I take a breath as Logan parks high on the driveway behind Tad’s beat-up sedan and pats his hand over my knee.
“You ready to do this?”
I look up at the Landon house, the only home I’ve really known all these years on Paragon—the first home Gage and I shared. It looks different now without Gage in the world. The island, the sky, even the fog that permeates this overgrown rock looks sallow and empty without my husband’s spirit on this planet.
“This will be hard.” I swallow down the sword forming in my throat. “My mother really loved Gage. I know this must be difficult for her.” This mother—not the other. Not the other by a long shot.
We gather the boys and make our way up the porch. Each step feels laden with the weight of grief, the heft growing rapidly as we hit the door. I turn the knob to find it unlocked, readying for the somber embrace of my family, the weeping and gnashing of teeth that my mother and I will partake in. I steal a moment to bury my nose in Nathan’s hair. His skin holds the scent of cinnamon, of something delicious and sweet as he nuzzles against me.
The lights are all on, a strong peachy glow even this early in the afternoon. On Paragon, you need to run the house lights twenty-four seven unless you want to live like a blind man groping his way around this overgrown cabin. The living room to my left is full of boxes, and to my shock and horror, the artificial Christmas tree we pull out every year has indeed been pulled out and is in the throes of mid-assembly.
“Holy hell,” I say just under my breath while shielding Nathan’s ears from my expletive. Giving up cursing like a trucker has been much harder than I thought it would be.
Logan leans in, allowing Barron to grasp a fist full of my hair. “Maybe they thought it’d cheer you up. Your family means well, Skyla.”
“Right.” No sooner do I swallow that fact than I look up to see Mia and Melissa hauling in large plastic crates that house more of my mother’s holiday décor—if you can call it that. I’m pretty sure I’ve heard Emma call it kitschy. I hate that word, and a part of me hates Emma. I know that’s harsh. And it feels childish because she’s grieving, too—or perhaps Emma, too, has unleashed her inner home decorator instead. I don’t know what the hell is going on anymore.
“Skyla!” Mia drops her plastic bin and bubbles over with a grin as she extricates Nathan from my arms.
“Lizbeth!” Melissa barks. “Skyla’s back, and she’s got the kids!” Melissa is my stepsister, Drake and Ethan’s full-blooded sister. My stepsiblings all have the same sinister look about them. The older Melissa gets, the more she looks like Drake in female skin. Same dark hair, same plunging widow’s peak you could poke your eye out with if you get too close, same waxy pale skin. She’s pretty, though. She has those signature villain brows all the girls are looking to tattoo onto their face these days, only with her it’s natural. “Can I watch the boys?” Melissa takes Barron from Logan, and I lose a lock of hair in the process. “I’ve decided I’m not going to college after I kick West to the curb. I’m going to be a nanny. Carly Foster is doing it, and she’s making money hand over foot.”
Mia smacks her. “Hand over fist.” Mia is my exact representation with a few minor adjustments. My biological mother, the worthless wheel in the sky, wanted to keep her celestial cogs spinning down on planet Earth. Not only did she cast me in her mold, but she threw in my sister for good measure. I’m guessing that line of thinking has something to do with the fact Giselle looks so much like Gage, although they do share the same birthing center. A dull smile begs to crack after that internal swipe I just took at Emma.
“I don’t know what either of you is talking about. And yes, you can watch the boys. I might be gone all day.” All month, all year. I’ll be gone as long as it takes to pull my husband back from the heavenlies. I narrow my gaze on Mia. From Melissa I wasn’t expecting much, but Mia? She must know the level of pain I’m in and hasn’t even bothered to politely skirt the issue. Assaulting the house in garland is a full-on dismal of my husband’s death. And really? Carly Foster is eking out a decent living while watching other people’s children? Carly Foster shouldn’t be trusted with a live chicken, let alone a human child.
