Gage glances to his father. “I do.”
Demetri nods. “Seal this covenant with a kiss and create a binding agreement, a spiritual covenant with your bodies. The two shall become one, a bond unbreakable, irrevocable, a spiritual unity for all time.”
My heart soars at the prospect. Gage and I will have eternity. Not even my mother can sever this cord.
“What God Himself has blessed, let no man put asunder,” Gage says as he offers a soft smile. “I’m sorry, Skyla.” His hands leave mine as he pulls Chloe in and presses his lips over hers.
Demetri bows his head. “So be it.” He takes Sage by the hand, and they walk away into the nothingness behind them.
I pull Gage back abruptly. “I’m right here. You don’t kiss her. You kiss me.”
His hardened gaze never leaves hers. “I have chosen my queen.” He takes up Chloe’s hand and examines her wicked beauty, her hair and eyes as dark as soot. Her soul singed from her own wickedness. “I choose Chloe as my wife, Skyla. I don’t choose you.”
My heart stops beating. My body slaps with shock. I can’t think. My feet have rooted to the floor.
Chloe sets her eyes over mine, her chest panting, breathless with surprise. “Wow, I said I wouldn’t let you make the same mistake twice. It looks like I get to keep my word.” Her lips curve dangerously. “Happy birthday, Skyla.” She looks to Gage and purrs, “But it’s your birthday now, isn’t it? Get ready for your gift, Mr. Oliver. I will make sure you never forget it.”
He leads her to the glass room through the archway of roses. No sooner do they enter than the doorway bursts into flames creating a wall of fire between us. I watch in horror as his arms wrap tight around her body, his mouth finds a home over hers. His fingers dig deep into that dark hair of hers spilling over her back like a demonic waterfall.
He lays her gently over the stone of sacrifice, and the petals fly through the air like confetti. Fog fills the glass enclosure as a shower of lightning ignites overhead, quick and dangerous, filling the room with flames until one by one the walls around me erupt in an inferno. I stagger toward the glass sanctuary as a scream roars from me, my body burning with pain, my ears drumming with their own heartbeat, the sound of my cries deafening.
Wesley looks to me, stiff and stoic, a hardened glare in his eyes just for me.
My screams tear through my vocal cords like barbed wire, shredding me from the inside. Marshall pulls me away as the room roars and burns with the brightest of flames.
In a violent rush, the throne ignites into a blaze, stretching to the nebulous sky above like an unholy inferno.
My God, he’s done it. Gage has made Chloe his in every single way. Husband and wife. The impossible has come to pass, and I cannot think or move, my voice lost in a never-ending scream. Gage and Chloe have become the two-headed snake, and here I am lost in my delirium just the way Emily predicted.
Shaddai gives way to a darker place riddled with papery fog as my feet fall softly over a familiar cliff side, my face set like flint toward Devil’s Peak.
“I’m sorry, Skyla.” Marshall brushes the hair from my eyes, my body still bucking and writhing. “You deserve a kiss tonight. It is my great honor to give it to you.” He lands his lips over mine, slow and careful as if he were kissing a bomb.
“You knew.” I shake my head. “You knew the outcome before it ever began.”
He pulls my hand forward and presses his lips to the back. “Your mother requested I deposit you here. You’ll know what to do.” Marshall bows in my presence as if it were called for—as if I deserved it before evaporating into the fog. And now the only one to comfort me is the mist, Paragon itself, Devil’s Peak with its rocky crags below.
A cry rips from my throat, animalistic, born of rejection, of fury, of confusion and pain. I wail into the night, roaring with indignation, incensed at the brutality of everything I’ve endured in the holy name of love. My voice carries up into the sky like a siren, a warning, a harbinger of things to come. My body, my soul, they writhe in pain as bright as flames, blazing in the night like a towering inferno, ready to live, to die, to set the world on fire with vengeance, with a righteousness anger.
The knife-edge of the cliff calls to me. It beckons me over, the wind daring my feet to move in that dangerous direction. I envision the jagged rocks below, waiting with their outstretched arms, waiting to receive me with its razor-sharp embrace.
Gage Oliver. The echoes of your death are unfathomable, and you are truly dead to me. It took a betrayal so brutal to remove the scales from my eyes. I see you now for who you are, who you might have been all along. It turns out, Gage and I were over long ago. We were just too stubborn to leave it be.
