Crown of Ashes

by Addison Moore

  Everyone in a square mile sucks in a breath at once.

  “Mee-Maw!” Beau sings with pride. “Misty made poo poo in my hay!” Hay is as close to hair as little Beau gets these days, and after this craptastic fiasco, he’ll be lucky if every inch of hay isn’t shaved off before midnight.

  “We’ll catch you later!” Bree sails me out the door faster than I can protest. “We’ve got a party to hit, and we need to leave now if we plan on waking the dead ourselves!”

  “Wait!” I try to stop Bree’s stronghold on me, but it’s too late. We’re down the porch and in the minivan where an irritated Drake cusses up a storm over the fact we’re missing all the fat blunts. Freaking Ellis has infiltrated the Landon frontlines. Drake is a certified card-carrying midnight toker.

  My mind drifts back to my poor mother. Although, I can’t help but think that Misty and Beau’s crap-infested heads are a metaphor for my mother’s obsession with Demetri.

  “That woman’s daughter,” I say mostly to myself since Bree is cussing right back at Drake at top volume. “She’s the one that Gage saved at the morgue.” I’m not quite sure save is the correct terminology, but still, she’s back from the dead. Melody Winters—Dominique Winters.

  I text Marshall and tell him to meet me at the party. There are two no-good reasons I need to speak with him.

  The fog billows over the island in large vats of white powder. It’s cold enough to snow, but Paragon is too stubborn to give such a spectacular show. She likes it dark and damp. She likes turning the roads into wet, slick tongues that inspire cars to spin out—wet enough to send a girl straight through the windshield and into the afterlife.

  Yes, winter has arrived on Paragon and dragged its wicked namesake right along with it.

  Something rotten this way comes.

  In fact, I have a feeling it’s already arrived.

  The Harrison estate—unlike the Landon estate, per Tad’s pretentious pipe dream—stands proud over on the ritzy side of town that is gated and guarded and happens to hoard the most expensive chunks of real estate this haunted island has to offer. Some of its residents include the dominating demon himself, Demetri, the Havers’ home where our Faction meetings have been routinely held until I kicked the Factions and their useless meetings on their angelic ears, the Kraggers—the family that has spawned a thousand forms of evil, Marshall, my rough around the sexy edges, refined around the crooked heart spirit husband, the Olivers, Gage and his new home—I refuse to have anything to do with him or the house he tricked me into buying. Good God, do not—I repeat, do not make huge life decisions when every one of your hormones is out of whack. How I ever thought owning a home next door to Emma was a good idea I will never know.

  The minivan comes to an abrupt stop as Drake uses his good judgment to block the entry to the enormous circular driveway, thus penning in the dozen or so vehicles already resting rubber on the Italian imported cobblestone. I have no clue whether or not the Harrisons are old money or new money—at this financially draining point in my life, I’d be honored to be either or both—but their taste for all things pricey is made clear by the almost disturbing visual of their not-so humble home. Ellis’ mother, Olivia, has undertaken an ongoing renovation, and each time I pop into their home, something newer and flashier than before assaults my attention.

  “Time to get ripped!” Brielle whoops so loud she manages to saw each of my nerves in half before I ever get out of the car.

  The night air is crisp, but it feels good to my overheated body that stubbornly refuses to shed an ounce of the weight I packed on while incubating my two little olives. I thought for sure after I had them, and drained the swimming pool that formed inside me, I would have magically lost the seventy pounds I decided to pad myself with, but nope. I’m still as robust as can be and damn pissed about it, too. Chloe mentioned she gained twelve pounds—twelve fucking pounds—and got right back into her skinny jeans the night she booted Tobie from her vajayjay. I sneer at the thought as I stagger toward the Harrisons’ home like the zombie my sleep deprived self is slowly morphing into. Speaking of vajayjays, I force myself to do a quick rep of Kegels. My mother has convinced me that the vag-inspired move will stave off unwanted bladder malfunctions—which I’m embarrassed to say have occurred on the odd occasion—the odd occasion being a laugh or a sneeze. There’s no way I’m going to stock up on diapers right alongside the boys, so I’ve been doubling up on the Kegel routine instead.

