Toxic Part Two (Celestra Series Book 7.5) (13 page)

Horrific screams ring out all around us. Their tortured voices race through the forest and sizzle along my nerves. You can feel their terror, plain as air. You can taste the fear. The hint of metallic-laced fright is most likely the byproduct of years of blood-let—Celestra blood misting the air with its misery.

Shutting down these tunnels has become be my life’s mission—already I know this. Although, accepting the challenge seems to acknowledge the fact the Counts will never step off their pedestal of wickedness, that even after the faction war, if we do win, they won’t change their spots to please me.

“Come on.” I take up Logan’s hand and race toward the demented cells they house in these nefarious woods. We find most of them empty save for a few poor souls on their knees with their heads bent in defeat. But it’s Lacey that I look for.

“What are you doing?” Logan pants to keep up.

A tiny face peers out of the dark in the most distal cell on the path and I let go of Logan and dart over.

“Lacey!”

Her affect brightens. Her hair looks heavily matted and her face blotched with red patches as if she’s just finished a serious crying jag.

A woman stands behind her, a brunette with anxious eyes and she pulls Lacey to the side protectively.

“What do you want?” She snipes.

“I’m here…” I stop short of saying
to help
. “I just want Lacey to know I’m still trying.” I slip my arm through the bars and Lacey sets her plump hand in mine. “I’m Skyla.” I look back up at the woman. “They take my blood, too.” It comes from me as the most sorrowful admission.

“Do you know the others?” The woman sharpens her gaze over me. “Are my daughters here? Laken—
Jen
?” Her face is rife with worry but my blood runs cold when she says Laken’s name, and I snatch my hand back from Lacey in surprise.

Ingram appears like a grey blotch of unhappiness and disrupts the non-festivities.

“I’ll be back,” I whisper, blowing Lacey a tear-filled kiss.

“Elysian, direct your subject to the trail,” Ingram barks like the impotent dog he is.

Logan pulls me by the waist and lands us on the main path dusted with a lavender patina from the moon above. A blue mist settles around us. It’s some sort of signature weather phenomenon the Counts are privy to. It’s probably a Fem. I’m probably inhaling its wickedness into my body and polluting my cellular structure with every breath I take.

“You’re both wet.” He leers at the disc hanging from my neck with suspicion before looking from one eye to the other with a cautious discrimination.

A vision comes to me as our eyes lock, a young woman, beautiful—eerily familiar. He calls to her and they engage in a heated argument. He accuses her of never loving him. She hoists up an ax and admonishes him with the threat. Its sharpened blade glistens like a seam of lightning, a promise she’s determined to keep.

“Take her through the woods.” Ingram steps back, dismayed. “There’s a rope tied to a Cedar. Secure her,” he instructs while running his finger along his electronic clipboard.

Logan clasps his arms around my waist as he moves me through the thicket. The leaves crush beneath our feet. Each step seems to elicit a new cry from somewhere in this ebony hell.

Wish Ezrina was here instead of you
, Logan laments.

Ezrina! That’s where I saw the girl.

I turn to look at Ingram.

That’s right. When Ezrina was here, she was markedly pissed at him.

Oh my God—Logan. I think Ingram was Ezrina’s ex-husband. Nev once said she went on to marry a “daft fellow.”  

Logan glances back and eyes him before continuing down the narrow trail.

Sounds like Nev was kind with his description. No wonder Ezrina spit in his face.

She said she never held it against him for what he did,
I say.
I guess the burning question is, what exactly did he do?

I don’t care to find out.
Logan yanks a long rope dangling from the anemic trunk. Ingram highlights the area with his sallow glow and I step over willingly.
I can’t,
he shakes his head.

Logan
, I plead and give a gentle nod.

I glance over at Ingram. “Is Wesley here?” God I hope it’s him. The thought of yet another stranger suckling off my reserves makes me want to vomit.

Ingram waves to his left revealing Wesley, the Gage imposter. He steps out of the shadows with his hair slicked back and an apprehensive look on his face as if deep down inside, he knows what an egregious error gnawing on someone’s neck really is. Fucking moron.

“You can tie me up—Master,” I say to Logan, “but I’m not going to fight you.” The words stream from my lips like a haunted whisper from someone else entirely.

