“I guess there’s a first time for everything.” I consider this a moment. Ezrina is the great physician, just one notch below the Almighty. It almost doesn’t make sense. “Skyla and Chloe have teamed up. What the hell is up, Wes?” I twist my fist into his T-shirt and pull him in close. “We’re on the same team now—remember,brother?” I force a smile to come and go as I glower at this demented version of myself. “Tell me what youknow.”
“I know nothing.” He offers me a firm shove off his person. “Why would Skyla of all people even get near Chloe? Skyla is dangerous if she thinks that’s a good idea.” He takes a few steps over to the bar and fixes himself a shot of whiskey, neat, and offers it tome.
I wave it off. I have enough poison coursing through my veins these days. “Your wife is the dangerous one, Wes. Find out whatever you can and report back to me. We need to stick together. We need each other. This can be damning to both sides.” Appealing to his egoandhis people is the only way to approach things with my knockoffbrother.
“So that’s where she’s been.” Wes sways on his feet a moment, his drink swilling in his hand as he considers this. “That means Chloe has an all access pass to Paragon. She hasn’t been around the house but twice in the last two weeks.” His gaze remains fixed on the flames licking free from the fireplace. “Chloe and Skyla.” He shakes his head. “Nothing good is going to come ofthis.”
“But logic dictates something very much will come of this. Any news on the warfront? Skyla mentioned the Videns are back in the wild. Back to haunting the masses? So you’re setting up the rogue Factions for a fall.” That’s about as much as I can figure. Wesley isn’t all that much into secret motives. He operates in your face for the most part, and that’s the most frightening enemy of them all. “You are moving in a singular direction. Panic the public, point the finger at the Factions unwilling to bow at your feet, and then play the part of the false savior youare.”
That dark grin of his widens, his brows twitching with amusement at the fact I’ve reduced his menacing plans to a nutshell. “You, my brother, are the savior. Make no bones about it. I am simply your humble servant.” He offers a mock bow. “Do you like the clowns? I thought it was a nice touch myself. Sort of an ode to Skyla if you will. The world is in near hysterics. Some of the moronic humans are getting in on it, too. Their copycat tactics have only added to the chaos.” He toasts their efforts, and the amber liquid in his glass glows in the light of the flames. “They need us, Gage. They’re already begging for someone to step in and end themadness.”
“Somebody let me in on the fact that the Videns didn’t go in willingly. Demetri is outright using my people.” I swallow hard at the idea of having people in general. When the Videns were gifted to me—meas their fearless leader—I wanted to laugh. I’ve never taken a gift Demetri has tried to shove in my direction seriously, and now it’s becoming clear I should have done just that. I don’t know them the way a leader should know their people. I had no idea what they were up against, and yet here I’m up against the very same thing—myfather.
Wes ticks his head to the side as if he’s genuinely surprised to hear it. “Who saidthat?”
I’m leaving Ethan out of it. “That’s not the point. The point is, I need to make a concerted effort to speak with the Videns and find out what’s going on.” I’ll start with Em’s family and work my way out. “If this is true, you and I will both work to rectify the situation. You don’t need them, Wes. You have enough minions, enough defectors from the rest of the Factions to set the world onfire.”
“Nowthatis true.” He toasts me once again before knocking back the rest of his drink. He sucks in a quick breath through his teeth before setting his glass onto the counter. “I’ll work with you if that’s the case. But not before launching a full-scale investigation of myown.”
A dull smile comes to my face. “You don’t trustme.”
“The river runs bothways.”
The clicking of heels comes from the entry, and we turn to find the queen demon herself haunting the doorway—Chloe.
“Here you are.” Chloe breezes into the room and smirks over at Tobie before settling in our midst. “I was so confident I’d find you here. This is the first place I looked.” She hikes up on her tiptoes and offers an unwarranted embrace. “What I’m doing is for your benefit and mine,” she whispers hot into my ear, and I pull her off me. “Skyla needs you asap, so do not pass go, do not stop by home to check on your poor sick mother. Head straight to Landon jail. The boys are waiting to have the snot sucked out of their noses by yours truly. I bet you’re thrilled you fathered an entire liter of snotty little pups, aren’tyou?”
Wes shoots me a questioning look, and I shake my head athim.
Instead, I focus my earnest efforts on being nice and reasonable with the witch at hand. “What’s going on with you andSkyla?”