  “Hey, chica.” Bree hooks her arm through mine in a seemingly friendly gesture, but I can tell by the way she’s pulling me she just wants to hustle to the open bar Ellis inevitably has flowing with all things lethal. “Do you think you and Logan will kiss and make up tonight?”

  “You mean Gage.” I hate that she made me say his name. It sounds so normal coming from my lips, so vaguely benign. I’m afraid she might be trying to delude my outrage toward him, and that’s something I just can’t afford to let happen.

  “I mean Logan.” She struts us right past the gargantuan fountain lit up that eerie Countenance blue with its dozen or so life-sized stone lions roaming around the waterworks. Truthfully, that fountain has always jolted me a bit. At night, when the moon hits it just right, you would swear those lions were the real breathing, moving, hungry as hell deal. “Isn’t it about time you switched? I mean, Gage isn’t going to be up at bat forever, right? You told me so yourself. He gets booted off home plate by Logan, and then you hit the sheets with Dudley.” Brielle groans and quivers as if she just hit the big O thinking about her once wild romp with our ex-math teacher. God, he was such a perv, but then, Bree was no angel. Not in the sexual sense anyway.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” I certainly don’t want to entertain Candace Messenger’s supposed brilliant plan for my life or my vagina. Brielle isn’t entirely off. In fact, she’s spot-on, and it makes my stomach turn just thinking about it.

  We head into the dark home, with a pulsating red light coming from the cavernous living room that can double as an airplane hangar, and the scent of weed is already thick in the air.

  “Messenger!” Ellis beams as he comes my way, his eyes heavy and glossy, that goofy baked smile on his face. Ellis is handsome in a millionaire surfer-slash-derelict kind of way, and Giselle, Gage’s sweet baby sis, is completely smitten with Paragon’s resident stoner much to Emma’s chagrin—and that only makes me appreciate him that much more. “You left the STDs at home for once. Nice to see you out and about again.”

  “My children are not sexually transmitted diseases, Ellis.” Although, technically, they were sexually transmitted.

  “What? No way.” His chest bucks with laughter. “What I meant was studley twin dudes.” He slaps me five, and I unaesthetically slap him back.

  “Nice save.” Not. I tread deeper into the foyer until I have a bird’s eye view of the entire room in front of me. The music is so loud the backbeat pulsates from my chest, and my brain begins to rattle to the rhythm. Ellis remains dutifully by my side as we watch Bree hop up on a marble table and start shaking what her mama gave her. I can’t help but notice a brand new sparkling chandelier the size of an SUV floating from the expansive ceiling above.

  “Impressive,” I hiss as I continue to ogle at its sparkling glory.

  “Eh.” Ellis shrugs off its magnificence. “It’s just a little antique the ’rents picked up from the Mother Country. My ma’s been hitting the back alleys of London, hard, scouring for shit to clutter this place up with. My dad’s cool with it, though.”

  Ellis’ dad is cool with a lot of things, like wearing the crown as resident slumlord, no thanks to those crappy apartments he rents out to innocent college students on Host. Also, he openly sleeps around. I’ve met one or two of his adolescent—and I mean that in the literal sense—girlfriends. I could never keep it straight if his parents are exes, or simply spouses with side benefits.

  “And that”—Ellis points to the corner of the room at a giant work of questionable art that looks lik
e a stick drawing of a person come to life—“is a bronze statue she had shipped from France. It’s called The Walking Man.”

  “Awesome,” I muse. Dear God, if my mother shoved that in any part of our home I’d have nightmares for weeks. I still might, and I’ve only laid eyes on it for the last thirty seconds. Although, I’d actually have to fall asleep in order to have those blessed events.

  “Anyway”—Ellis slings an arm over my shoulder—“Bishop’s looking for you.” He cranes his neck for a moment before leaning in and squinting into the crowd. “Don’t get goofy on me, but I see something that might piss you off, straight ahead at twelve o’clock.”

  My eyes snap to high noon, and I fully expect to find Bishop herself sucking off my future ex-husband like the tall drink of water he is, but it’s not Chloe siphoning off Gage. It’s a gyrating, turbo twerking, engaged in a demonic level of calisthenics looking redhead using Gage as a stripper pole. Granted he’s not joining in on the fun. He is still very much in the center of her skanky affection.

