Emma has her orange hair pulled back and it shines in the fire as if it, too, were flickering and alive with flames. Her smile never ceases. Her movements are smooth and lithe as she makes her way to Demetri like a schoolgirl about to be asked to the dance by the cutest boy in demon school.
The choir quickens as Gage himself steps out of the flames, and the room, all of Eversor, and the universe erupt with cheers. Gage holds up a hand and the shouts from the crowd die down.
His expression is sober. He looks beautiful, stunning, like a work of art that came back only to kill its creator. His dark hair gleams with blue highlights that accent his glowing eyes. His body looks massive—a bodybuilder lies underneath that black suit. His tie glows like a tongue of light. I’ve never seen anything so breathtaking, not even in Marshall’s vast collection of supernatural attire. He takes a seat and the room gives a collective breath. The choir picks up to something lighter, but the chanting grows more aggressive.
Demetri bears his fangs at the crowd. “First and foremost, welcome to the coronation of the King of Eversor, my flesh and blood, your immaculate savior. I want to thank his mother.” He picks up Emma’s hand and kisses the back of it. “For your service to the kingdom, you will be forever treasured and remembered for the charitable work you’ve done.”
“See that?” I whisper to my mother. “Even Demetri thinks that sleeping with him is a charitable act.” Because clearly no one should ever do it. The universe has the potential to unravel if you do.
Mom is quick to shake her head as she chooses to ignore me.
Demetri looks our way, his dark eyes laughing at me the way they always do. At least he’s consistent.
“I will give my first true love, Candace Messenger, the floor to say her piece before we proceed with the ceremony.”
I gasp as I glance to my glowing look-alike. “What’s this first love business?”
But Candace ignores me as she strides on by, stepping up onto the altar, closer to the throne than either Demetri or Emma. It looks threatening the way she’s charging to the glowing throne, and the throne itself flickers as if it senses that her very presence represents a threat to it as well.
She turns partially to face the crowd, her shoulders still poised toward Gage. “Hear ye all of the noble men and women, the gentry, the heavenly hosts, the Nephilim brothers and sisters gathered to witness this spectacle today. I shall recite verses from the Good Book.” Her eyes shoot venom to Demetri before she casts a scathing glance to Gage and he flinches as if she struck him, as if I struck him. I know that’s what he sees. Me in a new mysterious flesh. “ Listen here!” My mother’s voice thunders horrifically over the great expanse and the choir stops with their tyrannical bellowing. “The Lord is a jealous and avenging God. The Lord takes vengeance and is filled with wrath. The Lord takes vengeance on his foes and maintains his wrath against his enemies. The Lord is slow to anger and great in power. The Lord will not leave the guilty unpunished. His way is in the whirlwind and the storm, and clouds are the dust of his feet. The book of Nahum.” She lifts her chin and peers down at the crowd who remains stunned into submission.
Way to go, Candace. Threatening the dark side with a word of warning from the big guy was just the right touch if you ask me. My eyes flit to Gage and I catch him looking at me. Our gaze locks, strong as steel—I can sense him in there. He’s fighting this on some level—I can feel it. This isn’t who he really is. It’s an act. If I wasn’t aware of it before, every cell in my body feels it now. There’s no way I can let him go through with this.
I have to do something. Anything. I’m desperate to save him from himself, from Demetri. The Gage I know would sacrifice everything for me, including his soul. My God, is he doing that? What could he possibly believe to make that happen? There is no other logical explanation, is there?
Gage, I call out to him mentally with everything in me, his eyes still magnetically sealed over mine. And then the circus comes to town. Chloe steps in front of me and acts as a barrier between us. I don’t see why not; she is in every single way.
Demetri lifts a hand and the demonic choir starts in on their Gregorian sounding chant once again. The room darkens to pitch. The lavender lighting up above tangles and weaves itself into a crown that flickers wildly over the throne. Gage lifts his head a notch, his eyes suddenly filled with a harsh blue light. His body electrifies, his muscles shake as an electric blue surge pulses within him. Demetri is saying something, speaking in a language that I’m not privy to. He’s shouting, demanding something of Gage until the veins in Demetri’s neck distend like cables.
I have never seen that man this animated, and it alarms me on a whole new level. The floor begins to vibrate, bouncing heavily beneath our feet, and screaming ensues. I can hear the boys giggling away, laughing, and it comforts me to know they’re not afraid.
A wall of fire erupts around the throne. A curtain of blue, the hottest kind of flame. It’s impenetrable. A symbol that lets the rest of us know that he will forever be untouchable. Life keeps evolving, and not in any good way. It keeps force-feeding us a newer, uglier, reality, and it makes me wonder when it will stop.
When will this madness end and restore itself to a beautiful beginning? How I hunger for all things to return to the way they were. How I wish I could rewind time and alter every wicked version of it. We have been played so well, so very efficiently. But nothing in me believes that this is the way it was supposed to play out. I can feel it in my bones, in the deepest part of my soul, we were made for more than this. We were never meant to burn to cinder. We certainly were never meant to destroy one another. We are not perfect enemies—that is a lie from the pit of hell. It cannot be true. It simply cannot.
Gage is leaving, whatever version of him we had, and he will be anew, a monster that none of us will ever comprehend. This is it. Whatever transformation, desecration is taking place—it’s about to be completed, solidified for all eternity.
Gage Oliver would have passed from one level of destruction to the next. I have to stop him. I’ll lay down my life if I have to and sacrifice everything. Deep down, I still believe he would do it for me. Regardless, I will do it for him. Fate has given me no choice.
I take a step forward, then another. Logan lunges after me and wraps himself around me. I can feel his love for me as sure as God. Logan and I are essentially one person. I think we’ve always been that way. I think that’s what it means to have another half, another part of you that together you make yourselves better, stronger, far more powerful than you could ever be apart. And yet, both Logan and I know there is a third component to who we are. There always has been, and that person is Gage.
“Skyla, no,” Logan breathes it hot in my ear. “There’s nothing we can do right now. We will fix this shit later.”
The room rocks abruptly. A gust of heated air blows past us. It’s as if all of the elements in this dominion are unraveling, depending on Gage to put them back together again. Little do they know Gage can’t even fix himself. But I don’t believe he’s irrevocably broken.
The moment I lose all hope of ever rescuing him from his own destruction is the moment I discredit everything we once were. I swore an undying love, and you can’t erase that. You have to keep believing in it or it never truly existed. Of course, these are things I would never admit to myself in the light of day, with my feet on Paragon soil. It’s easier to admit these truths when reality is a far cry away.
Marshall strides up. “Ms. Messenger, there is no protection from those flames.”
Candace appears by my side. “Not even I can protect you, Skyla. Do not do this. Think about your future—the future of your people. You are not his. He is not yours. You have a life inside of you. You must not disregard all of your treasures for something made of rusted iron.”
The flames rise higher and Gage is no longer visible, gone amidst the blaze, and I can see something happening within them, a brilliant white light shifting and turning.
“Gage!” I cry out as I explode from Logan’s stronghold. Not even his Celestra strength was a match for my zest to save the one we love. I leap toward the flames and I’m enveloped in a warm bath of light, rising higher and higher, into the sky until I see what has me in its grasp.
Gage Oliver is no more. Instead, I am held high over Eversor—wrapped in the tail of the monster he’s become.
The dragon.
