I lunge on top of him and my fists rail against his face, his chest, his neck, any and every place I can reach. Gage fights back, doing his best to restrain me, but I’ve unleashed every last ounce of my Celestra strength on his grimy ass, and I can feel he’s done the same with me.
Power against power. Might against might. Light against darkness. I gift him that left hook from Dudley, then a dozen more from Skyla, a couple from each of the boys, and finally one from the father who raised him.
How did it all go so wrong? How did Gage, this seemingly perfect resurrected version of him, fall to hell so quickly?
It doesn’t seem possible that the boy I grew up with had somehow gnarled himself into the twisted monster Demetri so desperately craved he would be. It doesn’t seem even remotely possible that Gage would do what he did to Skyla and her people. And it sure as hell feels like an impossibility altogether that he would marry Chloe Bishop. He hated her with a fierce passion. There is no logical reason for this union. Not one.
Gage Oliver was the most logical person I have ever met. I’m the one that ran off emotion. Numbers, charts, and sage advice fueled him. I took off running before I knew where I was going. Gage bought a map. I threw darts blindly, hoping they’d hit their intended target. Gage walked that shit up to the board and spiked it.
A thought hits me like a house crashing over my head, and I stop cold and stagger backward, looking at his lip already swelling, the half-moon darkening underneath his left eye.
Gage is logical. I pant as I struggle to catch my breath, but I don’t dare take my eyes off his. Gage is black and white, not one shade of gray in his psychological makeup. Sure, he was a writer, a poet, but you could be creative and still very practical about life, and that’s what he was.
“Shit.” I wipe the spit off my chin as we look at one another, each hunched over, aching and out of breath.
Chloe runs over to him and his initial reaction is to lift his elbow as if he were about to bat her away, but his arm falls and he lets her blotch his cheek with her fingertips. She looks my way and her lips are moving, but I’m not too concerned with whatever it is she has to say.
Gage is logical; therefore, he is driven by logic. Whatever had him start that war—marry Chloe, it has to have made perfect sense to him. A desperate attempt at helping Skyla in some way. Gage lives to please her, to help her.
I shake my head at him. You missed by a mile, buddy. You have taken a page from my book—and markedly fucked things up far better than I ever have.
Gage lowers his head, those glowing eyes still pinned on mine as if he were trying to read my thoughts from afar, a skill I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have. But it’s almost as if he’s speaking to me, saying something that words cannot or should not express.
I twitch my head just a bit and he nods just enough.
There, he’s said something. Exactly what, I’m not certain. It’s almost as if he’s a hostage in his own skin, locked in a cage of bones that no one realizes. Something has happened to Gage Oliver, and I’m going to get down to the bottom of it if it kills me.
“I’ll see you around,” I say it harsh, but my eyes are pressing in, begging him to find me, to get me alone so we can figure this out. I want to help him, pull him from the muck and the mire he’s drowning in. And at the same time I don’t.
But Gage simply takes a breath and straightens, scooping Chloe in close with his arm.
“This is my new wife, Logan. Get used to it because it’s never going to change.”
Chloe bubbles with laughter as she looks up at him adorningly. Her hair is slightly mussed, her lids still hanging low. Chloe’s sexual charge for Gage has only grown stronger this night. Her strange obsession has come to fruition and she doesn’t know what to do with herself. I’m sure it’s been a nonstop orgasmic experience ever since they said I do.
I take a deep breath. “Normally, I would welcome you to the family, Chloe. But I can’t bring myself to do that. The spell you cast is strong. It’s potent and dangerous.” I look to Gage and he’s gone cold on me. That look of his could burn down Paragon. “You, my friend”—I look right at the nephew I love so dearly—“were better off dead.”
Coop and Ellis follow me out and we take off for greener pastures as Paragon welcomes us in a cloak of fog.
Everything has changed. Only Paragon remains the same.
But Gage was in there. I saw him, just a glimpse. And I’ll do whatever it takes to rescue him—rescue him from himself.
4
Wesley
There was an entire season of my life where I was cock-sure about everything. An entire season of my life that I had fire in my belly, assured I would never make a single error, and then I lost Laken and my world went black.
Yes, I had power. I had influence and the ability to lead my people in the direction I believe is best, but without Laken by my side, there was an everlasting hunger that no achievement was able to satiate. My life was empty, a hollow shell of what it should have been. And then, just like that, it turned on a dime. Laken by my side. Laken having my baby. The Factions were ours in a night. My brother finally at the helm, the fearless leader, the one I had sworn by oath to obey, his powers far more vast than my own. He owns me. And here I am—his puppet. And in one last great effort to secure our kingdom, I allowed him to do the unthinkable.
I glower over at Chloe as she waves her way past me and coos at the baby in Laken’s arms.
“Well, don’t just stand there.” She looks my way. “Get the bubbly, the good stuff from the basement. The oldest and the best. Congratulations are in order.”
Gage tips his head back and sheds a bleak smile. That about says it all.
“What’s going on?” Laken’s voice, her entire being is rife with suspicion. “Is this true?” Laughter peppers her words as she takes a few steps closer to my brother as if trying to read the lie on his face. “Gage, this is a farce and you know it. You’re not in love with Chloe. I saw the way you were looking at Skyla last night. Yes, you had great grief in your heart, but your love for her shone bright as the stars. Why are you doing this? Why would you hurt her?” Her mouth rounds out as if she’s coming to an epiphany. “It’s her birthday.” She shakes her head at Chloe. “Is this a joke? You married your wife’s nemesis on her birthday?”
