Toxic Part One (Celestra Series Book 7) (10 page)

“Aha!” Tad laughs. “You owe me ten dollars, Lizbeth. Told you she’d desecrate the confection before the night was through.”

What little guests are left, bypass the new blemish on the festivities and show themselves out.

“Skyla!” Mom scuttles up and helps dust vanilla frosting off Gage’s shirt. “I’m so sorry,” she gasps to Emma and Barron.

Demetri crops up and the tension in our small circle rises like heat through a magnifying glass. Of course, in my fantasy, Demetri would be the ant. My anger alone has the capability to incinerate him.

“I’m having a get together tomorrow.” The words slither from him, thick and wicked. “My first annual kickoff to summer, and I’d love for all of you to join me,” he purrs.

Gage excuses himself into the house. A foolish part of me yearns to go with him and yet the wiser part chooses to stay out here with the people who are way more honest with me, like Demetri.

“Of course we’ll come!” Mom beams. “I haven’t worn a bathing suit in ages. I’m sure the only one I’ll fit into is my
birthday
suit!” She titters.

“You’re such a tomcat, Lizbeth.” He cajoles right back. “Just like the old days.”

What’s like the old days? The tomcat or the birthday suit? And by the way, eww. There’s an image I did not ever need.

“Anything we can bring?” Marshall bows to the invitation. “A salad, a casserole, perhaps a bloody Mary? I hear you’re partial to plasma-based cocktails.”

“Just your loved ones.” Demetri squints out a grin. “Isis, my niece, is in town. She’s eager to make new friends. She just finished up her doctorate, so if you could humor me be calling her Dr. Edinger, it would please me ‘til kingdom come.”

“The Kingdom will come.” Marshall sharpens his tone. “And all of the travesties of justice will revert themselves. Oh, how I’d loathe to be in the judgment seat.”

“I’d love to meet your niece.” Mom dips her knees at the thought while ruining the perfect cadence of hatred between Demetri and Marshall.

“She’s wonderful.” His eyes sparkle with laughter. “Just ask Skyla. They’ve already met.”

Isis?

In the tunnels—that’s what he called the worm in the globe.

I pull bleak smile.

The only Isis I know has turned into a big, giant snake—much like Gage.

Chapter 13

Love Me

After saying good night to both Logan and Marshall, I head up to my bedroom to decompress for the evening.

The sound of running water in my bathroom catches me off guard—probably just Chloe scouring the toilet with my toothbrush.

A shadowed figure emerges with a far bigger frame than the janitorial jackass I thought it was. It’s not Chloe at all. It’s her not-so-better half—Gage. His hair is freshly slicked with beads from the shower still clinging to the tips. He’s wearing a T-shirt and old sweats I had borrowed from him a while back.

“Lucky for me, half my closet migrated over.” His dimples push in without the benefit of a smile.

“Sounds unlucky for me,” I say, shutting the door and locking it in the event I feel like committing a felony.

“Hope you don’t mind—I cleaned up.” He says it low, pulling up his T-shirt as if threatening to pluck it off.

“I mind everything about you these days,” I say, taking off my sweater revealing my tank top underneath. I step out of my boots and unbutton my jeans slow and methodical, peeling them off until I step right out. “OK, you got the show. Now get the hell out.” I head into the bathroom and rake a brush through my hair.

The very distinct sound of the dresser gliding across the floor echoes off the walls, and I rush back into the bedroom.

“Excuse me?” I say, posturing in my boy-shorts in the event his gaze should wander south of my chin. I hope Gage Oliver dies a slow and painful death while thinking about what he lost. I hope he dreams of touching me every single night only to wake up and discover it’s nothing more than wishful thinking. The idea that Chloe is the nightmare that waits for him should make him want to hang himself off the nearest bough. 

“Skyla.” He depresses out my name like a song full of sorrow.

“No words.” I cut the air with the underlying threat.

He gives a nod and lifts a finger toward the ceiling and the lights go out.

How’d he do that?

An anemic stream of moonlight filters in from an abnormally clear night on Paragon. Gage comes over and brushes my lips with his. My entire body sizzles with heat at his command. And here I wanted him to die a slow death by way of never touching me again. Sadly, I can’t seem to invoke that punishment on him just yet.

