Toxic Part One (Celestra Series Book 7) (2 page)

His voice drips with grief. “You need to do something for me.”

“Anything.”

“Go home.” He bores the words into me. “Write this down and remember it. Each day I want you to look in the mirror and say, ‘I’m as pure as gold.’”

“I’m as pure as gold?” I look up at his sun-drenched features kissed by the strange light that ignites this new world.

“Pure as gold—I promise.” He drops a kiss on the tip of my nose.

“Take me somewhere.” My entire body yearns to run free and explore this alien mural come to life. “I want to see everything.”

“You mustn’t stay.” My grandmother touches my hair. “It’s not your time.” Her eyes reflect silver pools much like my own. I’ve never seen her look so beautiful, so regal—elegant as royalty.

“You still have work to do, Skyla.” Dad nods with a grieving smile. “I’m going to scare you now. I want you to wake up. Do you hear me?” He holds me back by the shoulders as he morphs into a thing of horror.

I let out a viral scream that rattles through every existence I’ve ever known.

A sharp quiver runs through me, and I bolt up in bed. A cold sweat trickles down my cleavage.

“Hey—” A hand smooths over my bare stomach. “It was just a bad dream.” A seam of blue moonlight falls over the man lying next to me. I recognize those infectious dimples, that ebony-glossed hair—Gage.

He pulls me down toward him and drops a soft kiss on my cheek.

“It was my dad.” I pant. “He had this giant eye on his forehead. It was just blinking out into nothing. Scared the hell out me.” The image of my father, the Cyclops, brands itself into my memory, deep into my subconscious as a tool of torment for later. 

A soft rumble of laughter thunders from his chest. My leg washes over his, and I’m all too aware of his hot flesh, the soft hair on his shin—his bare thigh. It’s not until he pulls me in and covers my body with his that a slight rail of panic spirals through me. I seem to be just as unclothed as he is. 

“Where are we?” I flex up my elbows, trying to adjust to the dark.

The walls, the bed—it’s all in the wrong configuration. I don’t recognize this bedroom, and it disorients me.

“Come here.” He jostles me by the knee as if to wake me up from my slumbering stupor. “I’ll remind you.” Gage lands a searing kiss over my lips—wet kisses that stream forever. His body arches over mine, his stomach relaxing against me.

“What are you doing?” I slap my hands against his chest in an effort to keep him from sticking the landing.

A peaceable smile comes over him. His dimples dig in deep, turning into twin black pools under the anemic stream of moonlight.

“You’re my wife, Skyla.” He dips a quick kiss to the tender skin below my ear. “We do this all the time.” He pushes my knees apart with his and nestles his body over my hips with his weight. The singe of his skin against mine sets me ablaze, and every inch of me detonates with pleasure.

A light explodes over me. I’m in another room—another dream.

Blinding light, white-hot pain.

“You can do this.” A male voice pants in my ear. He sounds familiar, but a fire gnaws at my insides like a train derailing at a million miles an hour. I cry out in pain, and the room fades to grey.

The gentle roll of the ocean fills my ears, as the scenery changes again. My feet sink into warm sand as the beach greets me with its wide-open arms. A tiny hand squirms in mine. A blond head bobs beside me. A beautiful little girl stands level with my hip. I look up to find Logan holding the other small hand. He smiles over me and winces into my confusion.

“Another perfect day.” His voice swims with a melody all its own.

A clap of darkness overcomes me as the scenery morphs.

I’m in bed with Gage again. He writhes over me, plunging a passionate kiss on my lips. He has me surrendering all of my formidable anger—all of the charges against him are dropped in an instant. I would worship at his feet all night long for him to love me like this under the cover of darkness with all of his smoldering affection, his heated skin over mine.

“Skyla,” a voice whispers tender in my ear.

My eyes grit like sandpaper as they struggle to open.

The room takes shape, altogether different than before and I’m fully awake.

A warm leg hinges around mine.

I look up and see a bare chest, then follow the contour of his neck to his face. It’s not Gage lying beside me this time—it’s Logan.

Chapter 2

Room for Two

The lights are on. Logan and I lie side by side on a bed smaller than my twin. My body glides over the sheets, slick and cold, devoid of any clothing. I pull the covers to my chin and scoot against wall in a feeble attempt at modesty.

