He nods in my direction as Grayson disappears for a moment and heads over.
“So who did this to you, man?” Coop slaps me gently on the back as he examines the stitches running up the side of my face.
“Logan and Gage Oliver.” Their names roll off my tongue, rough and hostile, like drilling a jackhammer.
“You sure they’re not from Rycroft?” Coop ticks his head back. His jaw redefines itself as if he’s good and pissed on my behalf.
I know Coop well enough to realize what he’s up to. He’s memorizing their names, running it through the super computer that functions as his memory bank to see if he recognizes them. We used to be friends Coop and me. Good ones.
I shake my head at the thought of losing what we had over my incessant jealousy. Coop would do anything to help me out, anyone out, for that matter—he’s just that nice.
“Coop”—I step in and take a breath—“you’re one of us. You’re like a brother. I don’t want there to be weirdness between us anymore. I miss tossing the ball on the field and hanging out after you ran a perfect game. I really appreciate your concern with my new face, but the guys who did this,” I pause and press out a dry smile, “they’re from a couple years in the future. It’s some bullshit I got mixed up in, and they’re just doing what they think is right. I’ll get ‘em back though.” I’ll be damned if I let those two ass-wipes get away with ever laying a hand on me.
“Get a hold of a supervising spirit, and lets get out there.” Coop crosses his arms like he’s ready and rearing to go.
“It’s not that easy. We need a willing Celestra.” I leave out the part about my supervising spirit being an ass who doesn’t believe in doing me any favors.
Coop doesn’t say anything.
Laken emerges from the kitchen with Carter in tow. They head straight over to Jen who is noticeably without either of her spit-swapping partners.
Cooper runs his eyes over Laken. He’s drinking her down, lusting after her without the ability to control it in my presence. He blinks away and swallows hard.
It’s becoming clear he’s less interested in Grayson than I thought.
“So I hear Laken knew that girl.” He nods. “Weird how that all went down.”
I stare at Coop a really long time. Maybe now is the time to call bullshit, but I decide against it.
“It’s sad. I hope they find her family soon.” I pan the room for Blaine. “So you and Grayson, huh?” I knock into his shoulder with mine, and it elicits a riot of pain in my abdomen.
“Can you blame me?” Coop swallows a laugh, and I’m not sure if he’s kidding or not.
“You know, we should hang out more,” I say, tossing the bone out there. “We should take the girls to dinner. Laken is still new. I know Kres has been giving her a hard time, so Grayson’s probably not too far behind. I’d like to see them get along.”
Coop loses his friendly demeanor, and for a moment I wonder if a second ass kicking is in the works for me. He manufactures a dry smile that lets me know he’s not enthused with the bonding session I just proposed.
“Yeah, let’s do that. I think it’ll be fun.” He continues to openly glare at me. “I’d better go find Grayson. I’d hate for someone else to try and step into my shoes. Someone might end up looking like you if they tried. Is that what you did, Wes?” He lets out a playful laugh. “You try to steal someone’s girl?”
Skyla comes to mind. She’s beautiful but doesn’t hold a candle to Laken. For a second I envision Laken tied up and stretched out while Gage has his way with her neck, and my blood begins to boil. I shake the thought loose.
“Maybe I did.” I give a quick wink as he takes off. I did something a whole hell of a lot worse than trying to steal someone’s girl—I hurt her.
Laken doesn’t hesitate to bring me upstairs once our lips begin to overheat. The party rages on, and I’ve kept an eye on Flanders all night. As far as I can tell, he seems genuinely into Grayson—the way he holds her hand, her waist like they were a couple.
I noticed Laken stealing a few glances in their direction herself. I’m sure it hurt her ego a little to see he wasn’t pining for her anymore. It’s got to feel good knowing two different guys want your affection, so maybe that’s all it was to her. I’d hate to think maybe she was really into him. Kres pines for me, and I’m not remotely “into” her anymore. After I turned her down cold the night she showed up in my bed, I knew Laken put an end to that relationship for good. An image of Kres burns through my mind, naked—complete with a shiny red bow.
