The walls erupt in flames as fire spreads to the ceiling like afungus.
“Mother! The boys arehere!”
The flames vanish, and not even the smell of smoke remains in theirwake.
Chloe steps over to her boldly and stabs a finger into her chest. “Somewhere, some way you fucked up. Marlena told meIwas the chosen one. But somewhere along the way,mydestiny wasROBBED!”
“Marlena lied,” my mother roarsback.
“You lie!” Chloe thunders. The room jolts, and a fissure erupts in the ceiling with a loud rushing tear. “Gage—he was mine.” Her voice breaks with emotion. “He was never meant for Skyla. Our children—they were the only ones I could ever love. And you erased them.” A lone tear races down her cheek. As a mother, my heart demands to break for her, but as Gage Oliver’s wife and mother to those boys Chloe is so anxious to erase, I can’t find it in me. “And now I’m taking back what’smine.”
Kresley scoffs. “You will never have hisheart.”
Chloe’s eyes widen with venom. “And you will never have hisbrother’s.”
It occurs to me that perhaps my mother and Chloe are talking about two different things. My mother is fixated on the royal lineage that leads to the position I hold, and Chloe, well, Chloe per her usual is obsessing over Gage. My mother intended me for Logan. It was Demetri who intended me forGage.
“Well”—my mother folds her hands together as if we’ve just concluded a rather amicable meet and greet—“nobody said life would be easy.” She smiles to me as if nothing Chloe said had mattered. “Cassandra Graham should have died hundreds of years ago. Instead, she embodies a girl who should have died in awreck.”
A girl who should have died in a wreck? Then it hits me. “Cassandra is Melody Winters.” My heart thumps, hard and fast. “Why is she here?” A violent pulse of anger surges through me because I suspect something nefarious waits for me in the answer. If it were the ring, she could have chopped my hand off for it months ago. And who the hell broughther?
“I’m afraid Pandora’s box has been opened, my dear.” She picks up my finger and touches the ring, setting off a beacon of sapphire light flooding throughout the room. “Clean up this mess with the government, Skyla. You’ll know what to do. Keep this ring. Cassandra, Melody, whoever it is that dunce is parading around as these days, has no rights to it. I gifted it to Sector Marshall on his first mission to earth.” Her lips curve at the tips. “It looks as if it found its way to the one I intended to have it all along.” She looks to Chloe. “So, you see, no matter how wide you swerve outside of the bounds of destiny, fate has a way of righting itself.” She turns to leave, and I snatch herback.
“Was Gage intended for Chloe?” My heart bucks as if it were demanding I shut the hell up. How could Gage have ever loved her? And yet my vanity begs I reword the question. How could Gage ever love anyone but me? Gage is mine. His destiny is knit with my own. I know this to betrue.
My mother looks from me to Chloe, then back again. “Like I said, destiny has a way of rightingitself.”
And in that one sentence, my mother has eviscerated me and enlivened a false hope inChloe.
Fuck destiny. Fuck fate. Gage and I aren’t going anywhere. He’s never leaving me for Chloe. That’s laughable. I am Mrs. Gage Oliver, and that’s exactly who I willremain.
My mother’s face smooths out, and I shake my head, expecting this mirrored version of me to do thesame.
She reaches out and clasps my cheek in her palm. “Skyla Dunamis. That alone is your name. Messenger, Oliver, Dudley—those are earthly window dressings, nothing more than a paper Valentine pinned to a wall, fragile and fleeting, the edges already yellowing withtime.”
Her words sting like the scorching of the sun, and I turn my head away, wincing as if she slappedme.
“I’m stopping at Oliver,” I’m quick to inform her. “Gage Oliver to be exact.” I look to Chloe. “It’s a done deal. You and I both knowthat.”
My mother begins to fade, and a rise of panic rattles me. “Wait! I need to get back to Paragon. They haveAngel!”
“Who?” My mother leans in, looking every bitconfused.
“Mydaughter! The one you dropped onto my lap like a sack of potatoes on your lastvisit!”
“Angel?” she moans as her form quickly dissolves. “Really, Skyla, that’s so achinglygeneric.”
“It’s a placeholder,” I say under my breath, no louder than a whisper because what I really fear is there will be no place to hold as far as Logan and I go—and it makes me feel like amonster.
“There will be.” My mother dissipates to nothing. “Destiny has a way of rightingitself.”
I would never let anything happen to her.My mother’s voice rings through my ears alone.I am not a monster, and neither are you, Skyla Dunamis. Now go and save yourpeople.
The room around me quickly morphs into that of the Landon house with both boys in their rightful cribs. Chloe lounges on my bed, filing her nails into needle sharp points, and Kate sits beside her, looking bewildered andfrightened.
I’m back on Paragon—and now both Gage Oliverandthe feds will have hell topay.
On the wayto Marshall’s, I spot a fallen tree at the entry to the Estates, and it pains me, panics me on some level as if Paragon itself is struggling under the weight of the devastation this afternoon brought with it. I had my mother watch the boys and charged Chloe with making sure Kate got home safe. I drive by the property slowly and deliberately, noting a bevy of cars still parked haphazardly around the periphery the way they were when I arrived. The door to his home is agape, and I can see the dark hole of the interior looking lonely and haunted. The government had ripped my people from Marshall’s yard like savages. They stormed Paragon, my Paragon, like animals. They can’t have the people. They can’t have the island. I love this bitter rock almost as much as I love my people, and I want those bastardsgone.