“The rope isn’t necessary,” Wesley says, making his way over.

For a moment, I’m half convinced Logan is going to go animal all over him and tear his flesh apart like I once saw him do to a Fem disguised as a lion.

Wesley leans in with those emerald glowing eyes. His spiced cologne wraps itself around me like a heavy coat. He dots my neck with his lips before looking back up at me, and I gasp.

“You may not kiss me,” I hiss. “You may never kiss me. I will rip your balls through your asshole and shove them down your throat if you ever even think of doing that again.” I might be moved to renege on my offer to not go ape shit all over his
Countenance
and really make him resent not tying me up. Of course, they’d probably skin both Logan and I alive because God knows he’d involve himself in any altercation that’s associated with me.

“I wasn’t kissing you.” Wesley twitches his brows the same way Gage does. It makes me wonder if Dr. Oliver had made a genetic deposit to some long gone girlfriend before he married Emma. “You’re beautiful, Skyla,” he whispers, “but my heart belongs somewhere else.” He tilts into me. “I was going say thank you for trusting that I wouldn’t hurt you.” He offers a bastardized version of a sarcastic smile. “And I won’t.”

He sighs into my neck, nuzzles into me like he were my boyfriend—as if the threat I just gave wasn’t potent enough to shrivel his balls. He claws at me with his sharpened canines until the blood begins to flow.

Wesley dreams of his Laken—her long wavy hair, the barely there skirt of her cheer uniform. She sways her hips for him on the football field. She’s not good by the way. Brielle could have aced those moves in her ninth month of pregnancy if she wanted.

She’s very good
, he corrects.

The team charges from the field. A crowd fills in around her and she falls into an embrace with a handsome football player. They exchange a passionate gaze while enjoying the fruit of a stolen moment.

Wes mulls the scene because he can’t stop obsessing over the implications of what it might mean.

The football player buries his face in Laken’s neck, takes in her scent and her face ignites with pleasure.

I open my eyes and look at Wesley as he writhes over my flesh. This is getting awkward fast.

I can feel all of his emotions, his hurt, his shame, the confusion that he can’t escape.

Wesley pulls back and licks a seam of blood about to run down his lip as he washes over me with worry.

“Do you think she loves him?” He needles me with an aggressive stare as if I might truly know the answer.

“Maybe.” I should have said no. I should have lied, but I was ground down to nothing with both Gage and Logan’s own blood-let of my heart. Telling the truth felt like the only way out.

“It’s impossible to love two people at once,” he says it mostly to himself with defeat written on his bloodstained lips.

“No, Wesley. It’s not,” I say it sharp like a reprimand. “If you want to avoid it, don’t put her in that position. Figure out what she needs and give it to her before someone else gets a foothold in your relationship.” It makes me sick to be espousing Demetri’s diatribe.

I glance over at Logan and he gives a solemn nod.

“I’m through.” Wesley disintegrates to nothing while staring me down with those haunting eyes.

Logan speeds over and pulls me out of harm’s way in the event another Count decides to pop into the vicinity and suck me dry.

“Be gone.” Ingram states without looking up from his futuristic tablet.

And we disappear.

Chapter 71

Shadows in the Night

The stars peer out from a thin veil of fog high above the Cape like it were a game, as if Orion had God-breathed air in his lungs and his bow was hungry for their splendor.

Logan and I kick our way to shore, leaning side by side on his surfboard while I tell him about Wesley’s strange thoughts. I clasp the disc around my neck to make sure it arrived safe and sound through the dimension of grief the Counts saw fit to drag us.

“Lacey’s mother asked about her other daughters and one of them was named Laken. I think it’s the same girl, Logan.” I’m sure it is.

“Might be. So you think she’s Celestra? Her boyfriend’s too polite a Count to turn her into a drinking fountain?” He makes a face. Logan doesn’t hide the fact he has a special brand of hatred brewing just for Wesley.

“I don’t know but I do know one thing”—a sly smile twitches on my lips—“I recognized the boy she was pawing on the football field. It’s that Cooper guy—our wartime buddy who keeps cropping up.”

“Cooper, huh?” Logan shakes his head. “Sounds like Laken has her hands full.”