“Skyla!” Mom’s voice booms from the family room as she speeds her way over in a bloated dress with a peacock print on it, and something about that feathered look sends a chill down my spine. The Counts are notorious for their new moon sacrifices. Laken once told me they slaughtered an entire herd of peacocks at the event. Idiots. The Counts, not the birds. “Hello, Logan!” Her eyes are bright, her hair neatly coifed, and if I were to guess freshly dyed a deep shade of henna. Mom has always reminded me of a classic beauty in the sense she’s wide-eyed with wonder half the time. Her nose naturally sits a smidge crooked on her face—and is that mascara, eyeliner, foundation, blush—and Emma-inspired orange lipstick she’s wearing? My mother isn’t known to pay extra attention to cosmetic details, but this day she looks as if she’s about to walk the runway in Milan. And dear God, there’s not a trace of grief on her face, not in her affect, certainly not in her cheery tone.
“There are my little monkeys!” She scrunches her nose, holding her hands up like claws while pretending to attack the boys’ feet, and it sends them into a fit of husky giggles. “Come to Mee-Maw, my sweet angels. My, how I’ve missed you.” She takes both boys at once and presses an orange lip print to each of their foreheads, causing Barron to fuss and kick. “Thank God you’re here.” She rolls her eyes my way. “Tad just called a family meeting. He’s got a very big announcement!” She dances a little jig when she says that last part, and my heart plummets. Something is off. Something is very fucking wrong if my mother can’t grasp the fact that Gage Oliver is dead.
“You got this.” Logan takes up my hand as we follow my mother into the family room. The family room flows right into the dining room and kitchen, so naturally it’s where everyone spends the most time. You could reference it as an open concept, but in truth, any way you slice this log cabin, it’s a misshapen architectural defect from the seventies.
Emily Morgan and my stepbrother, Ethan, are sitting at the counter with Ember—Emily’s daughter that she has with Drake. Of course, Drake and Brielle are present and accounted for looking as if someone kicked in their teeth, sullen and angry. Thank God Almighty someone sees the grieving light—or darkness as it were. I was beginning to get a little pissed. Sure, none of them were all that close to Gage, but he was my husband, for God’s sake. The father of my children. He’s been in this house for as long as I have if you count all that quasi-dating we did back at West. And strangely, my family’s non-reaction to his death has somehow made me feel numb to it myself for a moment as if their cold hearts were the exact Novocain I needed.
Little Beau Geste, Drake and Bree’s son, is currently playing tug-of-war with Misty’s pigtails. Misty is my little sister. Mystery Landon’s DNA is sort of just that, a mystery. I’m a thousand percent positive that Demetri is the father, but my mother has never fessed up to the fact—most likely because I’ve never pegged her with the question. I glare over at her as she jostles the boys in turn, so happy, floating around the family room like a helium balloon while I wallow in misery.
Tad limps up from his usual post, hiding behind a stack of newspapers at the head of the dining room table. Tad Landon is everything my father was not, perennially grumpy, dull-eyed, finger pointing, mocking, and sardonic. He’s a bit shorter than Drake, stockier, working on his beer belly, which is mostly sponsored by Emily’s vegan baking at this point, and his thick hair is more salt than it is pepper these days. Tad had the misfortune to nearly burn alive right before our eyes last Christmas Eve, no thanks to Demetri, but he’s healed relatively well. His left arm is still pretty much useless, as he likes to point out, but then which part of Tad isn’t?
My mother looks to Tad with jaw-dropping awe. “My God, I don’t know where to begin. This family has so many things happening at once.”
Finally, I give Logan’s hand a squeeze. A
lthough it’s odd that Tad is leading the discussion of Gage’s untimely demise.
Logan shakes his head. I doubt that it’s even crossed his mind.
