“You need to be here for the boys.” He steps outside those massive doors and turns to me—his hands lay heavy on my shoulders as if begging me to understand. “As long as I’m alive, Skyla, I’m not letting anything happen to you or our children. It’s dangerous right now. There’s no way in hell I’m taking youback.”
He turns to leave, and I spin him toward me. “Gage! I’m not asking for your permission. You are taking me back. I belong with mypeople.”
“No,” he thunders a little too loud. “You’re staying with the boys. They need you. Trust me to take care of your people. They aremypeople,too.”
A million thoughts run through me at once, none of them bode well for my husband. “Then I’ll takemyself!”
Gage offers a depleted look my way before glowering upwards, and a thin blue film covers the perennial nightsky.
“Holy shit,” Chloe balks with a laugh garbled in her throat. “You just erected a shield of some sort to keep your little wifey in line. I’m not sure if the best day of my life was entering into that covenant with Skyla or thisone.”
“I gotta go.” Those dimples of his depress, right along with hisspirit.
“No!” My throat rubs raw from ejecting the sentiment. “You willnotleave me here. You will not imprison me like I’m some child, like I’m a pet you need to look after. I forbid it.” The words flit out like the sharpened blade of a knife, but Gage merely steps back, evaporating slowly, those glowing blue eyes remain fixed on me and are the last todissipate.
“Gage! Get back here! You’ll regret this!” My voice shrills so high and loud that the blue film up above warbles under my tyranny. “Oh my God. What have you done?” I can’t catch my breath. “He left me.” My husband defied me. He pulled rank and put a lid on both my powers andme.
“Face it, Skyla”—Chloe chums up next to me, her gaze set on that void Gage left in his wake—“there’s nothing hotter than Gage Oliver telling you to shut up and sitdown.”
My blood boils in an instant, but it has nothing to do with Chloe’s ridiculous sentiments. It’s Gage’s ridiculous actions. He very much told me to shut up and sitdown.
She huffs a dull laugh. “I bet he’s twice as demanding in bed. I bet he’s more than happy to fill your mouth with his body, and tell you where to sit andhow.”
I stagger back a moment, still stunned over the fact my husband saw fit to lock me in a demonic closet. He outrightdefiedme. He pulled rank, and now I’m stuck in the Transfer with both Chloe and Kresley. I turn around to find the ditz in question stomping thisway.
Kresley starts a mile a minute with questions, and I’m quick to tune her out, my mind already clawing at the walls trying to get the hellout.
Kate comes up as I head back into the grand room with those eternal flames forever burning bright in the oversized fireplace, that spinning wet world Wes keeps in a megalithic fountain, the granite sphere floating and spinning on a dizzyingloop.
“The boys fell right asleep,” Kate whispers. “I’ll go back and stay with them in case they wake up. It’s safe to say they’re a long way fromhome.”
I offer her a quick embrace. “Thank you. Ezrina should be here shortly.” Surely Gage hasn’t completely lost his fucking mind. He’ll bring her here to keep her out of harm’s way. And he’ll bring me back toParagon.
I glance over to Chloe. “Don’t just stand there. Put your demented thinking cap on and get me out of this hellhole,” I bark so loud Kate jerks back as if I slapped her. “Sorry.” I wince, speeding to the fireplace as if I’m about to jumpin.
“Chill out.” Chloe stomps over. “You have options. Turn down the blonde volume on that panic and fire up those brain cells, willyou?”
Kresley jumps in between us with the face of my best friend, and it kills me. Hell, it makes me want to killher. The flames lick higher as if begging for a treat. “What the hell is going on?” she howls at the two of us. “Is this some kind of a joke? You two can’t stand each other. Wes says if he locked the two of you in a room, one of you wouldn’t come outalive.”
I step in close to the slithering skank until we’re eye-to-Laken-wannabe-eye. “That would be you and me who wouldn’t come out of a room alive. Chloe and I are on the same page. I don’t care what your thoughts are. I don’t give a damn if you approve, disapprove, or want in on the action. What I do with Chloe is my business—and soon you’ll be my business, too. You made a grave mistake, Kresley. Wes is using you, and sadly we both know it. But I will not allow you to run amuck anywhere, in any plane of existence, with that lie embedded on your face—a face you probably can’t stand to look atyourself.”
Her gaze shifts to the floor because she knows it’s true. “It’s none of your business. Wesley still lovesme.”
Chloe clicks her tongue. “No, he doesn’t. My God, is this entire room filled with nitwits? Wesley is not in love with you, Kres. You had to knife up your face just to be in the same room with him. He doesn’t even call you by your given name. He calls youLaken.”
My head ticks back a notch at the idea. “If that’s true, it’s beyondsad.”
That horrid scene at the party relives itself in my mind, and my heart ratchets right back up to my throat. “Mother!” I roar to the ceiling. “Demetri?” My voice tears past that shield Gage thought to erect in my honor. I’ll be erecting something in his honor tonight—a coldfront.
“That’s my girl.” Chloe offers up a slow clap just as the room begins to shake. The sky outside the window flickers with a warning as the room takes on an eerie translucent glow. “Well, well, it looks as if Glinda the Good Witch is about to pay a visit to the celestial crap house. You’re in for a treat,Laken. You say your mother abandoned you? Wait until you meet Skyla’s mommy dearest. She’ll make you look fondly upon those lonely nights you cried yourself tosleep.”
The room brightens then dims, and lo and behold Candace Messenger appears with her hair lit up like gold floss, her face radiating an otherworldly glow as if she had just seen the face ofGod.
The ground continues to rumble, quake, and quiver under the weight of my mother’sbeauty.
“Stop the shaking!” Kresley panics as she grips the edge of the granite lip that holds the spinning globe, water sloshing to the ground aroundher.
“Darkness cannot handle the light.” My mother strides past her with her gaze set tomine.
