Chapter 33
Skyla
The rear yard of Ellis Harrison’s estate is just as packed as inside, but at least out here the music is slightly muffled and the air doesn’t taste like a brewery exploded.
The Harrisons’ backyard is gorgeous on a normal day, with its perfectly manicured landscaping and expensive outdoor furniture, but tonight it’s been transformed into a soggy teenage paradise.
Bodies writhe in and around the glowing blue pool, while an entire herd of teenagers sprawl across the lawn in various states of intoxication—and undress.
It’s a wet and wild night, and not a young soul here is complaining about it.
I spot Brielle sitting by herself on a patch of grass near the pool house, looking way too deep in thought for someone who usually treats thinking as an optional activity. The fog rolls in thick and dramatic, swirling around the place as if it’s auditioning for a horror movie.
“Mind if I join the meditation session?” I ask, sidling up next to her on the damp grass.
“Only if you promise not to give me any more relationship advice,” Brielle shoots back without bothering to look at me. “I’m still recovering from your last batch of bad wisdom.”
“When have I ever given you relationship advice?”
“About five minutes ago, when you told me Drake was destined to marry me and we would live happily ever after. Then he all but gave me the finger because of it. Very helpful, by the way. It really cleared things up.”
I wince. “Right. Sorry about that. I guess light driving makes me say weird things.” Also known as the truth. Or at least they were true until I ruined everything. I suppose Brielle really is onto something.
“Sure, light driving made you do it,” she grunts. “You always seem to find a convenient excuse.”
Rather than try to explain things I don’t even understand myself anymore, I look out at this time and place and marvel at all the things I know full well that are happening all around the world right this minute.
“You know what’s really kind of interesting?
Wesley and Laken,” I say as I lean in. “They’re somewhere in that haunted academy of theirs right now.
Laken is pining for Wesley like the thirsty girl she is, and he could have her so easily.
But Wes is too stubborn to care. He’s sticking it out with Kresley, a girl he’s not even destined to be with.
Will he obsess to have Laken desperately once she sees the light and chooses to spend her days with Cooper?
You bet. But right this minute, that boy could swallow her whole, and she would be oh so happy.
I guess that goes to show, sometimes it takes losing someone to see how much they really mean to you. ”
Brielle blinks at me with a vacant stare. “Cool,” she says. “Who are these people, again?”
“Oh, right. You won’t meet them until much later. And even then, you won’t be all that interested in them.” Bree sort of can’t stand Laken due to some ridiculous bestie power struggle going on in her mind.
“Speaking of interested.” She hoists her shoulders back and bounces her boobs my way. “You can’t just keep stringing Gage and Logan along. Some people are interested in your sloppy seconds. Drop one like a bad habit, would you?”
Clearly, she didn’t get the Skyla-and-Gage-are-just-friends memo.
I inch back. “Wait, are you interested?”
What’s this? Another light driving curveball?
“Heck no.” She makes a face. “I’ve got your stepbrother on my mind and in my pants.” She gives a hearty wink.
“At least you’re consistent.” I don’t dare ask what happened to the biker felon. “So who’s lining up for my sloppy seconds?”
“Chloe.”
“Oh, she’s consistent, too. And spoiler alert: I know exactly which Oliver she’s hoping I’ll toss her way.” Not that I have to do any tossing. Apparently, Gage is volunteering for the effort. “The fact that she marries him still gets under my skin.”
She gasps so hard I think she sucked up every Solo cup in the vicinity.
“I am so telling Chloe that!”
I groan hard. The last thing I meant to do was motivate Chloe. I’d say that explains a lot, but then she never needed me to prod her outright obsession with my future husband.
“Bree, wait—” I start, but she’s already bouncing to her feet with the kind of manic energy that assures me I just lit a fuse I can’t put out.
“This is going to be so good,” she calls back as she heads toward the house. “Thanks for the intel! This is definitely worth more than the usual rate!”
That’s right. Brielle was on Chloe’s payroll as far as extracting dirt from me went. And she wonders why I have Laken on standby as a second bestie.
I watch as my so-called best friend trots off to share information that’s about to make my life suck infinitely more.