My heart picks up pace, my breathing grows erratic. I want to tell him to leave, to go to hell—to Chloe’s, but I invoke my own stupid maxim and ban my vocal cords from leaking a sound.

Gage dips in again with a gentle kiss that lingers.

My entire person goes rigid, stiff as a statue. I know what’s coming, and I can’t control it. No matter how hard my head shouts no, my heart and hormones out roar its efforts.

He runs his hands over my hips, rabid and hot like an out-of-control brushfire, and I pull my neck back from the pleasure of it all.

A burst of rapid kisses assault my neck before adhering to my lips like a cold drink of water in the vast thirsty desert of my newfound anger. I plunge my tongue into his mouth like diving into the ocean and reintroduce myself to his lingual landscape fast and furious as if we’ve only minutes to live.

God, I miss Gage. I miss the old Gage who I thought really loved me, who I believed cared and whose heart I shred to pieces with my own deception.

I pull off his shirt, run my open palms against his chest and feel the hard ridges of perfection that striate across his flesh. My thumbs circle the inside of his sweats. I open the elastic wide and send them sailing to the floor with minimal effort.

Gage pulls off my tank top, unhitches my bra in an Olympic-worthy maneuver and lands me on the bed in one heated kiss.

It is all out passion—kisses that sear through time and an entire hotbed of lies—right past the hornet nest Chloe pushed us into a very long time ago before either of us understood who we were.

An inferno ignites over the sheets. His bare stomach touches mine, and I press him in, digging my fingers into his back. I want Gage covering me, loving me—inside of me.

I ride my hands up his thighs, bristle the hair on his legs as I round out to the front of his boxers, and feel him grow.

He lets out a jagged hot breath in my ear and sighs over me.

“Not like this, Skyla.” He dots the tip of my nose with a kiss. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything.” He nuzzles his face into my neck, then disappears.

***

The morning of Demetri’s kickoff to summer party is suspiciously bright and sunny. I’m still reeling from those hotter-than-hell kisses, that entire heated exchange that took place in my room last night with my mortal enemy, Gage.

I open my window to cool myself off and call for Nevermore, my favorite human trapped in a Raven. Well, he’s the only human trapped in a Raven’s body that I know of, but still.

Nev swoops down from the top bough of a pine. He darkens the sky with the batting of his wings, spastic and furtive as he lands, then hops inside my window rather unceremoniously.

I touch my palm to his back, take in the cool of his feathers and pet him gently. Nev is enormous for a bird—the size of a small toddler.

“Guess who’s a big fat traitor?” I assault him with my pent up rage before uttering a simple hello.

Ezrina?

“Nope, my mother agreed to give you guys a new trial after the faction war. Isn’t that great?” So much has happened since prom, I hadn’t had a chance to tell Nev about his upcoming reprieve.

Great, but I doubt the Justice Alliance will magically yield different results.
He shivers, stretching out his wings before retracting them.
You do realize they would have to admit they were wrong the first time they handed down the sentence. This can only result in a harsher punishment. You know not what you’ve brought upon us.

“And what if it works and you’re both free?”

We won’t be free. These are lasting covenants—binding agreements were made. This is far more than eternal—well, on her part at least. One faulty arrow and I cease to exist forever.

“So what are you saying? My mother is going to host a fake trial to get me off her back, and the two of you will be worse for it?” Knowing my mother, the most diabolical plan possible is the most believable and true.

Precisely that. Now back to the subject at hand, who is the ‘big fat traitor’ in question?

“Gage.” I sit down on the bed next to him and sulk openly at the thought.

Master Oliver?

“More like Disaster Oliver.” I fill him in on the heartache Gage inflicted upon me. “Can you believe he snowed me over like that?”

No, Skyla, I can’t.
Nev jerks his head back and opens his beak.
I smell a rat. That boy loves you. I’ve never seen a love so pure since…

“Since that of your own?” Boy, Gage had him snowed, too. “I bet just before he decided to gift me his bird, he subjected you to a ton of ‘spontaneous’ verbal proclamations of his false affection for me. He’s nothing but a first class bullshitter.”