I glance away a moment because I happen to have my hands full, too. Although, Wesley is a rat and Laken should run the hell away from him. Is Gage a rat? Should I run the hell away from
him
?

“You sure you’re OK?” Logan helps pull me out of the water as we make our way up the damp shore.

“I’m telling you, he didn’t take more than a couple of gulps. Maybe he was grateful for the relationship advice.” Who knew Demetri’s incessant lip flapping could produce anything worthwhile.

“He probably took off to kick Cooper’s ass.” He gives a weak laugh and pulls me down to the sand. “I should take a cue from my least-favorite Count.”

I’m not sure if he means Demetri or Wes, but then Demetri isn’t a Count at all.

A choir of voices erupt, as the party closes in on us. The thunder of footsteps drum against the beach as they run to meet us. Bodies emerge from the shadows, intertwined and falling over one another as they tumble their way down.

“Here you are!” Brielle shouts. “OK—one, two, three!”

Every available set of lungs howls
Happy Birthday
at full capacity and the cheery song echoes into the night with its own joyful vibration. I’m sure they can hear it all the way back at the Landon house—even as far as Michelle in that ominous mirror. A round of shouts and whistles break out as the crowd disperses. Half of the bodies file into the water, splashing and screaming as they pass us by.

“How does it feel to be eighteen?” Brielle kicks Logan in the leg before falling down next to him.

“Same as seventeen.” He stretches his arms up over his head, slow and lethargic—like a bear coming out of hibernation.

“We’re all legalizing ourselves this year.” It puffs out of her in vapors. “You and Gage are next.” She looks from me to someone over my shoulder. “You guys should do something big like go skydiving together.” Brielle shakes the sand out of her copper locks. “You know, ’cause you’re a couple and all. You’re ‘lifer’s,’ I can tell.”

Logan expands the whites of his eyes at the thought of Gage having me for life. 

I glance back at my cellmate in question as he perches himself on a boulder. The clear look of hurt clouds his features as he glances down at my waist. I hadn’t even noticed Logan’s arm still snug around me. Gage looks like a god who has just been dethroned. 

Logan casts a glance from me to Gage with a look that could transform butter knives into lethal weapons. Not even the waves can penetrate the silence.

“Did I say something wrong?” Bree knots up her lips trying to decipher what the deal is.

Hell if I know. Gage is a liar and Logan is the thief that took off with my heart—jammed a war between the two of us because it was the only logical solution. Nothing ever makes sense on Paragon. 

Logan hops up and dusts himself off. “You’re right. They should do something big. Sometimes a big marker comes along—a birthday, a war—and everything changes. Sometimes life makes the change and sometimes others bring it for us.” Logan hardens a look over at his nephew. “I better check on my truck. Thought I heard someone say it was a good idea to flip it.”

“I’ll come with.” Brielle lifts a hand and Logan helps her up.

I watch as they melt into the shadows, leaving me vulnerable to Gage and his questionable verbal and physical trappings.

“Wanna go for a walk?” He hops down off the freckled granite and offers me a hand.

I get up on my own and slap the sand off my thighs. Might as well get this over with. 

***

Gage tries twice to interlace our fingers. I have to give him props for checking to see if the first time I recoiled was just a fluke.

We meander past the boulders, past the howling screams of laughter, and off to a quiet sandy area secluded by a wall of overgrown foliage.

“What’s going on with you and Logan?” He says it sad, slow, as if he were reading the eulogy of who we once were.

“I was taken by the Counts.” I dust a finger over my neck.

“Skyla”—he spins me into him—“you’re bruising.” Gage looks over my injuries and sags. “Let’s get you to my dad.”

“He didn’t take much.” I shake him off. “See? Still have my strength.” Never mind the fact I feel nauseated and passing out feels like a very real possibility. I’m not in the mood for one of Marshall’s less than in
toxic
ating concoctions this evening.

“What’s going on?” He dips into me. His eyes go off like sirens and my stomach does a quick revolution. I hate how vulnerable I am to his all-out comeliness, his staggering good looks. That dark hair combined with those cobalt eyes acts like an aphrodisiac. “Is this about the war? I would never throw a region to the Counts. It was Ellis. I swear on my sister’s grave.”