A voice calls to me from the distance, and I turn to see Logan charging this way, the letter glowing like a pale flame in his hand. He calls my name again, ferociously loud, his body racing in a strange slow motion.
My feet pivot toward the cliff once again. I don’t need anyone to save me, complete me. I don’t need anyone to come to my rescue—clean up my messes, navigate me through life, move my limbs like the strings of a puppet.
My heart still beats within me. My actions speak on their own.
I would rather die than live a lie another moment.
My feet carry me swiftly, hastening me toward the edge of Devil’s Peak.
“Skyla, no,” Logan thunders into the night, his voice reverberating through my bones, warm and familiar, but I don’t succumb. This time, I do what needs to be done—what I decide needs to be done.
I hit the edge and dive off like a swan, like an eagle with her wings spread wide, waiting to catch a current that will never come. The world comes up at me in snatches as the rocks that line the bottom in rows of toothy blades threaten me with their presence.
Death and life, I must choose. The dead or the living, but I already know which it is, what it was the moment my body twitched in this direction. It’s the very reason my mother sent me here. Divine intervention. Alone—none of my vices to clog my heart, to shade my eyes from the truth. I have always been enough.
A roar thunders from my lungs as the ocean foams beneath me, waves licking their lips in anticipation, longing to suck me under.
A crackle of lightning rips through the sky, rips through my bones, and I let out a delicious cry of satisfaction. Wings burst to life from my body, spectacular and powerful. A current blows in, the very breath of God, and I rise. A flash of lavender lightning creates a ring around me, of brilliance, of magnificence as my powers surge back to life far stronger than ever before, with nothing standing between us. I fan my feathered wings, downy and white, propelling myself ever so higher as a burst of delicate creatures explode into the atmosphere around me. Butterflies. Thousands of fluttering cobalt wings engulf me as I climb higher into the sky.
In the distance, I see a figure standing at the edge of Devil’s Peak. Logan, with his arms stretched overhead—screaming, shouting, cheering me on, proclaiming his love for me and I feel it down deep in my marrow, but my survival doesn’t hinge on it. My children, Celestra, the Factions—they are the air I breathe.
Gage has underestimated the breadth and depth of my heart and who it truly belongs to. It may have at one time belonged to him, but no more. From here on, the enemy shall know my ferocity. He will acquiesce to my undeniable power.
I win this war.
This is my dominion.
My people and I will recover. We will prosper.
Celestra will rise again.
We will rise.
We rise.
Books by Addison Moore
Thank you for reading THRONE OF FIRE (Celestra Forever After 5). Look for ALL HAIL THE KING (Celestra Forever After 6) coming 2019! It is going to be one hell of a ride.
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WEBSITE http://addisonmoore.com
Paranormal Romance
(Celestra Book World in Order)
* * *
Ethereal (Celestra Series Book 1)
Tremble (Celestra Series Book 2)
Burn (Celestra Series Book 3)
Wicked (Celestra Series Book 4)
Vex (Celestra Series Book 5)
Expel (Celestra Series Book 6)
Toxic Part One (Celestra Series Book 7)
Toxic Part Two (Celestra Series Book 8)
Elysian (Celestra Series Book 9)
Perfect Love (A Celestra Novella)
* * *
Ethereal Knights (Celestra Knights)
Season of the Witch (A Celestra Companion)
* * *
Ephemeral (The Countenance Trilogy 1)
Evanescent (The Countenance Trilogy 2)
Entropy (The Countenance Trilogy 3)
* * *
The Countenance Trilogy Books 1-3
Celestra Forever After (Celestra Forever After 1)
The Dragon and the Rose (Celestra Forever After 2)
The Serpentine Butterfly (Celestra Forever After 3)
Crown of Ashes (Celestra Forever After 4)
Throne of Fire (Celestra Forever After 5)
Romance
3:AM Kisses (3:AM Kisses 1)
Winter Kisses (3:AM Kisses 2)
Sugar Kisses (3:AM Kisses 3)
Whiskey Kisses (3:AM Kisses 4)
Rock Candy Kisses (3:AM Kisses 5)
Velvet Kisses (3:AM Kisses 6)
Wild Kisses (3:AM Kisses 7)
Country Kisses (3:AM Kisses 8)
Forbidden Kisses (3:AM Kisses 9)