I peek beneath the velvet cloth that acts as a blanket and affirm my theory.

“I had to take off your dress.” He offers a threadbare smile. “You were bleeding, but the wounds healed. Are you in pain? Do you feel weak?”

“No. I feel…” I reach to the back of my head. “I feel fine.”

“Good.” Logan lets out a sigh. “I’ll give her one thing, she managed to miss vital organs and spinal cords—we have that to be thankful for.”

The idea of a laugh rumbles in my chest. I can’t find it in my heart to be thankful for anything having to do with Chloe. She’ll forever be the vindictive witch who linked Logan and I together with Demetri’s haunted blade.

“I had these weird dreams.” I reach up and pat my fingers along the high ridge of his cheek. Logan is weathered, older—noble like his light-driving self. “You’re so handsome,” I whisper. I stop shy of mentioning Gage, the way he defiled me as his wife. “Are you OK?”

“Don’t worry about me. You’re the one with an egg the size of a softball back there.” He adjusts the pillow under my neck.

The room forms around him. It comes into focus with its black-and-white checkered floors, cathedral stained-glass window emblazoned with two fighting lions, and a ceiling that rises eternally to the sky. A bookshelf lines the back wall of this tiny cloistered space, smaller than my room back on Paragon. Dozens of novels and board games sit unattended, watching over us in stacks.

A water globe the size of a cantaloupe sits proud in the middle. A tiny black serpent glides along the inside, slithering from end to end as if looking for a way out—probably Demetri’s dick.

“Where are we?” The words reverberate in my skull like a cymbal.

“I’m guessing the Celestra tunnels.” Logan secures the blanket between us like a barrier, runs his hand over my thigh before relaxing in the divot of my hip. “I’ve heard Barron mention them. He was glad that at least our parents weren’t dragged off here.”

“Oh great.” I groan. “So basically you’re saying this is a fate worse than burning alive.” Not the outlook I was hoping for.

I take in the fairytale-inspired room. It hardly seems capable of delivering such a grizzly fate.

“I tried to break down the door and shatter the window.” He shakes his head with futility. “They’ve got the mother of all binding spirits guarding this place.” He slides his hand up over mine and presses out a wry smile.
Can you hear me now?

Yes,
I say.

“That’s all we’ve got left. No other powers work down here. Other than telepathy, we’re practically human.” He twitches his brows as if this amuses him on some level.

“What happens now?” It comes out with far more child-like innocence than warranted.

The light from above shines off Logan’s shoulders and dusts his skin with an otherworldly illumination.

“I think we should expect someone soon.” He leans in. “I’m pretty sure they’re listening—watching. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were an entire army of invisible Fems in the room right now.”

His last sentence provokes me to draw up the covers tight around my neck.

The tiny worm trapped in the water globe stops abruptly—it leers at the two of us as if observing from afar.

Logan reaches up and brushes my cheek, my mouth with his warm fingertips.

“I love you, Skyla Messenger.” It escapes from him like a prayer. He seals a kiss over my lips as one final act of worship. “I’m sorry you’re down here with me, but I would be lying if I didn’t say that I’m glad to see your beautiful face. I could conquer anything with you by my side—even death.”

“I love you, too.” I pull him in by the back of his neck. “And I hope I have a face by the time they’re through with me.” Logan and the ways he loves me are a thing of beauty all their own. He could conquer anything with me by his side and I sure hope the tunnels are on the short list.

Gage impresses himself in my thoughts uninvited. His invisible skin electrifies over mine. I fall back against the pillow and take a quick breath as a pang of fire rips through my skull.

I let out a groan that sounds more mating call than it does apocalyptic headache.

“It’s OK,” Logan whispers as if trying to soothe an infant.

“Brielle had her baby,” I lament.

“I know.” He pulls back the blanket and nestles into me, warm and inviting.

My eyes widen at the sheer acreage of flesh pressed against mine.

“Why aren’t you wearing any clothes?” I ask slightly alarmed by where this might not so accidentally lead us.

“They were bloody.” The beginning of a naughty smile curves on his lips. “I promise I have on boxers.”

“Nice.” I close my eyes and try to decipher whether or not the idea of Logan in nothing but his boxers is a sexual disaster in the making. “Logan?”

