“Water’s fine.”
I take off toward Laken. It’s dark as all hell in here and cluttered with coeds and linebackers. The scent of sweat mingles with sickly sweet perfume and beer, and, as gross as that is, I find everything about tonight electrifying, exciting on a primal level. It’s as if I’ve waited my entire life to get out from under my mother’s wings, away from Tad and his cloying behavior. As much as I love Paragon, Host feels like a haven, a refuge I didn’t even know I was looking for.
The windows rattle, and I pause for a second. No one else seems to be overly concerned. The music is so darn loud it’s probably just the bass. I glance out the front door with its steady stream of girls running in both directions and note a shadow lurking in the door. Strange. Probably just some kid in a trench coat, but I swear I recognize that frame. Those straight as a pin shoulders that pin head—Demetri. But it can’t be. It’s not like the demon league is set to show up tonight. There’s not a problem I can think of in the ethereal plane at the moment with the exception of those tunnels still being open. I’m sure hanging out with a bunch of frat boys and sorority girls is the last place Demetri would want to be. It’s not like his son bothered to show his ug—handsome face. God, it’s going to be really hard to dislike Wes.
I try to shake it off and focus on the fact that everyone at the party seems in good spirits. Even the opposing team is here, all smiles—drinking from their electric blue Solo cups right along with Host. I suppose they were exempt from the campus policy, but, then again, they have official college IDs.
I come upon Laken as she talks with a group of girls, and to my surprise, it’s Lexy and Nat.
“Holy shit—hi guys!” I bounce a little when I say it. Lexy’s copper hair is cut clean under her jawline—straight and sleek—in the world’s most perfect bob. I swear if I had hair that would do that, I’d wear it the exact same way. Nat, however, was cursed with curls much like myself only hers are far tighter and spring from her head vertically a good three inches before falling into a rust-colored river.
“Messenger,” Lexy growls. “Have you seen, Em?”
“Not lately, but I hear she’s a great mom.” Actually, I sort of surmised that for myself since my own mother isn’t raising her child—as she’s prone to do with Drake’s offspring.
“She’s coming to Host.” Nat sneers as if I were letting off a foul stench. “She just needs to find a sitter.”
And there’s that. “Oh, I’m sure my mother would be happy to—”
“Really?” Lexy’s dark eyes round out as she texts spastically into her phone. “Emily says cool, she’ll be by on Monday. Let your mom know, ’kay?”
Nat socks me in the arm before they head into the crowd.
Crap. Mom is going to kill me for not running this past her first. It’s not like she doesn’t have her hands and boobs full.
“Your friends are nice.” Laken looks mildly pissed at me as she says it. I’m assuming its post-traumatic Wes syndrome, so I give her a pass.
“Looks like they’ve fooled you.” True story. Lex and Nat are a lot of things, nice isn’t one of them. “You okay?” I catch her gaze and hold it until she sags into me.
“Seeing him was harder than I thought. Thank God for Coop.” She shakes her head. “Wes was never an asshole. I guess I wish I could hate him. That would make things a hell of a lot easier.” Her eyes dart to mine. “So what did he want?”
“I have no clue what he wants.” I stop short of telling her she’s probably the only one on the planet who can find out.
“He wants me, Skyla.” She crimps her lips. “And believe me, I wish he didn’t.” She bites down hard over her lip. “Anyway, who’s this Chloe person? I met her once while time traveling with Cooper. It was prom, and even then I thought she was acting strange.”
“That’s Chloe for you.” I go into the entire story about how she was supposedly banished to the Transfer, how she forced Demetri to kill my father—how she killed Logan herself.
“Oh my, God, Skyla. I’m so sorry.”
“I’m sorry, too. But my mother is the one in charge of this celestial circus, and, as soon as possible, I plan on taking this issue up with her.” I glance skyward as if she could hear me, and I know for a fact she can. “Anyway, Chloe is an ass of the highest order. Feel free to ignore her.”
