Ethereal Knights (10 page)

Charlie circles in front of me, slobbering and panting, before sitting with his back to my face, so I push his hind end a little further south. There’s a reason he’s earned the nickname “the Gas Bag.”

The oven-heated breeze picks up and flips the pages over to a section marked off for poetry. I’m not a poet—not even close—but lately when I think of Skyla, I let the words run around the page and bleed out my emotions with ink. Setting my thoughts free like that has proved the equivalent of making love to her on paper. It’s intimate, soul searing, nothing but lust-driven passion molded with this unknowably deep affection I feel for her.

Logan zips through my mind with his ironic grin, his nails-on-a-chalkboard whistle. I’m in so deep with Skyla that a part of me feels like the biggest damn fool for ever letting her into my heart.

The poems catch my attention. Most of them have been written since she’s come to Paragon:
I’ve Seen the Future
;
The Shadowed Heart
;
The Order of Love and Seasons.

A quiet laugh rumbles through me. I wrote that last one the night before I met her at the bowling alley.

The Order of Love and Seasons

The visions speak loudly and with good reason.

All things come in the right season.

Passion fills the air like haze,

in those heated, sentimental days.

I’ve Seen the Future

I dreamed the future and it was you.

The scent of your beauty, like morning rain,

eyes like glass—your smile to heaven stays true.

Life without you transcends pain.

I’ve seen the future and it was you.

This for certain I know to be true.

Nothing can satisfy, only you.

That one sucked.

The Shadowed Heart

Black sand beaches that pull us in,

nights of passion laced with sin.

Skin, smooth and pale, a beautiful flower,

my mouth dips down inch by inch, hour by hour.

A honeyed trail, so sweet on my tongue

But it’s a phantom’s choir—never been sung.

The Rejection

I held a pocketful of promises like they were an assurance.

But your affection was withheld from me, your kisses never an occurrence.

Were these dreams nothing but a rich delusion?

My heart, the new-found Babylon, was the only logical conclusion.

I had prized myself intellectual, sensible, discerning.

But cerebral knowledge could not quench this powerful yearning.

You alone are the elixir to heal this broken heart.

Your rejection of my desire has torn my world apart.

I was a mastermind at my own deception.

For my love, there was no reception.

The Solicitor

Were these prognostications nothing but lies to quell the intense desire to have you?

Passion rises in me, consummate and urgent.

Time has brought you by my side, and still you refuse me.

I believe this too shall pass.

You will love me—passion will rise from you, consummate and urgent.

I stop there and shut the book—close my eyes a minute and feel the heat pressing down over my sore back.

Push-ups. I wasn’t killing myself with push-ups yesterday because of any impending showdown on the football field with East, that’s for damn sure. It was all I could do to get my mind off the idea of Skyla melting over Logan’s body. He mentioned they were heading out to the Falls today. That’s where they are right now, probably skinny-dipping. Looks like Logan is the one who gets to run his tongue over her honeyed skin.

I don’t understand this.

I snatch at the journal, and it takes everything in me not to submerge it underwater, drowning all of those carnal and spiritual inclinations I’ve poured into Logan’s girlfriend for the last few years in a fit of misplaced hormonal lust.

Damn. How could I be so stupid?

I start in on a series of push-ups. The burn in my abs is about as welcome as swallowing a sword, but I force myself to blow through the pain for five minutes straight.

“Shit,” I pant, collapsing on the heated edge of the pool.

Skyla winks at me from behind my eyelids, and I don’t fight it, just keep my eyes closed and go along with wherever the fantasy wants to lead. I don’t give a flying fuck right now whether or not I’ve made a mistake. A part of me knows I haven’t—that it’s going to be Skyla and me in the end.

A scene blinks through my mind, in and out like a movie reel. A building crops up with the signage partially blocked by a pine tree but I can still make out the word:
hotel.