Chloe has always held her mean beauty, her mean heart close to the vest like a very sharp knife. In the beginning, I played along. I wanted to know her secrets, be her friend, but in the end, I couldn’t give her what she really wanted—myself. It was Chloe and I that fashioned together that butterfly room above Skyla’s closet. It was Chloe’s intense obsession for me that fueled so much heartbreak, so much loss and devastation. Perhaps it is truly the nexus of what caused Chloe’s death to begin with. Yes, Skyla played a part, but I was the kernel that grew into a strangulating vine and wrapped myself around her neck whether I like to admit it or not. But I don’t blame myself. Chloe’s incessant need to have me far outweighs the borders ofsanity.
Chloe blinks to life as if she were tuned into my internal conversation and shakes her head as if to rebuff mytheory.
“I’m just being her friend, Gage. Skyla and I haven’t always seen eye to eye, but we’ve found something we can bond over, agree on, and we’re moving in the right direction for the right reason. That’s all you need to know.” She pins my brother with a crooked smile. “That’s all either of you need to know.” Chloe takes off into the bowels of this megastructure, and I head for the doormyself.
“Gage”—Wes calls out, and I turn around—“I’ll keep an ear out.” He nods toward his raging lunatic of a wife. “We’ll get to the bottom of both this and the Videns,together.”
Together. I offer a peaceable smile as I head out the door and dissolve tonothing.
For so long it was Logan who stood staunchly by my side, and Wesley was nothing more than an interloper in ourmidst.
But for the first time in a long while, Wes feels less like an interloper and a lot more like abrother.
Logan
Weeks whipby with Paragon locked in a windy fury, blowing the fog banks across the island in angry volatile jags. It’s almost offensive in nature to watch. The fog has been here for us for as long as I can remember, and the bitter wind is something new, novel, that most residents of the island want nothing to do with. Watching the fog get bumped around saddens me, like watching an elderly relative get shoved by some menacing bully, and yet there’s not a thing you can do about it. But Paragon doesn’t relinquish the fog. She refuses to dismiss the thick layer of dark clouds that lurk overhead, either. But she is relentless in shooing away this wind-born stranger, rebuffing his incessant need to claim her. No, Paragon is stubborn, and, for this arrogant pride alone, I find her endearing. Paragon wins again and again. She reminds me a lot ofSkyla.
The Landon house is dark inside, mostly because, according to Gage, they are in serious conservation mode. Rumor has it, Tad is officially on the outs with Althorpe and is trying desperately to manufacture a plan that might keep his bustling inn up and running. In fact, that, in part, is what’s prompted my visit. As much as I didn’t appreciate the shakedown Tad and Lizbeth elicited on the bowling alley last year during that well-thought-out slip and fall routine, I would do anything to help this family out. But I can’t save the world. Hell, I can’t even save myself. I’m simply here to pay a visit to my favorite people on the planet. Gage and his tiny beautifulfamily.
Mia lets me in with a huff and grunts something about Rev under her breath. I know for a fact she’s seeing him, sleeping with him, according to Skyla, but if the disgruntled look on Mia’s face suggests anything, it’s that things are not going well in paradise. They seldom do. I know this firsthand, considering I’m there at the moment and simultaneously here. I’m still a bit puzzled why Candace chose to gift me a Treble, a permanent yet not official placement on planet earth, where I’m free to roam and stalk Skyla as I wish. And dear God Almighty, how Iwish.
I head upstairs, give a gentle knock over their bedroom door, and Gage moans for me to come in. Even though he’s still very much in the dog house, Skyla has relented enough to have him over to help out with the boys. Gage has become the official snot sucker of the family, an act and title I could have never imagined, still don’t want to. But, if anything, that alone should prove to Skyla that Gage Oliver is devoted to his little clan, through and snotty nosethrough.
“Logan.” Skyla gives a limp wristed wave that looks suspiciously like the white flag of surrender as the babies lie slumped in her arms. “They were up all night. They really do hateme.”
The boys both raise their fists in tandem and writhe with their eyes closed as if they were about to fall into a heavy afternoon nap. My heart melts at the sight of those dark-haired angels with their twitching dimples, their pudgy little arms and legs that I can’t get enough of. Deep down, I suspected that both Skyla and Gage would have adorable children one day. I just never imagined they would be having themtogether.
