Ethereal Knights (7 page)

“Did you sleep with Chloe in my bedroom?” She spits the words out like a round of bullets.

Shit. I lock onto her gaze, speechless, wishing I could turn back the clock and stop myself from the biggest mistake of my life.

“Yes.” It takes everything in me to push it out, and my heart breaks at how much I might have hurt her—how the horror of what happened, right here, encased in these four walls, might haunt her for a long time to come.

She backs the hell away and glares at me.

And there it is. I lie down and cover my eyes with my arm. How the hell did Skyla Messenger end up in Chloe Bishop’s bedroom? Just what the fuck are the odds?

“It’s not like you knew me then,” she whispers, as if she were mournful that I didn’t. I wish I could make her understand that I would have given anything for it to have been her I shared that special moment with, not Chloe, especially the way things turned out in the end. “Just tell me about the touch, how we can hear.” She sounds exasperated, ready to boot me from her bed without so much as a kiss.

I glide my hand over her bare arm before replacing it by my side.

“I think we should do this with words.” I press a finger over my lips, wishing I were touching hers instead.

“Afraid to let me in much?” She says it like a dare. I wonder what she would do if she knew I could withhold my thoughts from her at will—that I seem to hold a secret from her at every turn. I doubt she’d believe any of this was in her best interest.

I shake my head. “More like, afraid to hear you.” It comes out slow, measured. “It happened twice with Chloe and me. It was stupid. Chloe and I…” I wish I could take it all back, every last kiss. “She wasn’t the right person for me.” I interlace our fingers soft as feathers. “By the time she disappeared, we had already broken up, which put me at the top of the suspect list.”

Her eyes widen at the prospect.

“Tell me what Michelle has.” She pleads, taking the spotlight off me as one of Paragon’s most wanted, if only for a moment.

“Her diary.”

“Oh.” Her forehead wrinkles with concern.

“She left something in it for me.” I pull a bleak smile. “Anyway, when I get it, you can read it if you like.” I pull her hand in close.

I would like that.
She nods into me, solemn—honest, and it evokes a smile from my lips.

“So what about me?” she asks. “This thing?”
I don’t want to talk about Chloe anymore, like, ever.

“This thing.” I give her fingers a gentle squeeze before she snatches her hand back. “You said your dad did it?”

“Yes. My mom and sister can’t.”

“Your dad ever talk about his family? Do you know them?” I have a feeling her dad had a few secrets of his own.

“Just my grandma. She lives in a nursing home back in L.A. My mother left her there to rot.” She sighs into the thought.

“She ever talk about angels?”

“All the time, but she’s senile. The doctors said it was one of her fixations. It was nonstop angels everyday, all the time.”

“Well, she might not be as senile as everybody thinks. The only other people that share our gift have Nephilim blood in them.”

“Nephilim?” Skyla leans back as if I were about to give her a rare disease.

“Angels who chose their lust for women over their desire to remain on the frontlines for God. They came down and started families as if they were human.”

“Are you saying I’m part Nephilim?” Skyla’s chest rises and falls at a quickened pace, and it makes me want to lay over her to keep her from jumping out of her skin.

“I think so, but I’ll have to take a small vile of blood to be sure.” Here’s hoping she isn’t squeamish—but I’d bet large bills she is.

“You’re kidding, right?” She eyes the door like a caged animal. “I can’t stand the sight of blood.”

“Well then…” A silent laugh trembles from me. “You’d make a lousy vampire.” I called squeamish.

“And where do you send this vial? Angels-R-Us?”

“My uncle runs the mortuary. He has access to testing.”

“Your uncle runs the mortuary? I thought your family ran the bowling alley.”

I want to tell her it’s just the tip of the odd family iceberg, but don’t.

“My father owned the bowling alley. My uncle had it under management until he could pass it to me. I’ve been running it into the ground ever since I was fourteen.” I’m not entirely sure why I didn’t just dive in and explain to her about Barron, my iffy past life, the fact I’m technically Gage’s uncle and another age entirely. “I never claimed to be good at anything.” And apparently disclosing vital info tops the list.

