“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 acknowledgeit.
“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 manyback.”
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 carnallysouth.
“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 fixit.
“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 tohell.
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 amoment.
“It looks like the boys are giving my parents a run for their money. Hopefully, they’ll sleep when we gethome.”
“We? My—aren’t youpresumptuous?”
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 gnawinglyfamiliar.
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 afterall.
“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 toher.
“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 andhow.
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 anotherwoman.
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, thislifeisn’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 onfire.
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 wentthrough.”
“She does want to be in bed.” Chloe slithers up on the other side of Gage, her arm rubbing over his, and he flinches. “Withyou.” 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 andgagged.
“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 Chloehere?
I turn to glare at him as he steps into our circle.Hello, my Elysian. The one who stands in line to fuckme.
Logan’s eyes round out in horror, but I can’t help it. I’m still royally pissed at all Olivers at the moment—with the exception of those who dropped out of my womb and perhaps Dr. O. Liam isiffy.
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 themoment.”
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 tome.
“The devotion is charming,” I muse as I take a step in the oppositedirection.
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 tothat.
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 morningsermons?”
“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 expiringair.
“Don’t youSkylame.” 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 beginwith.”