There’s bull being tossed about, all right, and it’s not coming from Master Oliver
.

“Nev! You’re supposed to side with
me
.” OK, so he’s not obligated but geez, it would be nice.

A harsh knock explodes over the door as Mia yells for me to get downstairs. Something about opening a café.

“One more thing before I go,” I say. “Just thought you might like to know, as of last week, I’ve officially been captured by the Counts.”

Nev lets out an ear-piercing cry, so loud, so viral, it can be heard for miles.

Chapter 14

The Menu

As I make my way downstairs on this, the cursed morning of Demetri’s summer soirée, I’m pleasantly surprised to find my olfactory senses filled with the familiar scent of deep fried pig flesh, which I mostly associate with Brielle’s house next door. It’s a nice change of pace since Tad tends to stray from cannibalistic tendencies and thus has declared all pork products off limits to the entire Landon clan and me.

I trot into the kitchen to find Mia and Melissa at the helm, working shoulder to shoulder to rescue this family from its artery blocking deficiencies.

A piece of paper has been hastily adhered to the fridge, it reads
Mia’s café
all food $1.50.

A bevy of mouthwatering dishes are listed that I’d gladly surrender my entire paycheck for, including grilled cheese sandwiches with three slices of premium cheddar, peanut butter and jelly with no crusts, turkey and Swiss with pesto.

“If you want to see a real menu, look on the counter.” Melissa snipes from over her shoulder.

A neatly laminated piece of blue parchment is printed up in a fancy script.
Landon Bistro
. Figures. The only thing my sisters have in common these days is the fact they’re competitive.

“So who gets to cook for you, Skyla?” Mia glares at me accusingly.

“Well, it looks like you’re almost done.” I shrug.

“Knew it.” Melissa seethes as she turns to Ethan. “It’s us against them. Eat my food or die.”

“If I eat your food, I
will
die.” He belches before reaching in the fridge for a soda. “Yeah, whatever. Gimme something to commit a slow suicide with.”

I speed over to him and resist the urge to wrap my hands around his neck for housing the enemy.

“Where’s the demon you slither around the sheets with?”

“Getting a Brazilian.” His lids close halfway as though he were witnessing the epilation of her pubic region firsthand.

“Why are you still with her?” Obviously he’s mental. “Never mind.” I acquiesce to the hopelessness of trying to drill logic into a Landon’s brain.

“Morning!” Mom waltzes in, chirping like a bird. The smile melts off her face as soon as she spies the debauchery taking place in the kitchen. “Girls, I don’t want you to make a habit out of this.”

Tad comes up behind her and sniffs like a basset hound.

“You’re ordering from me, Daddy.” Melissa evokes her I’m-a-two-year-old-princess voice that sounds decidedly like Carly Foster.

Mom looks past my shoulder, and her face brightens. “Look who’s here!” She belts it out so jubilantly, I half expect to see Demetri materialize in the room, but it’s not the malignancy I thought it was. It’s a rather benign apparition of Drake and Brielle.

“I spent the night.” Brielle plops down at the table and accepts the orange juice my mother offers. I suspect Mom is going to turn up the volume on the brown-nosing routine now that things with baby Beau have entered hostage negotiation status.

“Is the baby here?” Mom grapples for hints of all things infant, even goes as far as peering down Bree’s top and for good reason—she’s hidden him there before, case in point—the hospital.

“Are you kidding?” Brielle bleats. “I need some freaking sleep. That kid thinks the entire world revolves around his stomach.”

“Well, he
is
a boy.” Mom tries to make light of the fact.

“And he is Drake’s spawn,” I chime in.

Mom shoots me a dirty look. “I wouldn’t mind taking the nightshift.” She manufactures an apprehensive smile. “I could even go over to your house if you like.”

“No thanks.” Brielle eyes her suspiciously as if my mother were fully capable of conducting a baby heist. “My mom and I have it all under control.”

Mia hands me a plate of food that looks and smells like heaven.

Mom twitches her lips, like maybe a baby heist really is in her future. “So, have you brushed up on what parenting techniques you’re going to implement?” Mom is insistent on grinding down Brielle’s last nerve with her special brand of crazy.

“Parenting?” Brielle looks genuinely confused at the concept in general.