Laken looks right at me, her mouth falls open with surprise.
“What?”
She makes a face. “We’d better find a way to lock the door.” She picks up her backpack and leans it over the crack.
“How about this?” I say, wedging her chair under the doorknob. “What was that look for?” I tease.
“I’m just”—she shakes her head—“I’m too far gone.” She covers my lips with hers.
“Just a second,” I say, walking her backward over to the bed. “Anything here that might clue us in on who the hell Pearl was?” Everything looks the same. Girls’ dorms are always pretty neat, so maybe the trash could afford a clue or two.
Laken pulls me closer as if she knew where I was going with this.
“Who cares? It’s so depressing I can’t even think straight.” Her eyes tear up. “I’m sure they’ll find something, or her Mom will call the authorities. Right?”
“Right.”
A bedroom blinks through her mind, and I wince trying to place it. It held an off campus appeal, but Laken doesn’t get out much.
Shit. Laken untucks my shirt and slips her iced fingers over my flesh.
I trace the outline of her lips with my tongue and pull back in time to see her blush. Laken puts to shame any of the iconic beauties ever immortalized through art in ages past or present.
“I’m dying to sketch you.” I press a kiss just under her ear, and she gives an involuntary moan. “Without your clothes. Would you let me do that?”
Her body goes rigid. An image of Kresley lying naked on my bed flashes through her mind, the red bow tied in a proud sash across her midsection just as I had seen it.
I pull back and examine her without allowing a single thought to sail through my brain.
“Sketching me in the nude? I don’t know about that.” Laken shivers as though the idea scares her.
I sit down and untie my shoes.
How in the hell did she peg Kresley so correctly right down to the fucking bow? I glance up just as she straddles me from behind with a knee on either side of my waist. She dips a kiss down over my shoulder, and all thoughts of Kresley quickly dissipate. Maybe it was my thought. Maybe I was just replaying the scene from the other night.
Skin on skin, that’s the only way Celestra hear one another. Laken isn’t Celestra. There’s no way she heard me, or saw what I was thinking. It’s probably just a coincidence. I bet a big red bow is how all girls envision gifting themselves to their boyfriends. But Laken wasn’t thinking of herself—she mirrored my thoughts exactly.
I stiffen at the thought of Laken reading my mind. There’s got to be a way I can test her to be sure.
“So…” I lie over her and interlock our fingers, tight like the bear trap it is. “Other than the tragedy, how was your night?”
“Excellent because I was with you. How’s your lip? You look tragically hot by the way.” A sexy gurgle trickles from her throat.
“Why thank you.” I take her in, still stunned by the fact she bounced back an accurate image of Kres in her birthday suit. “I don’t want to be anywhere else except right here with you. You’re the most beautiful girl on the planet.” I land a kiss over her nose.
Sometimes I wish she would say I love you first. In a way, I think it would mean more. I appraise her for evidence of eavesdropping.
Laken, bites her lip and looks away for a moment.
Nothing. My chest swells with relief.
&n
bsp; “Love you,” I say, giving a chaste kiss before examining her from this vantage point. “Halloween is coming up. I’ve got something special planned for the two of us.” I flood my mind with images of Laken and me engaging in some of the most explicit sex acts I can think of and gauge her reaction.
“Holy shit, Parker.” She rumbles with laughter. “You are such a dirty perv!”
My muscles tense up. My heart beats erratic.
“Why’s that, Anderson?” I don’t say a word about her mixing up my sir name again. I’m resigned to the fact she can’t keep it straight.
“Halloween. You know”—she moves her hips beneath mine—“that’s kind of strange, don’t you think? Not the most romantic night in the world.” She begins to nuzzle my neck, and I don’t object.
“What made you think I was talking about sex?” I growl out a laugh. “I think it’s you who needs to get her mind out of the gutter.”