“She was pretty.” Laken’s eyes glitter with tears, and she blinks them back. “But I’m over it.” She takes a deep breath. “See that boy over there?” She points to Coop who happens to be heading in this direction. “I’m all about him, now and forever.” Her features brighten, and her face turns crimson right up to the tips of her ears. “I’ll catch you later, Skyla.” She magnetizes toward Coop, slow and seductive, and I have a feeling Gage won’t be seeing the inside of his dorm tonight like we had planned. But at least Laken will get her mind off Wes.
I turn and find Gage talking with a couple of guys from the team. Funny—I’ll never truly get my mind off Wes, not with Gage looking like his mirror image.
I shake my head. So damn strange.
I make my way over with the ground thumping beneath my feet. I’m quick to blame in on the bass again, but we’re currently between songs… I glance around at the crowd of cackling girls, the boys with their roving eyes, their tongues wagging at anything with estrogen. Again, no one seems to notice. Then my eyes settle over Gage, and my body melts into a puddle of wanton lust just looking at him. A crowd of girls migrate over to him, exalting him, babbling on and on about something, but he’s looking at me. Those piercing midnight-colored eyes spear me, reel me in like a fish. A smile quivers on my lips as I come in closer. His muscles ripple from under his shirt. His biceps are fully formed, tunneling dramatically into the insertions just shy of his elbows as if the sculptor wanted to exaggerate the perfect male form. I can just imagine that six pack, hell, eight pack under his shirt, and I can only dream of what he’s hiding in his Levi’s. But on a night like tonight—a night where victory reigns and I gave Chloe the finger because I have the real deal in my life—not some Ephemeral knock-off—tonight seems as good a night as any to find out.
“Hey good lookin’.” I give Gage a quick wink as I enter his midst. The girls sweep to the side and openly scowl at me. “Do you have a girlfriend? Because I’m sort of in the mood to hookup with someone tonight, and I thought maybe that could be you?”
“It’s your lucky night.” His dimples dig in, no smile. “My girlfriend is stuck at home with our kid, so she’ll never find out.”
The circle of sorority skanks give a collective gasp.
“Well, we’d better get fucking, so you can get trucking.” I hop up and wrap my legs around his waist, our mouths fusing to one another as a shared laugh rumbles through us.
Gage pushes us slowly through the crowd, through the thumping, the jumping, the laughter, the jeers until the music, the infinite noise and chaos dies down. His tongue runs laps in my mouth, hot and feverish. I hear the click of the door, the slip of a lock as Gage lies me down on a cool, firm mattress, and the room stops up with a muted silence. His hands travel up my sweater, and I work on unbuttoning his jeans. I can feel his hard-on pressed over my stomach, intrusive, alarmingly huge. Gage pulls off my sweater in one seamless move, and the protective hedge goes right along with it. His mouth moves to my neck, and his hands clasp over my boobs, hard and determined.
“Gage,” I pant lower than a breath and the windows tremble in rhythm to my body. The moon streams in, bleaching us out into its black and white world.
“Maybe we should think about this?” He whispers, running his tongue along my jawline. I’m getting the feeling it was a rhetorical question.
“I don’t want to think about it anymore.” I pull his lips to mine and fall into a pool of heated kisses.
This is it. This is our moment. All of the waiting, the anticipating, its coming to a head and now there’s only love to make. Every craving we’ve ever had is ready to unleash.
“Shit.�
�� He pulls back wild-eyed.
“What’s wrong?”
“I forgot the basics.” And by basics I’m guessing he means condoms.
Gage looks away for a moment before smiling down at me and reverting his attention to where it should be—on my cleavage.
“We can do other things.” He reaches back with one hand and unhooks my bra before pulling it off like a master magician. I rip open his jeans and push them past his hips as Gage moves his kisses lower, past my collarbone down to the center of my chest. He pulls his hot mouth over to the right and lands his lips onto that secret, tender part of me.
Oh, God. I lean up on my elbows and glance at him. Gage Oliver has his mouth sealed square over my boob and just the thought of it, seeing it, the freaking feeling sends a spasm of quivers to that sweet spot between my legs. God, I’m going to have one huge bodily sneeze right here before we ever get off second base. Not that I want him to move. I want him to stay, enjoy second base for a good, long while. Obviously Gage is very fucking good at baseball.
