“She’s in her laboratory experimenting with hundreds of viruses.”
I suck in a quick breath. “How is she going to test the effects? Please tell me she has no intention of using an animal.”
“Bite your tongue right now.” He gives a sly wink. “Bite mine, later.” He gives a subtle shake of the head as if reverting his thoughts. “Heavens no. Rina would no sooner hurt a living creature with malice in her heart than she would her own child. She has a myriad of cells to work with. She can see the effects without harming a soul—at the moment.” His brows swoop in like a bird in flight and it makes him look frighteningly handsome. About sixteen different girls just sighed in this direction. Marshall is eye candy that has the power to detonate your ovaries all in one delicious blink in his direction.
His lips curve at the tips because we both know he heard me.
“Once again, however”—he begins—“she will eventually need a willing participant. What holds in a stabilized cellular structure held in a petri dish may not be what works in a living being—such as a Faction member, one of your people. Do you realize this subject must be willing to die for the effort?”
A hard groan works from me. “It should be me.” I shake my head in the darkness. “I cost the Factions everything. It’s my foolish heart that was swayed so easily. But I swear to you, Marshall, that was the last time I choose love over my people. I won’t be made a fool of again. It’s God, the Factions, and my boys. That’s it. I have a one-track mind, and that track is not getting on my knees to please Gage Oliver’s penis.”
“Ms. Messenger.” Marshall’s muscles tense with the offense.
“Sorry.” I shoot a dirty look in the oversized penis’ direction, and Gage pins his eyes on mine. It takes everything in me to drag my eyes to Marshall’s heavenly features. “I have to focus on my hatred for him.”
And that’s precisely why I shouldn’t jump into bed with Logan. What Logan and I have is far too pure to be reduced to revenge sex. I’m terrified of committing to him just yet. Sure we were just playfully engaged. But the real deal? I know once I cross over and give myself fully to Logan Oliver, he will own me. And after what happened with Gage, I’m not sure if it’s a good thing.
A sorrowful smile twists on Marshall’s lips. “You have to focus on your love for the Factions, my dear.”
“That’s why I’m not jumping into another relationship. I just think it’s not for me. I mean, I realize now that I should have been with Logan all along instead of falling headfirst into the enemy’s schemes, but…”
“But what?” Those boiling cauldron eyes of his begin to glow like rubies, and as much as I want to tell him to knock it off, I’m far too mesmerized to do it. “Skyla, Logan is your destiny. Not even I can stand in the way.”
“And you? What are you? Because I feel something intensely intimate with you, and I always have. I was too busy pretending to be number one wifey to acknowledge it. What are you to me? Did you win a portion of my life in some celestial bet with my mother? God knows you did not get around that battleax.” The room shakes under our feet and dozens of girls scream with delight.
Marshall’s enormous chest expands like a solid sheet of granite. “Your time with the Pretty One has come, Skyla. There is no use in fighting it.”
“I’m not fighting anything. I’m just not ready.”
“He never left your heart. You don’t need to be ready. The restraint you feel is due to your fierce loyalty to Jock Strap. You have a desire to make amends with him, to right the wrongs, to burn the witch by his side at the stake as he begs his forgiveness to you. It’s not going to happen. You will sooner grow hooves and begin chewing your cud than having your old life pieced together. It’s over, and the sooner you let go of childish fantasies, the better for everyone involved.”
My eyes widen as I stare down this not-so-heavenly creature before me. “I’d slap you, but I think I’ll save that for later when we finish this argument in my bed. Fair warning, I am very, very pissed. Expect a war. You will get one.” I try to leave and he reels me back. His embrace is tight, his eyes shining bright as flames.
“I look forward to the battlefield. Know this, I am heavy-handed with the enemy, and I bring no mercy with me.” His thumb runs a quick circle over my cheek, and those vibratronics turn up to unfathomable volumes, forcing my body into a quivering quake right here on the dance floor.
“I won’t need your mercy. I just need your rock…hard”—his brows hike an inch as I say it—“cunning personality.”