“Fourteen?” Her lips curve at the edges as if she secretly approves of my adolescent ability to gut myself financially.

“I had help. Still do. But back to the topic at hand.” I produce a bevy of third-world hospital equipment from deep in my pocket—a lighter, a scalpel, and a small glass vial to store her blood. “Are you ready to get the answers you’ve been looking for?”

Skyla’s face turns ashen as though I had just powder-bombed her with my words. Her lips quiver out the idea of a smile.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” I say, touching the scalpel to her skin.

I glance up at Skyla as she closes her eyes. She pulls back her neck and bites down on her bottom lip.

Here I am, penetrating Skyla Messenger with what amounts to a rusty razor, and she looks as if she’s locked in passion—go figure. 

I flick the vial until the dark fluid bubbles to the top before taking up her hand.

Maybe next time we’ll get the penetration part right.

She opens an eye, looks at me, and we both share a laugh.

Gage

All the way home, Logan is quiet.

We hang out downstairs, and I put on a movie, but neither of us seems too interested in it. Logan keeps spacing out, and I can’t focus on anything but the inadvertent image I have stuck in my head of the two of them tumbling beneath the sheets.

“So what happened tonight?” I toss the bone out there to see if he’ll bite. Logan has never been shy to divulge details, but I already know this situation with Skyla is different.

“We hung out. I got the blood for your dad.” He adjusts the pillow below his head and reverts his gaze to the television.

“So that’s it? You hung out?”

“That’s it.”

He glances over at me with a devilish grin playing on his lips.

Knew it.

“She kiss you?”

“Not tonight.”

The words go through me like a spear. Who the hell am I kidding? I figured it happened that night at Ellis’s, anyway. It looks like Logan and Skyla are already in too deep. Just the idea of them sharing something intimate like a kiss lights me up like a flare—nothing but a blowtorch of jealousy.

“I take that back.” He feigns a bored look, a classic signal that he plans on jerking me around. “There was penetration.”

“Right.”

“No, really. It happened—just me, Skyla, and a needle.”

I nail him in face with a pillow while he laughs his pretty boy ass off.

A tremble of laughter rails through me as I fill with relief. Not that I would peg Skyla for someone who sleeps around, but this is Logan we’re talking about. He could do whatever he wants, with whomever he wants—or at least he’s convinced himself of this.

“So, dude”—he grinds his palm into his eye—“you gotta let this go. I’m not joking. Look, I’m trying to be as nice as possible. The last thing I want is get into it with you because of some girl.”

“
Some girl
? Do you feel anything for her, or are you just introducing her to the island by way of your body?”

“I care about her.” He sighs, locking eyes with me as if this were about to get serious and quick. “I want to know her better. I feel something—there I said it. But I know that you feel something, too, and this is going to suck in a big fucking way if you don’t find someone else to set your sights on—like fantasy girl.”

I lean back and take him in. Logan has always had everything handed to him—the bowling alley, the quarterback position, the girls. Of course, he’s eaten his fair share of a shit sandwich, too, like losing his parents. But for some reason, fate has decided to compensate him with what amounts to the Midas touch when it comes to everything else.

“Fantasy girl.” I murmur.

“Yes.” He nods. “Focus on her. Your visions are never wrong. You’ve waited this long. Hell, you turned Chloe down stone cold because of her. I say hang tough, bro. I have a feeling she’ll be showing up any day now. Rumor has it there are tons of new girls coming to West this year.”

“Right.”

“You know what you should do?”

“What?” I flat line. I’m just playing along at this point, but Logan’s got his head tucked so far up his ass he doesn’t notice.

“You should write her a poem or something. You still keep that diary?”

“Journal—dude, it’s a journal.”

“Good. Start journaling again, and get all your feelings down on paper. That way, when she walks into your life, you can sit her down and read to her how much she means to you already.”

“She’ll think I’m a stalker.”

“She’ll think you’re a sweet stalker.”

I shake my head at his lunacy.

I’ve kept a journal for as long as I remember. I’ve taken a stab or two at poetry, but I’ll be the last person to share that with Logan. God knows I’d like to write a poem over Skyla’s lips with mine.