Dirty Kisses (3:AM Kisses 10)
Stolen Kisses (3:AM Kisses 11)
Lucky Kisses (3:AM Kisses 12)
Tender Kisses (3:AM Kisses 13)
Revenge Kisses (3:AM Kisses 14)
Red Hot Kisses (3:AM Kisses 15)
Reckless Kisses (3:AM Kisses 16)
Hot Honey Kisses (3:AM Kisses 17)
Shameless Kisses (3:AM Kisses 18)
* * *
Value 3:AM Kisses Boxed Sets
3:AM Kisses Boxed Set 1-3
3:AM Kisses Boxed Set 4-6
3:AM Kisses Boxed Set 7-9
3:AM Kisses Boxed Set 10-12
* * *
Low Down & Dirty (3:AM Kisses, Hollow Brook 1)
Dirty Disaster (3:AM Kisses, Hollow Brook 2)
Dirty Deeds (3:AM Kisses, Hollow Brook 3)
* * *
The Social Experiment (The Social Experiment 1)
Bitter Exes (The Social Experiment 2)
Chemical Attraction (The Social Experiment 3)
* * *
Burning Through Gravity (Burning Through Gravity 1)
A Thousand Starry Nights (Burning Through Gravity 2)
Fire in an Amber Sky (Burning Through Gravity 3)
* * *
Beautiful Oblivion (Lake Loveless 1)
Beautiful Illusions (Lake Loveless 2)
Beautiful Elixir (Lake Loveless 3)
Beautiful Deception (Lake Loveless 4)
* * *
The Solitude of Passion
* * *
Someone to Love (Someone to Love 1)
Someone Like You (Someone to Love 2)
Someone For Me (Someone to Love 3)
* * *
Mystery
Little Girl Lost
* * *
Young Adult Romance
Melt With You (A Totally ’80s Romance 1)
Tainted Love (A Totally ’80s Romance 2)
Hold Me Now (A Totally ’80s Romance 3)
Acknowledgments
I hope you enjoyed this installment of the Celestra Forever After Series. I’m so thrilled to take you back to Paragon each and every time. I live, eat, and breathe Paragon every single day. It’s a pure pleasure to run wild in Skyla’s world with her and to be able to take you along with me. But none of this would mean much if you weren’t along for the ride. YOU are the blessing in this madness. I hope you’ll follow me to the next adventure, ALL HAIL THE KING. I promise you one wild ride that you will never forget. If I could hug each one of you in person, I would. Thank you so much for reading Celestra. XOXO
A very special thank you to Jodie Tarleton for taking an enormous chunk of time to wade through the many layers of this novel. You have blown me away with your mad skills and I pray you don’t regret asking to be a beta! I value you and our friendship. You have a unique gift to see all of the invisible things. Don’t ever leave me.
Thank you to the moon and beyond to Kaila Eileen Turingan-Ramos for those stunning superpowers you wield. I’m always floored and grateful for all you bring to the table and you really do bring it all. I am in awe of your awesomeness! And I owe you big time for helping me despite the fact you were on vacation. That says it all. Super big hugs to you for that.
A hearty and warm thank you to Shay Rivera for beta reading the novel and offering input and insight. You did fantastic and I hope to tackle many more books with you! You are a sweetheart! I’m so glad you’re enjoying Paragon after all these years.
A big hearty hug to Lisa Markson. Girl, I love you to pieces and you know it. Thank you for always being the greatest support. And to Kathryn Jacoby—I’m so glad you’re in my life! I love you!
A super HUGE, manic, horrifically loud and obnoxious thank you to the wonderful Paige Maroney Smith for putting up with this sheer insanity. You mean the world to me. I am so honored to call you a friend.
And last, but never least, thank you to Him who sits on the throne. Worthy is the Lamb! Glory and honor and power are yours. I owe you everything.
You paid it all upon the cross.
Your blood alone removed the dross.
My life is yours, each step I take.
My destiny is yours to make.
My soul is yours, each breath I own.
All I have is yours alone.
About the Author
Addison Moore is a New York Times, USA Today, and Wall Street Journal bestselling author who writes contemporary and paranormal romance. Her work has been featured in Cosmopolitan Magazine. Previously she worked as a therapist on a locked psychiatric unit for nearly a decade. She resides on the West Coast with her husband, four wonderful children, and two dogs where she eats too much chocolate and stays up way too late. When she's not writing, she's reading. Addison’s Celestra Series has been optioned for film by 20th Century Fox.
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Throne of Fire (Celestra Forever After Book 5) Page 78