my visit’s through, I’d love for the two of us to be reunited. In fact, I’ve been visiting her dreams, trying to prepare her for this.”
“I really doubt there’s a logical way to do that,” I say. “How long are you here? Where will you stay?”
“They’re guests at the ranch,” Marshall answers. “Your father has taken to the animals.”
“Well, if you like animals, you’re in luck. There are plenty in there.” I glance over my shoulder and see Morley and Arson.
Gage and Logan stand in the back, talking to Ethan, Drake, Brielle, and unfortunately Chloe. I bet Demetri is hiding like the coward he is. How morbidly exciting that both of my father’s killers are about to have the scare of a lifetime, not that either of them would be genuinely frightened. I doubt Chloe even knew what he looked like.
Toxic Part Two (Celestra Series Book 7.5) Page 21