Coop shrugs, too. “Gage told me you’d be here.”
I glower at my ex a moment. As much as I don’t like calling him that, it just seems easier than calling him the jackass who stole my husband’s identity.
Logan takes a deep breath. “So, what’s up with the impromptu coronation?”
“I’ll tell you what!” Tad harps from behind and we turn in time to see Mom, Mia, Melissa, and Bree following him like a procession. “I’m celebrating my latest win! Twenty-five G! It’s like I’m cursed in reverse!” He sheds a toothy grin, and I can’t help but grimace when that diamond he has soldered onto his tooth gleams from the light of that garish crystal chandelier he recently installed.
Giving Tad large sums of money is proving a questionable move by the universe.
“Again?” I look to my mother, more than mildly alarmed. “What in the heck is going on?”
Tad lifts a finger laden with garish gold rings. “I’ll tell you what. I’m a winner, that’s what.” He heads over to admire the throne, which I’m assuming he bought for himself, but since Gage is so power-hungry, he couldn’t help but dart over just to sit in it himself.
I head to my mother. “Cursed in reverse? I think not. More like cursed in the traditional sense. I smell an Edinger at the bottom of this unlucky barrel and he’s about to roll Tad off a steep financial cliff.”
She’s quick to wave it off with a scoff. “Please, Skyla. If Demetri was behind all this, why, I’d bow down and kiss his bare feet!”
A hard roll of what feels like battery acid churns in my stomach. “Would you hold off on any talk of Demetri’s bare body parts? I’m being serious.”
“Oh, I am, too,” she’s quick to correct.
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”
Logan nods over to Gage. “Checking out some new furniture for the house?”
Gage frowns a moment. His dimples dig in deep as the boys scamper off. Beau Geste comes up and kicks him over the shin.
“You don’t give good presents!” He runs off laughing his head off, and for the first time in years I see Drake in him.
Gage looks from me to Logan. “I came to extend a personal invite to my coronation.”
Bree pops up beside me. “Ooh! Should I call and order pizza?”
“Yes, Bree,” I say. “And see if Em is around in the kitchen so she can fashion a tin foil crown. That should about cover it.”
“Skyla!” Mom growls. “Is that any way to talk about your king?”
“He’s not my king,” I’m quick to say.
Mom rolls her eyes. “He’s everybody’s king,” she whispers it low like something unmentionable, and it should be treated as just that. “Demetri explained it all to me. Just like you were the celestial leader for so long, now it’s his turn.”
“And byhis, he meant himself, as in Demetri.” I look to Gage. “See that? You’re just a sock puppet your father is using in an effort to destroy the whole human race.”
“I’m saving them, Skyla,” he says without missing a beat.
“From who? Me?”
He looks to the side and blinks as if considering this himself. Figures. Demetri has fed him so many lies he doesn’t know what he believes himself.
Giselle slings her arm over my shoulder as Ellis steps our way.
“What about Skyla?” Ellis directs the question to Gage himself, rife with attitude because his devotion to me and my people is undying. I’ll have to find a special way to thank Ellis after we come out of this nightmare, and I truly believe we will.
Logan looks to Gage. “What about Skyla?”
Gage rises from his throne, his stature only seems to grow, the girth of his body prominent and stunning. Gage really does have an air of royalty about him, but then I’ve always thought that.
Chloe comes up with Em in tow, her hand rubbing circles over her belly as if that were its job. “His coronation is tomorrow. Gage is personally inviting those he wants in attendance.” She sneers my way. “We’re swinging by The Enchanted Closet on the way home to pick up my dress. It’s from a French designer. The beading is immaculate.”
