“You must never trust him again, Skyla.”
Rory and that glowing horse flit through my mind.
My mother’s chest thumps beneath me as if she found it comical. “I wouldn’t trust her either if I were you.”
I shake all thoughts of my poor sister out of my mind as Gage Oliver takes the stage once again.
“I will ravage his world,” I whisper as if I were singing the boys a lullaby. “I will be his absolute undoing. I am his ruin.”
A watershed unleashes from me and I weep long after dawn, long after the Paragon skies growl to life and weep along with me, I soak the bed with my tears. And as much as I wish they were born strictly of vengeance, they were born of undeniable, unstable, unstoppable bone-shattering grief.
One thing I will never forget.
I am indeed his ruin.
2
Gage
It is reported thou didst eat strange flesh, which some did die to look on.
That line fromAntony and Cleopatraruns through my mind on a loop as my fingers ride over the wet granite globe beneath them. Tears over Creation is a wicked wonder that Demetri bestowed upon me—a giant blue boulder in a bath of water four feet high, five across at least, in which you can look to see what those you love are up to—more or less. It was a housewarming gift of sorts for the dominion I inherited.
But that line—It is reported thou didst eat strange flesh, which some did die to look on.It was Octavius Caesar speaking to Antony. A part of his soliloquy to get him to stop his hedonism. Andhedonismwas Caesar’s exact word choice in the matter. Chloe comes to mind.
Fucking Shakespeare.
It’s taken wildly out of context, but it fits, and because it fits so well, my mind cannot stop ruminating on it.
“Gage Oliver,” Chloe’s voice tolls throughout the room like the bells of bad news. “What are you doing, my love?” She’s on me before I can turn around, her tits pressed to my back, her chin relaxing softly on my shoulder. “Spying so soon?” she groans as if she knew it were coming. “Let’s see it.”What’s the little whore doing now?
Chloe has no clue that I can hear her thoughts, that I can shield my own from her Celestra powers.
Once upon a time I belonged to the Levatio Faction, or so I thought, so we all thought. Levatio’s skills are pretty remarkable in and of themselves, strength and speed like the other four Factions, but Levatio also encompasses the unique ability to partake in teleportation, the ability to levitate—and for some, as it was for me, the gift of knowing. And now that I’m a fully resurrected Fem, that last one seems to have been struck from the roster because I don’t know shit.
My hand waves over the watery globe, blue granite mixed with swirls of emerald and white as if it were the planet from an elevated perspective. An image appears, the same image I’ve rewound and inspected for the better part of an hour.
A room emerges in the reflection, Dudley’s home, a raging fire behind him, women blitzed out of their minds in the background, but it’s not the women or the fire that I’m interested in. It’s the girl in his arms, Skyla. He’s holding her, telling her something. She’s campaigning hard for his attention, and then her lips are on his. I’ve reviewed, investigated to the tenth of a second enough to know that it was Skyla who initiated that lip-lock. I can’t blame her. I’ve watched her all evening, confused, angry, jumping off the cliff side at Devil’s Peak, earning her wings—and good on her for getting her powers back. Skyla stalking the shoreline. Skyla with Logan. Skyla running at the speed of light. Skyla with Dudley.
“They just cut out.” Chloe taps the water and causes a ripple that makes the picture blurry. “Where did they go?”
“I’m assuming to his bedroom. There’s a binding spirit that’s shielding her next venue. It’s just a guess.”
“Oh, Gage.” Chloe feigns concern as she swivels her hands over my back and chest at once. “I’m so sorry you had to see that. Skyla does have a bit of a temper. And I’m sure seeing the two of us united in a binding covenant has ignited it.” Her voice ticks up with excitement when she says that last part as if she can’t believe it herself, and I’m sure she can’t. Hell, I can’t. “And”—her finger curls under my chin as she struggles to force me to look at her—“let’s not forget that fire we started when our bodies met for the very first time.” She sucks in a quick breath as if the flames just licked at her feet.
“We did start a fire, didn’t we?” I glance to the black water and spot Skyla in our old bed alongside a glowing being that looks just like her—Candace Messenger and that’s where I cut the show.
“Father?” The tiny, yet confident sound of my daughter’s voice has both Chloe and me looking to the rear of the massive throne room as Sage stalks her way over. She’s dressed in a white ethereal gown with a golden sash, and it looks like a replica of what Skyla wore to our would-be wedding. My God, she was a beautiful bride. She just wasn’t destined to be mine.
“What is it, sweetie?” I step over and offer a warm embrace, take in the lavender scent in her hair, and wish I could rewind time a few years as I close my eyes. Sage looks like a miniature version of me—or she would have if she had lived. Skyla lost her in utero.
Sage frowns hard. “Demetri just informed me that he’s hosting your grand ceremony. How is a king to have a coronation if there is no throne involved? Besides, the gentry hate mingling with the living Nephilim. And I can’t blame them. Half of the Nephilim don’t even believe in their own lineage.” Those blue eyes, sweet nose, those adorable dimples—Sage is my doppelgänger right down to her long, dark hair.
“Yes, well, it hasn’t even been an earth long day and I still very much run on earth time. I’ll tell him to put the coronation on ice. I’m not exactly in the mood to party.” I flex a weak smile as I rise back to my feet.
“That’s too bad,” Sage says curtly. She has a natural catty demeanor about her, some might even say hostile. And yes, I shield the hell out of my thoughts around her, seeing that she can easily pick up on them. “You’ll have it here, or you’ll have two. I won’t let you get away without hosting a proper coronation. There will be royal gentry present that wouldn’t even consider spending a night on earth, so there’s that. You’ll have to have two coronations. A proper one with the gentry—and one for the ninnies.” She frowns over at me as if I’ve disappointed her.
Get in line, kid, because I am on a freaking roll.