Tad clears his throat while leaning heavily on his gnarl wooden cane. It’s so crooked it looks as if it needs a stick itself to maintain upright. “Now that all the important members of the family are here, it is with great pleasure and pride for me to announce”—he thumps his cane over the ceiling three times fast, and I’m secretly hoping it’ll fall in on him—on us all, minus the children, of course. How dare Tad say the words all of the important members of this family. Gage was this family as far as I’m concerned. “Thanks to good old Demeet, I’ve once again landed myself in the cradle of employment.”
The room breaks out into a celebratory whoop, and I openly glare over at each and every laughing, clapping fool. I am beyond irate. I am most certainly taking names and kicking ass—later, of course. Em is the only one remaining stone-faced, but then it’s sort of her go-to look.
“Demetri?” Logan forces a smile over at Tad. I’m so thankful Logan is here holding me upright.
“Yup. That barnacle buster went right over to Althorpe on my behalf and knocked their heads straight. Tad Landon is a talented and trusted guy.”
My God, he’s talking about himself in third person. I give Logan’s hand another firm squeeze.
Logan clears his throat. “And they agreed?”
Tad’s arms flex in some form of a Kung Fu move gone wrong. “Those old farts can’t agree who should pick up a bucket of water during a fire!” His face turns an instant shade of purple. “Of course, they didn’t agree.”
Mom takes a step toward Tad with that calm down look on her sweet face while both boys do their best to recoil from him.
“No, Tampon!” Barron gives Tad a swift kick, and my mother backs them up a notch. Tampon is the sorry moniker my mother and Tad saw fit that their grandchildren reference him as. It’s sadly a bit fitting.
Mom clears her throat. “Demetri landed him a much more lucrative position with another company. It’s top secret, so, of course, we can’t share all the juicy details, but all you kids need to know is that we’re getting back into the financial swing of things.”
Both Drake and Bree grunt and moan—and look decidedly devastated. It warms my heart to see them so emotionally tattered for Gage.
Logan gently rubs his shoulder to mine as if to say I’ve got this. “So if not Althorpe, where? Is it here on the island?”
Tad straightens like a pin, that snarl still secure on his face. “Are your ears stopped up with bowling pins? The job is top secret. And it’s not on the island.” His voice softens as he turns to my sisters with pride. “It’s on a neighboring island called Raven’s Eye.”
“Oh shit.” I close my eyes and tip my head to the ceiling at the lunacy Demetri is about to sponsor. “No. I’m sorry. You cannot take that—job, that thing he’s handed you.” A serpent to the heart is more like it. My stomach churns because just the thought of a serpent plunges me into the depths of incendiary pain once again.
Tad gags as his response bottlenecks in his throat. “Don’t you shitake mushroom me, young lady! You have no right to tell me which career path I can and cannot take.”
“Career path?” I balk at the ludicrous term. “More like assisted suicide by way of that demon that spawned my newly defunct husband!” My blood boils at the audacity Demetri Edinger has—the audacity this entire family has.
“Skyla.” Logan’s voice slices me, sharp as an arrow.
“Don’t you Skyla me.” I snatch my hand away from his grip. “This is my family, and I’m not going to sit around and watch it burn to nothing.”
Mom trots over with the boys in tow, and they giggle up a throaty storm. “Skyla, what in heaven’s name has gotten into you? Would you please mind your manners?” She leans in. “We have another very special announcement, and I don’t want to taint the memory of this moment with your sour mood.”
“Oh my God.” I stagger backward as if I were just shot in the chest. A crackle of lightning goes off outside, causing the window to illuminate as if someone flipped a switch and turned the sun up full volume before a comfortable darkness collapses over us again. The incessant drumming of rain clamors over the glass, sounding as if a thousand madmen were thumping to be let in. Mother Nature is just as pissed as I am. She is unleashing holy hell over this haunted island, and I’m about to do the same in the Landon living room.
The lights cut out and the room lets out a collective hush, leaving us all in the dim light of a Paragon afternoon.
Someone on the sofa mimics the howl of a ghost, and Brielle actually screams as if an entire army of poltergeist were in the room.