A flicker of a couple traipsing by catches my attention, and my eyes widen when I realize just who that couple is.
Chloe has somehow managed to lure Gage away from the crowd, and they’re standing together under the massive oak tree at the far end of the yard. Even through the fog, I can see her wrapping her arms around his neck with the kind of possessive confidence that makes me want to commit federal crimes.
At least Bree hasn’t shared the good news yet. I rise from the lawn and pause for a moment, contemplating how best to approach my first intentional homicide.
Gage spots me as his eyes find mine across the distance, and there’s something almost defiant in his expression as he deliberately turns away and lets Chloe start nibbling on his neck as if he were a tall stack of pancakes and she was bringing the syrup.
The betrayal hits me in the gut, sharp, immediate, and devastating. I know he’s only doing this to hurt me, to prove some point about how much I hurt him with Logan, but knowing that doesn’t make it any less effective.
Tears blur my vision as I push through the crowd. I need to get out of here before I do something spectacular and embarrassing, like march over there and rip Chloe’s perfectly styled hair out by the roots, right before I commit the aforementioned homicide.
Instead, I run.
I sprint across the street to Marshall’s mansion as if my life depends on it, my heels clicking against the pavement as tears stream down my face. The front door is unlocked, and I burst through into what can only be described as a historical reenactment of Girls Gone Wild.
The ghostly piano is playing like mad, keys dancing in a frenzied melody that matches the chaos of the scene. Marshall’s seventeenth-century sluts are everywhere. Their colorful satin gowns and elaborate ringlets make the whole place look like a time portal gone awry.
They’re laughing and drinking and generally carrying on as if they belong here, which they probably do by now, seeing that Marshall is turning this into a weekly event.
And in the center of it all stands the King of Coitus, the Sultan of Seduction, surrounded by a circle of women who are pawing at him as if he’s some kind of supernatural prize—which, face it, he totally is.
His hair is slightly mussed, his shirt is unbuttoned just enough to be dangerous, and he’s got that look on his face that suggests he’s enjoying every delicious minute of the attention.
Sorry, Marshall, but not tonight.
Tonight, I need your attention because I need answers, and I’m done being patient about getting them.
I march straight through the crowd of historical harlots, grab Marshall by the front of his shirt—plant my lips over his hard—and kiss him with enough force to make my ancestors feel it.
The vision hits immediately.
Images flash behind my closed eyelids like a broken movie reel—faction wars raging across Celestra, power struggles that make our previous conflicts look like children’s games, and a future where everything I know and love has been torn apart.
But the most terrifying part isn’t the destruction or the chaos.
It’s the absence.
My children are nowhere to be found. Eden, Jaxson, Nathan, Barron, Sage—they simply don’t exist in this timeline. It’s like they’ve been erased from reality itself, leaving nothing but empty spaces where their laughter should be.
I finally break away from Marshall, gasping and shaking with my worst fears confirmed.
Candace Messenger isn’t trying to protect our future—she’s trying to rewrite it entirely.
“I entered into a covenant with my mother,” I pant out the words in disbelief.
“You entered into a covenant with hell,” he says sharply as his eyes bore into mine.
It takes a beat for his words to register and for me to realize how intensely he means them. Marshall rarely gets worked up over anything, and he is certainly worked up about this—not in a good way.
“Oh my goodness,” I say, lower than a breath as the reality sinks in. “No.”
“Yes,” Marshall growls back. “Chin up, Ms. Messenger. You survived a war with the Counts. You can certainly survive your mother.” He raises a brow as if he were posing a question instead. And ironically, it’s a question I’m not sure that I have the answer to.
“Skyla?” someone says from behind, and I turn to see both Gage and Logan standing there with a look on their faces that lets me know they’ve seen it all.
Logan glares at Marshall, then at Gage, too, but Gage doesn’t know that.
Poor Gage doesn’t know a damn thing.
Heaven help, because right now I get the feeling I don’t know a damn thing either.
My mother has really done it now.
Sometimes the people you trust most make the best tour guides to Hell—they know all of your weak spots and exactly which lies will get you there the fastest.