“What’s happening?” My heart thumps wildly as Logan shakes his head at me just enough to let me know he’s equally as confused. He wraps an arm around my waist and pulls me in close and we stand as a united front as we look expectantly to the Sector before us.
Marshall takes a step forward; his demeanor softens just a notch as his eyes flit from me to Logan. He glances briefly to his right and nods as if he were responding to someone who isn’t there.
“Skyla, Logan”—he refocuses his attention solely on us, and it feels intimate as if we’re the only two people in the room with him—“usually I would allow nature to take its course, perhaps Ezrina to guide you into the knowledge which shall soon be revealed—”
I turn to look at Gage. That’s what he suggested. Whatever this is, as he stated earlier, he knows.
I swallow hard as I look back to Marshall. “Say it.” I nod. “Whatever it is, Logan and I can handle it. We’ll get through it together. We are a united front in every possible way.”
Marshall’s cheek flickers as if he thought it were laughable on some level and an underlying sense of rage starts to build in me.
“Yes, you are.” He gives a slow blink as if acquiescing to the thought. “My dear angel, the great love of my life”—he quickly traces my brow with his finger and that feel-good vibration of his is back at full capacity and riding through me like a rush of magnificent adrenaline—“and you are, Skyla. You are my heart. You and I will have many magnificent adventures together, and together we, too, shall serve a purpose for the greater good of others. But for now, the time has come for you to unify yourself with another. And though he has chosen to forgo the chain of matrimonial command as laid out by the authorities that be, which the Master Himself has suggested you abide by”—he takes a moment to glower at Logan—“your time for one another has arrived in full.” He steps forward and lands a hand onto the top of my head and the other over Logan’s and a warm pulse of energy flows through him as if he were a conduit for love and light and all things good in the universe. And I truly believe he is.
Nat steps over. “What the hell?” She’s looking down at my torso and I follow her gaze, only to find my midsection glowing a brilliant shade of blue right through my jeans.
“Oh my God,” I bleat as I look to Logan. A million thoughts run through my mind at once. “The last time this happened I was pregnant with the boys.” Sage, too, I guess, but I can’t seem to get another word out. “Marshall, what’s happening? What’s wrong?” I look to him for help, but all he offers is a slow blink.
“Skyla?” Logan holds me at an arm’s length as he pulls back to get a better look at my body.
Chloe comes over and huffs at the two of us. “You’re knocked up, for shit’s sake.” She groans as if it pained her to say it. “I can’t believe I got dragged over here to witness this.”
“Oh my God.” I look to Logan once again. “We’re going to have a baby?”
He pulls me in with a violent force, and his body bucks against mine a moment, with laughter, with tears as he spins me around.
“I can’t believe this.” I laugh as he sets me back onto the ground.
Gage steps up, tears welling in his eyes as he looks from me to Logan. “I wanted to be here.” He shrugs. “I wanted to be a part of it. Congratulations.” He embraces both Logan and me at once, and it feels like the old Gage, the old us, the old version of the three of us together. He pulls back and gives Logan another pat on the back. “You’re going to be a great dad. You already are to the boys.” He looks to me and sighs, a heaviness in his eyes that words cannot describe as if this were the moment he lost me and not one second sooner. “And I already know you make a great mother. You are one. I mean that, Skyla.”
“I know you do.”
Chloe scoffs. “Somebody stick a pipe wrench down my throat and gag me. Congratulations, Skyla and Logan. Once again, the two of you are doing your best to usurp this moment of joy away from Gage and me, not that it were possible. And I’m actually happy for the two of you.” That unnatural grin of hers takes over as she scuttles in close. “We were pregnant together while I was having Tobie and you were having the boys, and it looks as if fate and your mother, the fertility goddess in the sky, has smiled on us once again. Bree is throwing me a shower this summer. I’m sure she’d love to make it a doubleheader. Isn’t this something? You’re having Logan’s child and I’m having Gage’s. Things have finally turned out just the way they were supposed to for us West girls. And Laken—let’s not forget our precious Lakey Poo. She’s having Wesley’s spawn—finally.” She gives me a hearty wink because we all know Charlie belongs to Coop. “I guess dreams do come true. So it does beg the question—what are the two of you going to do now? Let me guess. You’re going to Disneyland? Or maybe you’ll just cut to the chase and take a quick jaunt upstairs so Skyla can show you her bippity boppity boobs?”
“That’s enough, Chloe,” Gage grumbles. “I think we should go.”
“Yes”—I’m quick to agree with Gage for once—“drop her off at Raven’s Eye and make all of my dreams come true today.”
It seems all Gage does lately is reprimand Chloe and do his best to herd her away from polite society. I bet he has a serious case of buyer’s remorse.
“Who’s leaving the party?” a female voice chirps from behind and we turn to find my doppelgänger standing there. For the briefest of moments, I think it’s my mother, Candace, the one who gifted me her countenance as a parting gift once I left her uterus, but something in me instinctually knows it’s Rory, my sister.
“Rory.” I head over and offer her a firm embrace. “Logan and I are going to have a baby.” I look to Logan and run back to him with a tackling hug. “My God. I’m so happy, Logan. It’s the last thing I would have dreamed of, and yet it’s a blessing beyond measure.” I pull back, only to be met with tears in his eyes. Logan lands a precious kiss to my lips.
“I love you, Skyla. I’m beyond elated to add another child to our family.”
My chest bucks with emotion. “Thank you for that.” I know that Logan regards the boys as his own, and they are. More so than they belong to the monster behind him.
Rory lifts her head to Gage. “And are you beyond elated?”
Chloe scoffs. “Please, my husband and I are both ecstatic for these two for putting their baby-making skills in high gear.” She pulls Gage in by the waist. “Isn’t that right, honey? We have no animosity toward the two of them. We wish them nothing but health and happiness.”
Marshall growls and I think Ezrina just openly retched.
Nat expels a sigh before pulling Logan and me into an embrace. “At least she believes her lies. Congrats, guys.”
Lex grunts out something along the same sentiment and they take off back to their own personal hobby lobby. Ezrina and Nev offer up a hearty congratulations.
Nev lands a soft kiss to my cheek. “My love, you do realize this child is special,” he whispers directly into my ear. “I’d don that protective hedge if I were you just to be safe.”