He bites down gently and a hard groan rips from me. He presses his face into my soft flesh, and I can feel him breathing over me as he sucks and grazes tenderly with his teeth.
“Gage.” I moan a little louder, a little more seductive than intended. His lips find mine again, and this time I don’t hesitate dipping my hands in his boxers. My fingers glide over his thighs, and his muscles stiffen at my touch. I run my hands up carefully until I caress the soft skin at the base of him, warm and heated, as his coarse hairs bristle over my fingers. Holy hell—I’m cupping Gage Oliver’s balls, filling both my hands with the most tender part of him. I suck in a hard breath and Gage bites down over my neck playfully as I offer a gentle massage. My hands work their way up until I wrap my fingers around him, hard as sheet rock and… I pull back and glance down a moment. Something about the girth startles me. Maybe I’m not touching what I think I’m touching? Maybe I’m in an entirely different neighborhood.
The moonlight pours over him and—
The room gyrates and shifts.
Knew it.
“Earthquake!” I strangle the shit out of his poor, supersized manhood as the room gives a violent jolt, and I land flat on my back under a lavender sky.
Ahava forms around me with all its crystalline beauty—the lake to my left, vibrant and shimmering.
My mother and the destination station rise to greet me from their invisible thrones, and I close my eyes.
Enough with this already.
Gage
The room shifts, the ceiling spins like a top, and I crash down over my mattress, over my own bed back on Paragon—alone.
I dreamed of roses last night. Skyla and I rolling around in a pile of blood red petals, making love like tigers. It was beautiful, and for a fleeting moment tonight I thought it was a metaphor coming to life.
I glance around my bedroom only mildly curious how I got here, namely because I already know. Skyla’s mother has a way of pulling us apart when things are about to get heated. Just what in the hell is she going to do when I marry Skyla? Interrupt the honeymoon with a series of spatial time outs?
A dull laugh rolls through my chest.
Who the hell am I kidding? I can’t afford a honeymoon. There’s no way I can take care of Skyla the way I want. Half the time I can’t even fend for myself.
I make my way to the bathroom with my jeans still sitting below my crotch, my hard-on snaking out into the room like it’s looking for a victim. I hop in the shower and don’t hesitate jacking off despite the mastabbatical I’ve been on. I thought if I steered clear it would be that much more intense when Skyla and I finally got together. But this is a unique emergency, and, if anything, tonight proved that it’s going to be damn incredible with her whether or not I hold out.
Skyla dances through my mind. I can still feel her pink tongue jammed down my throat, her hands grabbing a hold of me like she meant business. Technically, I think she was holding on for dear life, but that’s her mother’s fault. I hope Skyla gives her hell. I wish she were here giving me hell with her mouth over my body—my body in hers—it all swirls through my mind in one pornographic reel that I’ve been playing over and over for the past two years. I give a hard groan as I start to come. Damn it all to hell, all I want is to bury myself deep inside Skyla and never leave.
Why the fuck is that so hard for her mother to understand?
That ring pops through my mind.
That’s why.
Logan
Dudley’s living room jumps three feet to the left, and I cut a quick glance to Liam and Ellis who offer one another a congratulatory knuckle bump because each one believes the other committed the ultimate bodily function.
“You’re both full of shit,” I assure them while finishing up a text and burying my phone in my pocket.
I finally tossed the piano bench at that damn mirror earlier and caused the quickest exodus of long departed spirits known to man. The darn thing was like a vacuum for lost souls the way it sucked them out of the room in ten seconds flat. Of course, the haunted speculum bounced back into shape, but it hasn’t spit out a hooker in twenty-four hours, so that’s a win.
“Oliver.” Marshall calls to me from the kitchen, and I head over. “I’ll be stepping out this evening.” He’s all decked out in a three-piece suit—with enough frankincense and myrrh to shut down my lungs for a week.