A dark room appears. The curtains glow orange, and a seam of light outlines the window. It’s daylight out, but the shades are drawn. I can feel the room, the heat inside like that of this sweltering day. Skyla steps in front of me, and there I am, pulling the T-shirt right off her body. She reaches over, looking at me like I’ve cast a spell on her, and snatches off my shirt, digs her fingers into the rim of my jeans, and I help her speed them off like they were on fire. In two seconds flat, I’m in my birthday suit, but I’m much slower to take her clothes off. Instead, I pull her in by the face and kiss her as if I were singing a song directly into her mouth. I reach back and unhitch her bra, and it drops to the floor like an erotic promise. Her bare chest rakes over my skin, and I groan both in and out of my fantasy. I unbuckle her jeans, and she helps shake them off, taking her underwear right along with them—hell, if she was wearing any. Skyla presses her heated flesh against mine, and an invisible blaze envelops the room. A shower of ecstasy rains down over us with just one magical touch from the girl I’ve desperately come to love.

It’s a given that it’s our first time. Something in me innately knows this.

Her mouth rakes over mine and sends my erection brushing against her thigh. I walk her back toward the bed, never unleashing our tongues, our bodies fused together at the stomach. I need her right fucking now. I need to bury myself inside her, and as soon as I do, I’m going come for weeks, for years. My body will never be the same—every other experience I’ll ever have on this spinning rock will pale in comparison. I’ll forever hold each glorious moment that life has to offer up to this one, and already I know they will never measure up.

It’s just Skyla and me, drinking down our eternal love for one other, never letting go, never wanting to.

She lies back, and I land gently on top of her. It never occurred to me I could kill her, crush her lungs if I lay my full weight over her thin frame, so I lean up on my elbows, dousing her face with the blowtorch coming from my mouth.

Skyla wraps her legs around my back and touches me. Her cool hands run up and down my dick, and I let out a ragged breath, barely able to control myself. I dive a kiss into her mouth as she guides me in, so fucking wet and tight I’m going to die.

I open my eyes and gasp for air as Paragon reconstructs itself around me. The house, the sky, the evergreens that line the property, spin like a top.

I roll over and fall into the pool, letting myself sink as far as the icy water will allow in hopes to deflate this Eifel Tower of a hard-on.

Skyla Messenger—you are going to be the end of me.

The best part is, this was no reckless fantasy—no ordinary wet daydream—that was a bona fide vision. And that for damn sure wasn’t Logan making love to Skyla.

It was me.

8

Logan

Revelation

The sky bubbles and brews in an entire rainbow of blacks and greys, threatening to ruin the perfect outing I have planned with Skyla. I called earlier and asked if she’d spend the afternoon with me. Thankfully, she said yes.

Gage has me rattled with his “it’s on” comment this morning at breakfast. What’s on? Does he really think he’s going to steal Skyla? What the fuck? Isn’t there some kind of guy code we should be discussing that strictly stipulates not going after another guy’s girl?

Skyla is into me, and I’m definitely into her. This isn’t up for discussion. I’ll make it clear when I get home that he needs to find another female to sniff around, because the only one who’s pressing his nose—or other body part—to Skyla, is me. Besides, once Barron certifies the fact that she’s Celestra, Gage will see she’s the girl for me and back off.

I shake my head as I come upon Skyla’s house. Gage has never been wrong before so of course he’ll back down when I give him the facts. But my gut tells me he won’t.

Skyla waves from the bottom of the driveway as I pull alongside the curb. The fog washes over her, making her look like a dream within a dream.

She beams that beautiful smile and melts every part of me, evaporates Gage and his prognosticating dimples right out of existence—for now, anyway.

“Hey, you!” She opens the door and struggles to hop in. My stomach clenches at the sight of her. I’m the luckiest dog alive to be spending the afternoon—hell, any part of the day with Skyla I’m-a-Goddess Messenger.

“I would have come around to help you,” I say, as she struggles her way inside.

“No worries.” She snatches at my fingers just as she slips off the mini-ladder. I grab onto her waist, giving a bionic pull until she’s safely seated next to me.

“How’d you do that?” Her mouth falls open with awe as she buckles herself in.

