The king.
I can’t help but roll my eyes at that one.
“Do Uncle Logan!” Sage hops a little when she says his name as if he pleased her. I’m pretty sure Sage can’t stand Uncle Logan because she can’t stand anyone but her father. I’ve never seen a child outright worship a parent before.
I wonder if Candace wishes Skyla would worship her that way? I’m pretty sure if Candace wanted it she would get it. Whatever that wily wench wants, she gets.
My stomach sours because she just so happens to want to shove me into a furnace for the duration of eternity. The never-ending flames my forever home. No Laken, no light, no peace, no Laken.
Laken is the beginning and the end of everything, and without her, there would be no point in existing.
Gage takes a breath and closes his eyes. His features dip and stretch, and sure enough there’s the bastard in the flesh. Logan Oliver looks every bit as pissed and simultaneously humble as he does in real life.
A bark of a laugh streams from me. “That’s a good one.”
Sage lifts her hand to his face and Gage bends over so she can touch him.
“Careful”—I warn half-teasingly—“my niece does love to dole out a punishment.”
“I’m not slapping my father.” Her tiny body lifts an inch as she takes a deep breath. “You look just like Uncle. He wouldn’t like this. It would frighten him to know you could be him and fool Mother into doing just about anything with him.” She gives him a couple of light taps on the cheek. “But you would never do that, would you, Father? Pretend to be somebody else to fool the woman you professed to love so deeply?” Her voice is curt and tight. Sage is like having a cloying, wicked mother waiting in the wings to reprimand you, to best you at every turn. “I’ll see if those treats I’m baking are finished now. It’s something I would have loved to have done on earth for you.” She heads for the kitchen. “You, too, Uncle Wesley.”
“Only you would have poisoned mine with something creative to give me the shits.”
A bubbling laugh expels from her as the distance grows between us. “You know me best!”
“That I do,” I say, heading over to Tears over Creation and giving the watery globe a light spin.Tears over Creation, Tears over Paragon, whatever the hell this prognosticating wonder is called is something our father, Demetri, the proper, evil father decided to gift to each of his sons as an additional housewarming gift. Its stone base stands four feet tall and it’s just as round if not wider, filled to the brim with literal tears, I have no doubt, while a dark granite globe almost the size of the well itself spins tirelessly within it. Ask it to show you something and it provides the answer, usually.
Where is Laken? Where is that bitch Chloe that I’ve managed to leash myself to several times in this short life? What is Kresley doing with Eli? All questions I’ve asked. Gage and I have been afforded many supernatural liberties by our father, and this is one of them.
Gage comes over, his face still stuck in Logan mode.
“Dude.” I nod over to him, annoyed that I’m forced to look at him this way.
It’s not that I have anything against Logan, but the guy is the spitting image of Cooper Flanders and I’m no fan of his. Coop and I were great friends until he decided he needed Laken for himself, and once he won out in that regard, I haven’t been able to fully look him in the eye. A part of me is still afraid her heart will piece itself back together the way it was before the feds fractured her mind to my benefit. But my ace in the hole is the fact I made a silent pact with Candace Messenger at my trial last year.
I gave my unspoken word that I would make sure Gage stayed away from Skyla, and she gave her unspoken word that it would benefit Laken and me. A part of me wonders how strong that pact was and if it’s null and void now that Gage and Skyla have gone their separate ways for seemingly good. As bad as I feel for my brother, I think deep down it’s best he’s not with her.
Laken is a Count like me, like I thought I was for so long, but if she belonged to Celestra, that would have been a thorn in my side, the size of the Empire State Building. Yes, the old Laken sided with Celestra, but she’s come to her senses and I can breathe again.
“Show me Laken.” I lift a brow at my brother as his face morphs slowly back to that of his own—my own, too, if you want to get technical.
The dark well beneath us illuminates and the globe darkens as an image appears over its wet flesh. It’s Laken walking through what appears to be a bookstore. The image of a body appears next to her. It’s Cooper Flanders and my stomach sours. He’s holding Charlie in his arms, pulling out board books, and she does her best to gnaw on them. Laken and Coop share a laugh. But I’m not laughing.
“Don’t worry, man.” Gage flicks the globe with his middle finger and the image clicks off as if it were a television. “Chloe is with them. She mentioned she wanted to take Tobie to story time at the library. My mom is taking the boys for me. Skyla insisted on going. She doesn’t want to miss a moment of the boys’ lives. I’m betting either Skyla or Chloe extended the invite to him.”
“Skyla and Chloe attending story time at the library? What the hell kind of warped world are we living in? You do realize she was serious when she said she was going to kill Chloe.”
“She can’t kill Chloe and she knows it. Candace has a concrete shield around the witch.”
“The witch is carrying your child.”
“Your child, Wes.”
“Technically, but someone will have to be a father to it, and that responsibility, my friend, falls to you.”
“Lucky for him or her, I’m a damn good father.”
“But you’re not excited about it.”
