Logan strides over after securing the steed safely to a tree. He stops just shy of me, his legs set in a defiant stance, his arms folded over his chest, that look of anger, of outright disappointment in his eyes, and yet not one ounce of it is for me.
No, for me I feel nothing but his love permeating the night, radiating through time and space—and I’m terrified of it. After that psychotic display tonight, it’s safe to say I haven’t been lucky when it comes to matters of the heart. For so long I held love in my hand like a candle—only to discover its warm wax was nothing but an illusion. And now my world is burning because of my incessant desire to prove it was whole and right. Others tried to warn me. Chloe of all people.
Did Logan try to warn me about Gage, too? He did in the end, but by then it was all too late. I had already coiled myself so comfortably in the rope the enemy had set out to subdue me with. I was tied and bound and happily so at that. I was content in my ignorance, never wanting to believe for a moment the enemy could be so cunning, and yet I saw the writing on the wall. It wasn’t even a secret to me. The enemy was hard at work. This much I knew was true.
But the true deception came from Gage, the fact he swore he could love me through this horror we had ensnared ourselves in. And now I’m left to wonder if it was all a part of the plan right from the beginning. Those visions he had for so long, nothing but a lie, a subtle manipulation that I bought into so willingly. He was never a Levatio to begin with. And that’s the thing. I will never truly know what Gage was thinking.
I look to Logan, forlorn. And it pains me to say I have never understood Logan all that much either.
“Where are you going, Skyla?” It comes from him dark, demanding.
“I’m going to right all the wrongs, Logan. And I don’t give a damn about your nephew.”
“Good.” His eyes flare like amber flames. “I’m not sure I do either.”
My cheek flinches as if he struck me. It’s sacrilegious to think of Logan without a heart for Gage. But then, it’s sacrilegious for Gage to have knocked my feet out from under me, to have killed my people, and to have made Chloe Bishop his bride.
It would have been sacrilegious once for me to think that I am determined to make him pay. But he will pay. And so will she.
Gage has become the heretic his true father has always wanted. My worst nightmare is Demetri Edinger’s dream scenario. A job well done for wickedness. My downfall, his elation.
The horse whinnies into the night, fog pluming from his nostrils like smoke from a dragon, and I nod over to him. “Get that beast where he belongs. I have something I need to take care of.”
“Take care of what you need to.” Logan bows his head a moment before bouncing back up to look at me. “You are not alone, Skyla. Don’t push me away. We are on the very same side.”
“It’s not a coin, Logan. There is far too much geometry involved for that. You, me—Gage. We’re all so multifaceted in our beliefs, our wants, our desires we’ve slipped off the edge a long time ago. We’ve confused ourselves into believing the lies others have fed us, and in the end, the lies we fed ourselves were just as dangerous. We’re not children anymore. We are not pawns anymore either. We have one serious body count on our hands and the toll only seems to climb. If Gage has his way, it won’t end anytime soon. And if you and I can’t stop him, we’ll join the bloody heap ourselves.”
I step forward against my better judgment and pull Logan into a hard embrace, stealing a moment to feel the girth of his rock-solid frame and take in the faint scent of his familiar cologne.
I’m so close to losing it. The river of tears that’s threatening to unleash thumps hard underneath my lids as his arms wrap tightly around my body. It feels secure like this in his arms, safe, the way my celestial mother insists it should have been all along, and the thought alone sends me sailing out of his arms and back onto the road.
“Get that horse back where it belongs,” I call out as I race as fast as I can down the long, slick tongue of Paragon highway.
My Celestra strength demands to kick in, but I won’t let it this time. The truth is, I need this moment to myself, a few solid minutes to grieve all that was lost. It was supposed to be my wedding night to the love of my life, and instead, the night belongs to Chloe Bloody Bishop.
How did life morph to such an incomprehensible nightmare?
An anguished howl emits from me as the tears I’ve been holding back for so long unleash. Chloe Bishop is having the night of her life with my husband of all people. Gage has been her singular obsession for as long as I’ve known her. I’d bet good money she climaxed as soon as he touched his hand to hers at the ceremony. And to think she had me so very fooled. She didn’t wear that yellow dress tonight to represent her second funeral. It was Chloe’s true resurrection. The funeral was mine.
An unwanted montage of the two of them unfolds in my mind. Chloe’s bronzed skin, her perky tits pointed up at him with anticipation. I have seen Chloe in the buff enough times to know what she looks like sans the stitches, and now I’m regretting ever laying eyes on her at all. I can picture his rock-hard body falling over hers. Those long stems she calls legs gleefully wrapping around his torso. Her hands demanding he touch her everywhere all at once.
Chloe is greedy.
Give her one Gage Oliver inch and she will steal a mile. But tonight she doesn’t have to steal anything. It’s all hers for the taking.
I’d wonder if it were all a farce—but I was assured that the throne room would burst into flames as soon as Gage and I consummated our union—of course, that never happened. The Gage and me part. Instead, it took place with Chloe, and that entire dominion was blazing when I left. Gage didn’t consummate anything with me. It was Chloe he was plunging into. The thought of that body I loved so thoroughly—and I know every last inch of Gage’s mortal and resurrected body well, I’ve mapped it out with my tongue more times than I can number—the thought of him touching her, doing those intimate things we used to do withherof all people makes my stomach churn, and I retch at the thought.
My mind insists on delving further as I see his tongue gliding over her body, easy as a snake skimming over water, taking his time while he buries kisses between her cinnamon-colored thighs. I envision him going at it with zest, his head shaking side to side as if he couldn’t get enough of her putrid taste. An image of him impaling her with his most prized member while Chloe screams out in ecstasy is a knife in the gut and this time I stumble to the side of the road and vomit up the contents of my stomach. Birthday cake and Gage’s stale kisses all purge from my body, leaving the bitter taste of bile.
Another cry shrills from me, harrowingly loud as it rips through my throat. My feet start in slowly again as I try to push myself toward my destination, but I can’t turn off the show. Chloe with her mouth so eager to please—on her knees, filling her every orifice with everything Gage is willing to thrust her way. I can feel her unbridled passion reverberating through the universe as unabashed joy, ecstasy beyond measure.
How is this possible? How is Chloe opening her legs and having Gage Oliver voluntarily fall inside? He must be possessed. I can think of no other explanation.
The Gage who was resurrected cannot be the man who loved me all those years. He detested Chloe. He outrighthatedher. My God, how could he even get it up for that beast? None of it makes sense. None of it feels real and yet, there they are, the nonstop porno infiltrating my mind like a sexually transmitted disease determined to eat at my gray matter.
Gage grinds away at her. Chloe’s heavy lids are unable to open as her body gyrates back and forth, hard and vulgar. This isn’t your sweet lovemaking my mind is berating me with. This is hardcore triple X porn that would and should be illegal in all fifty states. Chloe is diving her mouth, her fingers into every one of his orifices, pressing his knees apart as she splits him and makes a meal out of her most favorite dessert. Those tree trunks he calls legs, those muscular biceps, his oven hot chest—those all belong to me.
Whoever this demon is who took over doesn’t have the right to give away what’s mine as if it were a cheap imitation. Gage is being defiled in the worst way, and I cannot stop it. The horror of it all is the fact that Gage seemingly initiated the action himself. He is slaughtering me with every thrust, every speck of lust he has for Chloe Bishop. He’s traded good for evil, day for night—what could have been with what should never have been allowed to be a thought.