“Cool it on the cologne, would you? Chicks dig it when they can breathe. They prefer this new fangled thing called oxygen. Besides, you can’t go anywhere. I just called Ezrina and Nev over.” I glance behind him into the kitchen. “And where’s dinner? I thought you were whipping up a wild goose or whatever creature’s blood you managed to splatter all over the walls.”
He glares into me a moment. “It was squirrel, and it was a dinner for one. Do I look like a personal chef to you?” He adjusts his golden cufflinks each with a twin blue stone set in the center that looks startlingly familiar.
“Is that the same stone as the protective hedge?” I gifted the protective hedge to Skyla, and I hope to God she never takes it off.
“Twice as nice, don’t you think?” He holds one up to the light, and it winks at us.
It would figure. Skyla and I had to go to hell and back just to wrangle it from Chloe’s resurrected hands, and here he’s had a drawer full all along.
“Where are you off to all spiffed up?” I smack the dust off his shoulder as if I cared. “1812 having a mean kegger?”
Dudley huffs before shooting a look of disappointment over my shoulder.
“You’re off by half a century, but you’re often wrong about things aren’t you? Like the fact it was a bright idea to pull your brother from paradise so he can systematically destroy his brain cells while syphoning off Harrison’s stash.”
“At least you’re paying attention.” I hate it when Dudley is right.
“Yes, well, I’m picking up on more than the lingo—I’m picking up the disgusting scent of this place. Do you know what one of my esteemed colleagues inquired of me this morning? Whether or not I had any ‘reefer’ on me.” He gives a wry smile. “She even offered to engage me in a game of crotch Yahtzee in exchange for the goods.” His features harden, pissed as shit.
I give a little chuckle. “You know she offered to—”
“I know what she was inferring.” He gives a bleak smile. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve a date with a woman six thousand years my junior. I believe you people call that robbing the cradle.” He walks right out the door, and I follow.
“More like she’s robbing the grave,” I mutter. “Who’s this date with?”
“My wife.”
My stomach cinches because we both know who his “wife” is.
“Your spirit wife,” I whisper. “My wife.” It comes out with defeat because she’s anything but that anymore.
A bottle-rocket of emotion spews from me, and I slam Dudley up against the side of the house for the hell of it.
&nbs
p; A jolt of electricity spasms through me, hot and biting.
“Shit,” I hiss as my body goes airborne. I fly over the porch—landing hard on my back. “Can’t breathe,” I hiss as the air struggles to filter back into my lungs.
Dudley strides over and kicks me in ribs, full force.
“Now if you’ll excuse me—my wife and I have a rousing game of crotch Yahtzee to tend to.”
5
Gage the Revelator
Skyla
“Gage and I were two angels dressed in white—the moon washing us alabaster,” I whisper, lying prone, staring up at the starless sky of the ethereal plane. My clothes have been returned to me, my sweater on inside out.
“Is she reciting poetry?” My mother asks one of her cohorts as she glides to where I’m stamped in the ground. She extends her hand, and I refuse the offer, struggling to stand on my own.
“What?” I throw my hands in the air and glare at the two Sectors by her side with their matching Marshall faces. “What are you staring at? I know for a fact Sectors are nothing but sexed-up beings just waiting for the right millennium to pounce on their prey.” I poke the nearest one in the chest, and it’s like striking steel. “And you—” I glare into Rothello with his long black hair, his glass eye that now belongs to Ezrina because in the twisted world I live in, people can actually run around with another person’s body parts—my Chloe arm being a prime example. “You landed me in a war that cost me everything.” I stop shy of spitting in his face, only because it would be stooping down to Chloe’s level, and, God knows, I’d never want to do that. Not to mention the potential of starting another war—literally. “Be gone all of you. I want to talk to my mother alone.” I seethe into her as the wind blows back her hair—her feather-light gown clings to her skin like wet paper as the breeze picks up with ferocity. The air grows increasingly frigid, much like my mother’s heart, until the three of them evaporate right out of existence in a hard bite of icy wind.
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