  “Nice,” I muse. “What’s Super Freak’s stage name? Let me guess—C U Next Tuesday?”

  A familiar scent comes from behind. Chloe. That perfume I gifted her works like a calling card alerting my senses to her demonic presence before that sourpuss ever hits.

  “What’s the matter, Skyla?” she shouts up over the seizure of a song. “Seeing your man engaging in a little cunt-punting getting you down?” She narrows her gaze in their direction. “She looks familiar. I’d know that booty shaking skank anywhere.”

  Laken pops up and pulls me into a quick embrace. “It’s Melody Winters.” She beats Chloe to the punch. “She was dead, and now she’s alive.”

  “Well, hello”—I lean back and watch the freak show as it continues to dazzle the crowd—“is she ever thankful to my husband.” First time I’ve claimed him as such in over a week.

  “That’s our Mellie.” Chloe frowns over at the scene, clearly not enthused to have her obsession being accosted by yet another vagina to the face. “Mellie Winters.” Chloe ticks her head to the side as if curious of the cadaverous turn of events and wastes no time in heading over. Figures. Chloe isn’t about to stand for this shit—and normally neither would I.

  Laken threads her arm through mine. “Come on, Skyla. We’re not missing the grand finale.”

  Mellie, or Melody, or Werkin’ Twerkin Winters springs into a handstand and lands her bare feet over Gage Oliver’s shoulders. His hands grip her ankles as if it were a reflex, and he takes a half-step back in an attempt not to fall over. But Mellie is relentless in her pursuit of him as her hips grind into his chest offering up a pussy platter for the evening.

  “Wow—he’s free for a week, and it’s freaking rumspringa,” I growl to Laken, and she laughs.

  “He’s not free. Believe me. Coop says he’s downright miserable. Mellie’s just chosen the wrong boy. I’m sure she doesn’t mean her little hop on pop. Odd, though. She seemed so shy in all of my classes.”

  “You mean she’s acting out of character?” A thought comes to me, lingering vaguely in the back of my mind, and I refuse to acknowledge it.

  “Completely.” Laken scoffs as if it were the honest truth. “But it is New Year’s Eve. Finals were a bitch. She’s probably just cutting loose. You know, knocking one too many back.”

  Chloe jostles her way through the crowd and knocks Mellie and her smelly snatch right off my husband. It’s sort of funny how he’s “my husband” once things go carnally south.

  “Skyla.” Gage devours the distance between us with fierceness and rage as he pulls me into an embrace without hesitating. Lucky for him, he doesn’t reek even slightly of dead girl’s feet or her pink parts. Instead, he holds that familiar spiced scent that I love so much, and I can’t help but take it in deeply. I memorize how solid he feels, the granite of his chest up against my body. My fingers glide over the cool slick hair around his neck before I pull away and pretend that moment wasn’t everything my bleeding heart needed to fix it.

  “That wasn’t what it looked like,” he’s quick to contest, but I keep my gaze set straight ahead as the music pumps violently through the speakers. There are so many people, so many bodies here. Chloe and Laken are off talking to Mellie. Hopefully drilling her a brand new smelly crotch. God, Mia might even be here, and I really wouldn’t know it. “Can I see your phone?” he asks as his shoulders press over my back. Everything about his body is familiar to mine, and my natural instinct insists I wrap my arms around him, but I’m quick to tell my natural instincts to go to hell.

  Gage didn’t get a chance to install the baby cam app onto his phone yet, so I hand it over and wait while he chuckles to himself a moment.

  “It looks like the boys are giving my parents a run for their money. Hopefully, they’ll sleep when we get home.”

  “We? My—aren’t you presumptuous?”

  Before he can defend his mattress standing, Laken, Chloe, and the bouncing beast make their way over. The first thing I notice about her is those eyes, a mix of colors that are clearly toxic even in this low lighting. Kaleidoscope eyes. I’ve seen them somewhere before. Something about this demon seems so gnawingly familiar.

  Melody Winters is scrawny, living under a rock pale—but God, aren’t we all? Paragon doesn’t really give you a choice in the matter. Her hair is draped in gorgeous red tresses just like her dominatrix of a mother. She’s got a heart-shaped face, but that wicked gleam in her eyes, that never-ending I’ve got an edge over you smile, suggests she’s not all hearts and roses after all.