“Who knows”—Logan pipes up again—“you might even have her in a class or two next semester.”

A class or two...

An idea comes to me, and I have a feeling it’s going to be far more effective than poetry.

6

Logan

My Girl

A grey, sterile sky throbs up above as a smattering of sprinkles fall over Paragon. The vault of heaven holds back its torrent of affection, teasing the parched soil just enough to make her want it, beg for it.

Barron asked me to bring Skyla by the morgue this afternoon. Barron wants to talk to her, clue her in gently as to the gravity of the situation.

Gage was reluctant to cover my shift once he learned where I was headed. It wasn’t so much the
where
as it was the
with who
. It’s as if he’s afraid to help me out. He thinks working the lanes at the bowling alley will somehow enable my relationship with her. I was hoping I had drilled home the fact Skyla and me are going to be together, that he should point his hard-on in another direction. Who the hell could have imagined that Gage and I would be after the same girl? Thank God Skyla isn’t confused over which one of us she wants to be with. It’s just too damn bad Gage is choosing to learn the hard way.

I give her hand a gentle squeeze as we walk past the cemetery into the long marbled halls of the mortuary. She smiles up at me, but there’s a nervousness about her. Just being here freaks her out. She’s already streamed a riot of protests in her mind, and I can’t say I blame her. Hanging out with a bunch dead bodies isn’t exactly high on my list of ways to kill an afternoon.

I put up the missile shield around my thoughts—only letting her in when I have to. No point in making her listen to my nonsensical and oft sexually charged musings. 

We step into Barron’s office, bright and clean, the slight scent of vanilla warming the air.

“Skyla, this is my Uncle Barron, Gage’s dad.” Crap. I need to stop mentioning Gage in the event her affections decide to curve ball in his direction.

“Nice to meet you.” She takes up his hand, still holding mine with the other.
He has a warm glow about him. He’s tall and shares the same stunning blue eyes as Gage.

Gage? Stunning blue eyes?

My stomach pinches at the thought of Skyla feeling anything for Gage—for noticing those freakishly blue eyes God gifted him with, as if the dimples alone weren’t enough to drop the ladies to their knees. It’s one thing for Gage to notice Skyla, but it’s another animal for Skyla to reciprocate. I shake the thought away. Gage does have stunning eyes. She was probably just making an observation.

Barron motions for us to follow him down the hall.

“Come into the kitchen.” He holds the door open and we head inside the palatial room filled with machinery and a series of stainless bathtubs that house the most recent dearly departed.

Skyla glances over at the covered body lying in state, and her face bleeds out all color.

“Chin up,” Barron barks. “Sorry”—he offers a brief smile—“I’m short on smelling salts.”

“No, it’s okay,” she whispers like it’s not.

I hand Barron the vial from my pocket.

“You have any other gifts?” he asks, observing the sanguine plasma in the light.

Skyla gazes into the vial and loses herself in the necrotic color, black as midnight with the hint of a crimson hue.

“Gifts?” Barron addresses Skyla once again, awaiting his answer.

Other than the mind reading,
I tell her.

“Um, no. I don’t think so. Do you?” She looks at me confused by the conversation.

“A few.” Although, I’m not eager to share. Some of my gifts are rare and others are from another faction all together. I don’t think we’re ready to go there yet, maybe not ever.

“What you have, Skyla, is a ‘unique’ gift.” Barron gets right down to brass tacks. “It’s the trademark of a special faction of Nephilim known as Celestra.”

“Celestra.” She annunciates it slowly, and I memorize how she looks when she says it. Discovering who you are for the very first time is monumental. This is a paramount moment in her existence, and I’m not sure she fully grasps it—but I’ll be sure to cherish it. It was as if I’d heard her first word. It sounded sensual coming from her lips, sexual.

“Most Nephilim around these parts are Levatio,” Barron continues. “Once in a while, you roll the genetic dice and you get a win.”

“A win?” She looks amused.

“Celestra is the highest order of earthbound angels.” He nods. “They have the ability to rule and other amazing gifts that have left them the most loathed faction this side of the universe.”