“It’s a gift.” I huff it out with a gentle laugh while maneuvering us onto the road.

“You’re, like, really strong.” She pants as if I’ve inadvertently spooked her. “Can I do that?”

“I don’t know, can you?” She can. Strength is a Nephilim gift straight across the board, no matter what faction you’re a part of.

“I don’t think so.”

The evergreens race past us in a violent exchange of branches and sky as we head out onto the main highway. The fog licks the truck as we race through miles of unblemished Paragon terrain before hitting the stop-and-go traffic of downtown.

“Your gifts can grow,” I whisper. “It’s rare, but they can manifest with time.” I look over and offer a platonic smile. “Don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do something. It’s poison every single time.”

***

The Falls of Virtue are a testament to the Master’s glory like nothing else I’ve ever seen—until I met Skyla.

The fog skirts by our feet at this heightened elevation as I lead us down to the waterline to where the view is best.

There they are—three falls, each perfectly spaced across the back of the hillside. We watch as they rain down with fury and passion into the open mouth of the lake. It’s a heated exchange, pulsating and throbbing, something just this side of erotic. It’s so blatantly beautiful here. It makes you feel as if you’ve accidentally landed in paradise.

“Wow.” She looks up at a rainbow just beyond the peak, and a laugh gets trapped in her throat. “It’s…”

Skyla struggles for words. Her lips part. It takes all of my self-control not to dive down over her mouth and cover it with my own.

“You have unicorns here, too?” She laughs.

“Not at this location. They prefer the higher elevations where it snows.” I bite my lip until it feels like I might draw blood. I’m having serious withdrawals from kissing her, and yet, I don’t want her to think I dragged her all the way up here to maul her—but God, how I would love to maul her.

“So that’s where the water comes from?”

“Year round.” I tick my head back, trying to ignore the fact I’m starting to get the shakes just looking at her.

She heads toward the edge of the lake with the water nearly lapping over her shoes. I step beside her and wrap an arm around her waist, safely away from her skin so she doesn’t think I’m trying to listen in.

“This is where I want to get married someday.” Her face ignites with color. She swallows hard, as if realizing what she just let slip. “Gage said I was going to marry him.” She averts her eyes, as if the theory were more than laughable.

Everything in me goes numb—the expression bleeds from my face.

A thousand thoughts assault me at once.

The world dims to pitch, and all I can make out is Skyla and her luminescent outline, her perfect body belonging to Gage.  

“So it must be true,” I whisper.

Gage—this was his girl, his dream come to life. This is precisely why he bit down as soon as she came into town and wouldn’t let go. He knew it, and he didn’t tell me. He gave her the knife, and she gutted me without even knowing.

A strangled feeling overcomes me and I fight like hell to shake it off.

This is Skyla, the Celestra that stole my heart with one bat of her lash. The minute she set foot on Paragon, she lit up my universe with her smile. To hell with Gage and his weepy-eyed dreams. I’m not letting go. If he wants her—if he wants his unblemished “prognosticating” track record to continue—he’ll have to go through me to make it happen. 

“I’m not marrying Gage.” She spits it out as if it were a fact—as if she had any say in it at all. “I thought it was funny.” She shakes her head. “Brielle thinks maybe he has a crush on me.”

“He does.” I can’t seem to break my deer-in-the headlights gaze.

“Anyway”—she breathes—“I’m not into him.” She pauses, waving her hand over my face to capture my attention. “I’m into you.”

And there it is. Just the words I needed to break the spell. A smile curves on the edge of my lips, and everything in me aches to kiss her.

“I’m into
you,
” I say, pulling her in close.

Skyla, with her out-of-the box wicked beauty. I want to run my tongue over every inch, devour her in one quick bite—swallow her down.

I sweep my lips over hers, and an involuntary groan wrenches from me. We kiss in waves of heated passion. We drink down the wine of new love by the vat. This is meaningful. This is right, and for damn sure, it’s meant to be. Every angel on earth and in heaven can testify to the truth of what’s unfolding between us.