  “So you’re the wife.” She scowls as she holds her hand out and I shake it. That ring Chloe gifted me for Christmas winks like a beacon, and I’m quick to hide it behind my back. Melody leans in and runs her finger along the protective hedge dangling over my chest and draws it to her.

  “Spectacular.” She glances back at Chloe, and something in that one suspicious action lifts the veil ever so slightly in this entire smelly Mellie farce. “Per chance we can get to know one another better?” Mellie returns her gaze to Gage and runs her finger over his cheek, letting us know exactly who she would like to get to know better and how.

  I slap her down by the wrist without hesitation. “Whatever action it is you’re used to getting on Host, we’re far more conservative on this island. Keep your hands and your hips to yourself.” I don’t need to look at Gage to know that he’s gloating. As angry as I am with him, the last thing we need worming into our lives and our bed is another woman.

  Mellie glances over at me, her body language still very much begging my husband to take her. “Very well. I’m sure we’ll all be fast friends.” She cackles and snaps her fingers high up over her head in rhythm to the drumming of the music. “This night, this life isn’t through by a long shot!” She looks to Gage, and those eyes of hers light up as if she were looking into the face of God Himself. “So many years I’ve waited.” She lets out a strangled cry before jumping up onto the coffee table and knocking Bree off while gyrating like a chimp on fire.

  Gage huffs at the sight of her. “I can’t believe she can move like that—move in general after that accident. You’d think she would be in bed after what she went through.”

  “She does want to be in bed.” Chloe slithers up on the other side of Gage, her arm rubbing over his, and he flinches. “With you.” Chloe looks to me and bleeds her signature black smile. “We don’t want that, now, do we, Skyla?”

  “It’s not happening,” I say it to Gage like a threat. The pussy patrol isn’t infiltrating my hubby, future ex or not, tonight or any other night while we’re still legally bound and gagged.

  “What’s not happening?” a deep voice strums from behind as Logan wraps his arms around me for a moment. His hand covers mine. And why the hell is Chloe here?

  I turn to glare at him as he steps into our circle. Hello, my Elysian. The one who stands in line to fuck me.

  Logan’s eyes round out in horror, but I can’t help it. I’m still royally pi
ssed at all Olivers at the moment—with the exception of those who dropped out of my womb and perhaps Dr. O. Liam is iffy.

  I shake my head at him because it’s clear I’ve befuddled him. “The corpse bride showed up and got jiggy with your nephew. It looks like she’s chosen a groom for herself, but he’s leashed to me at the moment.”

  Gage flinches as if I struck him. “I’m not leaving you, Skyla.”

  Chloe runs her fingers through his hair, and he takes a step over to me.

  “The devotion is charming,” I muse as I take a step in the opposite direction.

  Logan leans in, his features hardened to stone as he examines the only other woman he’s slept with, sans me, of course. Logan and Chloe have a sordid history of sleeping together—mostly accidentally, no thanks to Chloe’s ability to morph into whomever she pleases when it suits her—and the fact she decapitated him in the final round of the Faction war doesn’t faze her in the least from trying to wrap her legs around him time and time again. Chloe likes her rage with a side of homicide on the regular. My poor dead father can attest to that.

  Logan smirks openly at the queen of mean. “What’s with your devotion to this monster, Skyla?”

  Chloe clicks her tongue at the slight. “Testy, are we? Whatever happened to forgive and forget? Or don’t you pay attention to your Sunday morning sermons?”

  “You’re the devil, Chloe,” Logan is quick to remind her. “You are well past redemption, and everyone here knows it.” He looks to me with an accusatory glare. “Skyla.” His voice hisses low like a tire expiring air.

  “Don’t you Skyla me.” Rage brews in my veins, and right now it’s all for this judgmental ass Logan Oliver has transformed himself into. “Don’t you judge me for who I choose to forgive or who I choose to spend my time with. I’m all grown up now, Logan.

  I’ve cut the strings off my body so you don’t have to bounce me around like a puppet anymore, pulling me into your schemes, your useless dreams that landed me in this predicament to begin with.”