He groans in lieu of a reply, burrowing his face into my neck.

Logan and I are like injured children trying to comfort one another while pinned in the wreckage. Two trapped rabbits waiting for the hunter to break our necks—shoot us if he’s merciful.

“Why do you think Gage did it?” A moan rattles deep in my chest at the thought of Gage being the well-placed boyfriend—that Chloe Bishop could have orchestrated our love seems every bit wrong, an entire black ocean of poison—an unfathomable deceit.

Logan brushes the side of my neck with his lips before twisting onto his back. He picks up my hand and bounces it on the bed between us three times before letting out a breath.

“It’s Gage, Skyla.” He says it flat as though I should give into the idea that Gage would never hurt me. Even if deep down inside I want that to be true, it’s not at this very moment. The revelation is still fresh with its offense. 

“I know it’s Gage,” I whisper. “That’s why it hurts so damn much.”

***

At regular intervals, the lights go out for what feels like a solid span of hours. They come on slowly, glowing like embers as if to rouse us naturally from our slumber. We’ve had no food for weeks, save for the water in the bathroom, and oddly, we don’t crave fluids either.

The useless board games provided by Demetri’s incompetent staff are rife with missing pieces. Box after box of well-worn boards, marbles, plastic houses, and paper money as worthless as our powers within these foreign walls. Then there are the books. Each of them written in some foreign script with fonts that run in dizzying patterns, the characters round and shapely like the figure of a robust woman—it’s almost obscene to try to make them out—calligraphy bordering on pornographic.

The tiny serpent in the water globe amuses us. It quickly becomes our demented little pet. Logan and I track our fingers over the hollowed out glass, and it follows dutifully wherever we lead. It holds a menacing appeal, but there’s a desperation it emits when we try to pull away that says, “play—stay a little longer, don’t leave.” Now and again it bears its silver, pointed teeth. It dares us to think we have power—that we are anything but impotent. It lets us know that it would kill us and eat us if given half a chance.

I drape the velvet blanket over myself like an evening gown, while Logan remains shirtless with the black pants he was wearing at prom.

The bathroom comes complete with a gold toilet. It erects itself from the stone floor like a monument to stupidity, as crass and egotistical as the Counts themselves.

“You think my mom and Tad are looking for us?” I peer over my cards at Logan. We’re embroiled in a heated game with no stakes and loose rules. Really we’re just going through the motions, so we don’t succumb to insanity like they want us to.

“I think everyone’s looking for us.” He lays out a pair of cards with twin symbols printed on them, birds with talons three times the size of their bodies—probably some kind of flying Fem we’ve yet to encounter.

“OK, you win.” I go over and lie on my stomach, pointing at my shoulders. “That means you get to massage me.”

“Very funny.” He moves in next to me, depressing the mattress as he takes a seat. Logan kneads his hands into my back, gently moving in a circular motion. He leans in and brushes his lips over the rim of my ear. “If you’re the prize, I always plan on winning.” He seals the sentiment with a searing kiss, high over my cheek.

Fighting off Logan’s advances has been the real challenge, not that he hasn’t tried to be a perfect gentlemen. Thankfully, he’s no Holden Kragger. Logan wouldn’t breathe in my direction if I asked him not to.

“Tell me something I don’t know about you.” He scratches my back in a series of lethargic circles.

“You know everything about me.” I purr as his assault over my shoulder blades picks up pace. If Chloe the Frankenstiened cheer-bot didn’t snap my back in half, Logan just might. “Slow down, please.”

He reduces the tension by half. “What do you love?”

“You for doing this—you in general. Chocolate, sushi, malt shakes. All things I’m highly deficient in at the moment. Well, other than you.”

“What do you hate?”

“Chloe and clowns. Come to think of it, Chloe is a clown.”

“Other than Chloe. What do you dislike? I want to know you—know everything about you.”

I twist around and study him from this angle. There’s a sweet innocence about him, and Gage wanted me to believe Logan was nothing but a womanizing panty snatcher before I came to town. Gage spoon fed me lies right from the beginning. 

I land my cheek back on the pillow. Just thinking about Gage sends me reeling with resentment and sorrow as wide as the sea.