I make a clean break and head for the backyard, where the Harrison estate rivals that of Demetri’s as far as sprawling in each direction goes. The music is just as jarringly loud and the faint smell of weed lights up the air. The fog is thick, but the sea of bodies is thicker. Off to the right is a Jacuzzi brimming with beauties, and I spot Ellis and Giselle in the mix. And if that steam emanating from the oversized swimming pool is any indication, Ellis has turned the entire Olympic-sized pool into a Roman bathtub. Although there is standing room only in there at the moment. All that body heat has probably spiked the temperature.
I spot Wes by the woods that butt up to the property and make my way over. Unfortunately, Laken is never too far from that devil these days.
“Hey,” I say as the fog swirls around us, the din of the music growing fainter with every step I take toward him. It’s not until his eyes flash to mine that my heart seizes, because it’s not Wes. It’s Gage. “Oh, sorry. I thought you were Wesley.” My entire body pulsates with a heartbeat of its own.
His features harden on cue. “Don’t you ever apologize to me.”
Something about that wicked look on his face, the way his voice cut through the night brings my anger right back to boiling.
“Why are you looking at me as if I offend you? I have done nothing but give you my all. How dare you take a shit on me every chance you get.” I’m this close to slapping him silly, but God knows once I start I will not be able to stop until I claw his eyes out. Who am I kidding? It would end in tears, in my limbs attaching themselves to his familiar frame, begging him to wake the hell up so we can both be done with this nightmare.
“I’m sorry you feel that way.” His voice softens, as do his features, and there’s something familiar in the way he looks at me before he sends his gaze to the woods like a punishment.
“You’re still in there, Gage. I know you are.” My voice is faint, my words a betrayal to the rage still percolating in me. The very rage I’ll need to survive this. “I don’t know what’s happened. Why you feel the need to hurt me so very much. We could have had it both ways. With that stone—my mother was about to gift you everything we could have wanted. Seven more years, Gage. With the peace we brought to the Factions, we could have bought seven more decades. You and I could have held onto our family, onto each other, spared the world, our children, ourselves the pain of this wretched separation. From the moment I met you that day back in the bowling alley, you were nothing but kind to me. Not once since I’ve known you have you displayed this level of disdain for anyone. I have never seen your beautiful blue eyes with so much malice in them as they hold for me. Not even for Chloe.” Her name chokes from my throat. “You have a pure heart—a soul as bright as the sun. Your love for me was unshakable, unrelenting, immoveable, and as expansive as the east is from the west. There was nothing you wouldn’t do for me, not one person you wouldn’t have burned to the ground to protect our love. You have challenged my sanity in destructive ways that I cannot measure. The sheer ferocity of your cold heart makes me doubt I ever knew you. What an actor you’ve been all along. A rabid wolf in the best sheep finery.” My fingers graze over his arm and a spark enlivens in me. But I retract. Gage Oliver is no longer mine to do anything with, let alone lay my hand to.
His dimples dig in deep as he takes his next breath. Those cobalt eyes make their way back to me.
“Feel better?” It comes out sweetly, tender as if I had just finished vomiting my guts up and he were trying to comfort me, make thingsbetterat any cost.
“Not even a little.” My own voice meets him in that soft-spoken tender place. “Nothing can make this right, Gage. Only my rage can save me now. It shelters me from the storm you’ve dragged us into. From that hurricane you insist on leashing yourself to. Chloe will die, Gage.” My body begins to shake once again as my anger comforts me in ways that Gage refuses to. “She cannot do those things she’s doing tomyhusband and live. I may be forced to kill Chloe, but her blood will be on your hands. I’m still unsure if I’ll wait until she’s had your child.” My voice breaks when I say it. “It’s unimaginable, unacceptable, unfathomable what you’ve done to the world, to me, to us. What you’re still doing to my people.” I try to take off and he grabs ahold of my wrist. Our eyes meet up once again and he presses his gaze into mine hard, penetrative.