“You’re a guy, Wes. It’s a known fact you’ll spend your entire adult life wading through ‘the gutter.’ I bet you envision naked girls wrapped in bows all day long. It’s practically a vocation you’re called into. Your testosterone status alone demands it.”
I roll off and lie next to her, my hands up by the headboard safe away from her prying mind.
She did it again.
What the fuck just happened?
Long after midnight—instead of heading to Henderson—I take a lonely walk over to the library, passing Asterion in all his Minotaur glory as the fog shrouds him in mystery.
I don’t like the idea of Laken having secrets. I don’t have secrets. In fact, the surprise I have set for Halloween has to do with eliminating that very thing. It’s going to be Laken and me, bonding on an adventure she’ll never forget—the Tenebrous Woods. She’s a Temple Treasure, so Edinger can’t deny her. Not that I’d go crawling to him for permission. Besides, he made it emphatically clear he doesn’t want to speak with her under Count authority. He should have thought about that before lopping off his head last month and holding it out to her like a bowling ball. He’s such a stupid shit. He talked in circles about having fun with her. He said he knew about her injury and couldn’t resist. I didn’t appreciate the stunt, still don’t.
I pass Asterion nice and slow. His eyes glint a silent blood red, and I don’t remember him looking this evil in the light. There’s a fierceness about him. Asterion seems pissed to hell about everything. It unnerves me to walk past him as if he might animate and rip me to pieces for the heck of it.
The library is lit up in the distance with its cathedral windows, glowing as if the place were on fire. It’s an optical illusion created through the stained glass, and I can’t help but wonder if the artist had that in mind when he designed it—the fire, the burning tower. It makes Ephemeral look downright demonic.
Laken was thinking of a room tonight when we went upstairs. I’ve seen that room before—a guy’s room, but I can’t quite place it.
I take the steps up to the library two by two and use the master key to let myself in.
The reserve lighting is enough to guide me toward the back, and I enter the “by invitation only” room before locking myself inside.
Rows and rows of leather bound books on the history of the Countenance—heck all five angelic factions, line the shelves with their gleaming, gilded spines—books on the Countenance, Deorsum, Levatio, Noster, and of course Celestra. They shine in this low light like celestial bodies that belong in the sky.
Celestra, A Lineage. I pluck the book off the shelf and thumb through it, searching for names, dates, places that might offer a clue as to which Celestra might be aiding Laken—or if, in fact, she is one herself.
“Anderson,” I whisper, looking up her last name as if thumbing through a phonebook. I take a seat, settling in for the night.
“No such luck?” A disembodied voice grumbles from across the table.
“Shit!” I bounce back in my chair. “You’re going to kill me one day. You know that?” I scoot back in, pissed at the dark-haired demon slowly materializing before me.
Edinger sits with his signature haughty sneer, his deceptive smiling eyes.
“I would never kill you, Wesley. I’ll always be on your side, forever.”
Makes me wonder why.
“Okay then”—I slide the oversized coffee-table read in his direction—“tell me what you know. What Celestra helped Laken pry into my mind tonight. And if she is one herself, you’d damn well better fess up. I don’t like being left in the dark.”
If Laken has any Celestra in her, I wouldn’t need to venture into the wickedness that resides in the Tenebrous Woods. I could turn a blind eye like the rest of my kind and put my focus where it belongs—on Laken herself.
For a moment I imagine myself loving off her neck, how fucking erotic it would be filling my mouth with that salty explosion.
“Turn down the volume on the erotizing would you?” He grumbles while expertly dotting his finger just under a name. “This one. Here’s the mother of your culprit.”
I spin the book my way and pull it in.
“Michaella Duff.” It sounds foreign on my tongue. I’m pretty sure I’ve never heard it before.
“Nee, Duff,” he growls. “Perhaps you’re more familiar with her married name?”
A cold chill rips through my body as Edinger takes me the long way around the proverbial block.
“What’s her married name?”
“Flanders.”