“Oh”—Mom lets out a prolonged growl of frustration—“mothersmucker!” In truth, neither Tad nor my mother has ever cursed like sailors. I’m embarrassed to say it’s a bad habit I picked up after my father died and my mother married Tad. It was only then I realized how fucked I really was. “Mia, just get on with it. We’ll have to make do.”
“I’m engaged!” My sister spikes up out of her seat and spastically parades around the room showing off what appears to be a thin yellow ribbon.
I frown at the spectacle as she speeds by Logan and me. Technically, I knew Mia was engaged because she shared the news with me and my father—who was a guest at the boys’ birthday party, aka the Bastard’s Ball. The bastard portion of the evening was held in Gage’s honor. God, I hate Demetri.
Anyhow, Mia’s ring finger seems to have received a much-needed upgrade. The ring in question the other night was a bread tie, and this appears to be a much more elegant addition.
Melissa snorts as Mia shoves it so far up her face she might as well be picking her nose. “A yellow ribbon means you forgot something, you dunce.” Melissa wastes no time in bopping her over the head, and a part of me demands to join her on this bopping spree.
Drake and Ethan stomp over with their chests puffed out like a couple of gorillas.
Logan takes up my hand again. Should we be worried?
Oh, honey, I was worried five minutes after we walked through the door. Did we slip down a rabbit hole on the way over?
Before he can answer, Drake does an odd little dance as if he were entering a boxing ring and were about to obliterate Mia. “Who’s the dude? Let me at him. Nobody proposes to my kid sister while she’s still in high school.”
My heart melts a little at the sight of both Drake and now Ethan making an ass of themselves in the name of Mia’s virtue.
“Well, who is it?” I hear myself demand. I can’t even believe I’m entertaining this conversation.
Mia offers a sly grin as she pans the room, rapt at attention. “It’s a surprise. I’m doing the big reveal at my engagement party. Mom and I are working out all the details—venue, time, and place.”
Melissa pretends to gag. “Venue and place are the exact same thing. Grow a brain, would you? And by the way, revealing who your groom will be is the stupidest thing in the history of ever. I can promise you, nobody on this twisted planet has ever done that before.”
“And that’s why I’m doing it!” Mia barks back.
Tad limps up and points his staff in her ribbon wearing direction. “Don’t you dare cost this family a hard-earned dime. I am not laboring in the fields for nine hours a day so you can parade around with a diamond tiara, running up a tab on a party nobody can afford to throw.”
Laboring in the fields? Now I’m curious as to what Tad’s job description might entail—other than Spectator feed. On second thought, plunging Tad into a field sounds about accurate.
“I hate you all!” Mia riots so loud, everyone under five in the room proceeds to wail on cue. “Maybe we’ll just elope like Brielle and Drake! Like Skyla and Gage!”
His name spears me in the gut like a heated knife. Every last part of me craves to shout my husband’s name with just as much vigor, at far higher decibels until all of heaven is aware of my
pain.
“Mia Landon!” my mother riots back with a vengeance, and the windows rattle in her honor. “You will not speak of such evil. Eloping is not in the cards! You will do no such thing. I strictly forbid it.”
My mother will tolerate a lot of things, but deny her a good party and you will have hell to pay.
Tad barks like a Doberman a few good times, and now I’m certain I’m having one of those waking nightmares. “For crikey’s sake, let her run away with the moron.” He turns to her. “And I’ll let you borrow the sedan for a quickie honeymoon, too! Don’t ever say I never gave you anything.”
A round of groans circles the room as Melissa takes Barron from my mother, but the cries of the children only seem to grow.
I whip out a bottle for both my boys, and soon enough they’re soothed. The crying coupled with the dim lighting and the dizzying drumming of rain has lulled them perfectly to sleep.
Mia lets out a cry of frustration before gifting everyone in the room her middle finger in a slow yet circular fashion before fleeing the scene.
Throne of Fire (Celestra Forever After Book 5) Page 4