Toxic Part One (Celestra Series Book 7)
Read Toxic Part One (Celestra Series Book 7) Online
Authors: Addison Moore
Table of Contents
toxic
part one
Addison Moore
Copyright © 2012 by Addison Moore
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Cover by Addison Moore Publishing
Editors: Amy Eye, Sarah Oaklief
This novel is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to peoples either living or deceased is purely coincidental. Names, places, and characters are figments of the author’s imagination. The author holds all rights to this work. It is illegal to reproduce this novel without written expressed consent from the author herself.
Books by Addison Moore
Ethereal
(Celestra Series Book 1)
Tremble
(Celestra Series Book 2)
Burn
(Celestra Series Book 3)
Wicked
(Celestra Series Book 4)
Vex
(Celestra Series Book 5)
Expel
(Celestra Series Book 6)
Toxic Part One
(Celestra Series Book 7)
Ephemeral
(The Countenance 1)
To my family,
thank you for letting me live in my imagination.
Preface
Love can play host to rich delusions. It stifles reality and skews the truth to meet our insatiable desire to be wanted, longed for, needed. It waxes poetic on destiny and soul mates with thoughts of forever and happily ever after pinned high on its wings. Love affords you the luxury of a unique brand of trust, an intimate level of confidence that solidifies two souls as one. It unifies them under the false banner of all things holy and right.
I gave my heart away in exchange for beauty and a song. I put a hook through my nose and leashed it, handed the reigns to the one who held my affections and gave him permission to lead me astray. It was the scourge of my youth that bore a thousand different sorrows.
Deceit. The grey clouds of deceit clotted my world. The battlefield moved from heaven to my heart. It came at me from all directions at once—an entire landscape of smoke and mirrors. Deception in acres spawned heartache for miles. This was no ordinary illusion. This was the severing of a lover’s cord. The death of a pure and righteous love I believed in.
I bought into the calm still waters that surrounded the one that I loved and entered in, but the current pulled me under and swept me away—dangerous—inescapable.
A rainbow of truths finally emerged. It pushed the darkness away and thrust us back into the light.
We held our faces to the sun only for a moment before death clapped over us like a bridegroom snatching away his betrothed.
Death is a promise incapable of deception.
It tells the truth. You were destined to die from the moment you were born. It makes no promises, holds no delusions. Your corporal form was never meant to linger—only love, in theory, is capable of withstanding time and memoriam.
Love promises happily ever after, it boldly professes forever—but delivers only one thing—a reckless brand of hope.
Chapter 1
After the Fall
Chloe spears us together in one svelte move—the spirit sword’s blade as sharp and deadly as her beauty. She bleeds venomous hatred as she drills the elongated razor into Logan’s back. Her necrotic laughter bubbles to the surface like a demon’s choir.
Logan and I illuminate from the inside a perfect sterile blue. My body trembles, a warm buzz vibrates throughout my veins and carbonates my blood. I look past Logan’s shoulder at my beautiful Gage—my helper, my everything, my deceiver—and mouth the words,
help me
—
my forever
.
Chloe lights up the fog between us with her anxious breath. “Here’s to happily ever after.”
The stone opens up, swallows Logan and I—the blade still skewering us together, holding us secure.
“
Skyla!
” Gage’s voice goes off like a gong, reverberating through this timeless tunnel of embers in one desperate cry.
Logan wraps his arms around me, pulls me in until his lips crash against mine.
We fall forever.
We search for happily ever after, but it never comes.
***
The darkest night—unimaginable sorrow. Searing pain blooms throughout my abdomen. It livens me with a white-hot jab that tempers the shock, the magnitude of the heartache Gage bestowed upon me. I would rather Chloe skin me alive ten thousand different ways than live through a deception so cruel.
Logan whispers something soft, soothing. His words come in spasms, a rhythm all their own. He’s chanting, praying, petitioning a higher power as we continue to plummet with the sword still needled through our bellies. Logan and I are one, unified in every way. Captured by the Counts, our every nightmare finally realized.
I coil myself around him tight—my body locking up at the joints. This is my forever—one with Logan and the Counts. Wherever we land, whatever torment Demetri and the rest of those bastards have for us, I won’t leave Logan for a minute. I’ll die before they separate us. I’d run through a fire for the ones I love if I knew it would save them. As long as Logan is by my side the Counts haven’t taken everything.
Falling in this dismal abyss, my new reality sets in and pierces me with a pain greater than the one delivered by the sword itself—Gage is the enemy.
This is the hour of the Counts. Everything is lost, covered in sorrow and mourning. I had little faith this time would come—that this moment ever had the power to exist. There was no anticipation, fear, or agony in preparation. This was the unthinkable, the impossible unfolding, every microsecond as unbelievable as the next.
A bloom of light sharpens at our feet as we pick up speed.
“Skyla.” Logan’s voice claps like thunder.
His body twists. He lays his strong hands over my shoulders and bears down on me with insurmountable pressure. The thick cords on his neck morph into cables of aggressive affection—painful and erotic. His beautiful face, knife-sharp cheeks, and eyes that glow like embers lie over me. They study the landscape of my features as gravity wraps its arms around us—pulling us down, heavy as lead.
The light below races to greet us. I brace myself before landing hard on my back with a jolt, and my head reverberates off the ground like a melon. A cry gets trapped in my throat, as the breath is crushed from my lungs.
The bloodied sword jumps from Logan’s back and lands rather unceremoniously by our side.
Logan heaves over me, panting loud, searing breaths directly in my ear. “Skyla?” He rolls off. “Skyla, open your eyes.”
I struggle to breathe, to think, to feel.
I give a few unsettled blinks before the world fades to a comfortable shade of pitch.
I’m falling again, this time in my dreams. It feels safe in this netherworld, locked in slumber, and for a moment, I wonder if this is what death feels like—if I’ve discovered it like some invisible horizon I’ve been chasing all along.
A familiar face appears from the nothingness—ruddy and tall, so gallant and strong—my father.
“Daddy!”
“Skyla.” He shouts my name like a reprimand. His brows knit in horror as I take a bold step forward.
A large field emerges, alive with color. The shade is an incomprehensible emerald I’m not sure exists in the natural order of things. Flowers dot the field in exotic pinks and purples. They sing a hymn—buzz their choir of praise for all to hear.
“You need to leave,” he barks at my celestial infraction.
“No.” Running to my father is a pleasure—a treasure. This isn’t a dream. This is real. This is more real than anything I’ve ever experienced before.
“You can’t stay.” A younger woman with her hair twisted up in a chignon appears beside him. She wears a smile perfumed with peace. Her features look strikingly familiar—I know that face, those mysterious sky-washed eyes.
“It’s you!” I marvel at my grandmother in all her eternal glory. “You’re so beautiful,” I say it breathless, lost in her unblemished features. Both she and my father hold the gift of youth, neither older than thirty.
“Please, don’t stay,” my father begs. His loving eyes bow in sorrow, his voice wrapped in all of the pity he can muster.
“You can’t stop me.” I land safe in his comforting arms. His entire being emits a vibration, so soothing and calm, it rivals anything Marshall is capable of producing. This is love. It pours from him, saturating my soul with his ceaseless affection. I take in his familiar scent—hold the frame of his body, strong as a tower. “I love you so much.”