7
Sweet Little Lies
Laken
Late in the night, after the entire homecoming debacle is over, Coop drives us to his house in thick, sobering silence. A sturdy green sign reads, Welcome to Heaven as we drive the final few miles past the dimpled dogwoods with their fiery red leaves.
Cooper looks so damn handsome in his suit with his hair gelled back, his warm cologne pulling me in like fingers. I’m still wearing my red dress, my sky-high heels, but I tossed some clothes in my backpack for the morning which I don’t normally do. I could have changed, but something in me wanted to impress Coop with my formal wear, my geisha-like makeup that crosses the border between glam and transvestite. I’m craving Coop, calling out to him like a lost child in hopes for his stray attention.
We could have left earlier if it wasn’t for Jen. She was so distraught over the “duel for her affection” she couldn’t see straight, so I helped her down to her haunted suite. She conked out before her head hit the pillow and good thing because I was close to slapping her silly for letting the histrionics carry on a little too long. I don’t think I’d lose my mind like she did if two boys were fighting over me. I try to envision a scuffle between Wes and Coop. I get lost for a moment in the imagery of angry faces, tangled limbs, split lips while the room erupts in expletives. Something sensual enlivens in me at the thought of the two of them going at it on my behalf.
“So”—Coop nods in my direction as we make our way through the white picket fence—“everything go okay with Wes tonight? You looked like a beauty queen—still do.”
A warm rush filters through me as I blush head to toe. Coop knows how to make me feel like a princess.
“Thank you. And it went fine,” I say as we make our way up the porch. It feels great like this with Coop, coming home with him night after night. His bed feels more like my own than the one waiting for me at Austen House. “I saw you talking to Wes earlier. Anything you want to share?” I’m almost afraid to ask.
“He was feeling me out.” Coop opens the door and lets us in. “He was playing it cool but started asking about Grayson. He wants us to go on a ‘double date.’” Coop mouths the words with a silent laugh. He takes up my hand and electrocutes me with a jolt of excitement. Coop leads us through the dim lit house as if we were on some covert mission. So I guess it’ll be you and me, and him and Grayson, he teases. You think they’ll make out in front of us?
Ha, ha. Very funny. The thought of watching Grayson rub up against Coop all night makes me wa
nt to vomit.
Coop pulls me in and gives a remorseful smile. His cologne sweeps over me, seducing me in ways I could never imagine. Coop rakes his breath over my cheek. For a second our eyes lock, and I’m not sure what the next moment will bring.
“I’m not into Grayson,” he rasps it out in a hoarse whisper.
I wonder if I should reciprocate and say the same about Wes, but my lips seal themselves together instead.
Coop presses his hand in the small of my back as he leads us deeper into the house. A nightlight glows from the kitchen, and it affords the entire downstairs a suburban romantic appeal.
A shadow appears in the living room. “You’ve brought a guest.”
I jump behind Coop nearly taking out his shoulder.
“Dad.” His voice increases in volume and rocks me out of the quiet fantasy world we were spinning through a moment ago.
“Hi, Dr. Flanders.” I maneuver next to Coop, more than slightly embarrassed. This can’t look good. “I have the DNA samples,” I say it boastfully as if that were my sole purpose for being here—as if I always wore a short lace dress on my scientific dealings after midnight.
“Perfect.” Dr. Flanders says it rather sternly as he adjusts his wire-rimmed glasses. He’s wrapped in a blue flannel robe with his house slippers on, and it makes me uncomfortable to see him this way. “Come with me,” he says as he leads us to the back office.
He flicks on the small desk lamp, and the room illuminates enough to make me squint. I glance up at the wall where the family portrait hangs and take in his mother with her fair coloring, her smooth easy smile. I want to memorize her. I want to recognize her if I somehow end up in those Celestra tunnels.
“Laken?” Dr. Flanders blinks in my direction. “Would you like to give me the samples?”
“Oh yes,” I say, pulling the plastic bag from my backpack. “It’s mostly hair, and I stole her toothbrush.”