Table of Contents
Title page
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Teaser: Ephemeral
toxic
part one
Addison Moore
Copyright © 2012 by Addison Moore
addisonmoorewrites.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Addison-Moore/140192649382294
https://twitter.com/Addison_Moore
Cover by Addison Moore Publishing
Editors: Amy Eye, Sarah Oaklief
This novel is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to peoples either living or deceased is purely coincidental. Names, places, and characters are figments of the author’s imagination. The author holds all rights to this work. It is illegal to reproduce this novel without written expressed consent from the author herself.
Books by Addison Moore
Ethereal
(Celestra Series Book 1)
Tremble
(Celestra Series Book 2)
Burn
(Celestra Series Book 3)
Wicked
(Celestra Series Book 4)
Vex
(Celestra Series Book 5)
Expel
(Celestra Series Book 6)
Toxic Part One
(Celestra Series Book 7)
Ephemeral
(The Countenance 1)
To my family,
thank you for letting me live in my imagination.
Preface
Love can play host to rich delusions. It stifles reality and skews the truth to meet our insatiable desire to be wanted, longed for, needed. It waxes poetic on destiny and soul mates with thoughts of forever and happily ever after pinned high on its wings. Love affords you the luxury of a unique brand of trust, an intimate level of confidence that solidifies two souls as one. It unifies them under the false banner of all things holy and right.
I gave my heart away in exchange for beauty and a song. I put a hook through my nose and leashed it, handed the reigns to the one who held my affections and gave him permission to lead me astray. It was the scourge of my youth that bore a thousand different sorrows.
Deceit. The grey clouds of deceit clotted my world. The battlefield moved from heaven to my heart. It came at me from all directions at once—an entire landscape of smoke and mirrors. Deception in acres spawned heartache for miles. This was no ordinary illusion. This was the severing of a lover’s cord. The death of a pure and righteous love I believed in.
I bought into the calm still waters that surrounded the one that I loved and entered in, but the current pulled me under and swept me away—dangerous—inescapable.
A rainbow of truths finally emerged. It pushed the darkness away and thrust us back into the light.
We held our faces to the sun only for a moment before death clapped over us like a bridegroom snatching away his betrothed.
Death is a promise incapable of deception.
It tells the truth. You were destined to die from the moment you were born. It makes no promises, holds no delusions. Your corporal form was never meant to linger—only love, in theory, is capable of withstanding time and memoriam.
Love promises happily ever after, it boldly professes forever—but delivers only one thing—a reckless brand of hope.
Chapter 1
After the Fall
Chloe spears us together in one svelte move—the spirit sword’s blade as sharp and deadly as her beauty. She bleeds venomous hatred as she drills the elongated razor into Logan’s back. Her necrotic laughter bubbles to the surface like a demon’s choir.
Logan and I illuminate from the inside a perfect sterile blue. My body trembles, a warm buzz vibrates throughout my veins and carbonates my blood. I look past Logan’s shoulder at my beautiful Gage—my helper, my everything, my deceiver—and mouth the words, help me—my forever.
Chloe lights up the fog between us with her anxious breath. “Here’s to happily ever after.”
The stone opens up, swallows Logan and I—the blade still skewering us together, holding us secure.
“Skyla!” Gage’s voice goes off like a gong, reverberating through this timeless tunnel of embers in one desperate cry.
Logan wraps his arms around me, pulls me in until his lips crash against mine.
We fall forever.
We search for happily ever after, but it never comes.
***
The darkest night—unimaginable sorrow. Searing pain blooms throughout my abdomen. It livens me with a white-hot jab that tempers the shock, the magnitude of the heartache Gage bestowed upon me. I would rather Chloe skin me alive ten thousand different ways than live through a deception so cruel.
Logan whispers something soft, soothing. His words come in spasms, a rhythm all their own. He’s chanting, praying, petitioning a higher power as we continue to plummet with the sword still needled through our bellies. Logan and I are one, unified in every way. Captured by the Counts, our every nightmare finally realized.
I coil myself around him tight—my body locking up at the joints. This is my forever—one with Logan and the Counts. Wherever we land, whatever torment Demetri and the rest of those bastards have for us, I won’t leave Logan for a minute. I’ll die before they separate us. I’d run through a fire for the ones I love if I knew it would save them. As long as Logan is by my side the Counts haven’t taken everything.
Falling in this dismal abyss, my new reality sets in and pierces me with a pain greater than the one delivered by the sword itself—Gage is the enemy.
This is the hour of the Counts. Everything is lost, covered in sorrow and mourning. I had little faith this time would come—that this moment ever had the power to exist. There was no anticipation, fear, or agony in preparation. This was the unthinkable, the impossible unfolding, every microsecond as unbelievable as the next.
A bloom of light sharpens at our feet as we pick up speed.
“Skyla.” Logan’s voice claps like thunder.
His body twists. He lays his strong hands over my shoulders and bears down on me with insurmountable pressure. The thick cords on his neck morph into cables of aggressive affection—painful and erotic. His beautiful face, knife-sharp cheeks, and eyes that glow like embers lie over me. They study the landscape of my features as gravity wraps its arms around us—pulling us down, heavy as lea
d.
The light below races to greet us. I brace myself before landing hard on my back with a jolt, and my head reverberates off the ground like a melon. A cry gets trapped in my throat, as the breath is crushed from my lungs.
The bloodied sword jumps from Logan’s back and lands rather unceremoniously by our side.
Logan heaves over me, panting loud, searing breaths directly in my ear. “Skyla?” He rolls off. “Skyla, open your eyes.”
I struggle to breathe, to think, to feel.
I give a few unsettled blinks before the world fades to a comfortable shade of pitch.
I’m falling again, this time in my dreams. It feels safe in this netherworld, locked in slumber, and for a moment, I wonder if this is what death feels like—if I’ve discovered it like some invisible horizon I’ve been chasing all along.
A familiar face appears from the nothingness—ruddy and tall, so gallant and strong—my father.
“Daddy!”
“Skyla.” He shouts my name like a reprimand. His brows knit in horror as I take a bold step forward.
A large field emerges, alive with color. The shade is an incomprehensible emerald I’m not sure exists in the natural order of things. Flowers dot the field in exotic pinks and purples. They sing a hymn—buzz their choir of praise for all to hear.
“You need to leave,” he barks at my celestial infraction.
“No.” Running to my father is a pleasure—a treasure. This isn’t a dream. This is real. This is more real than anything I’ve ever experienced before.
“You can’t stay.” A younger woman with her hair twisted up in a chignon appears beside him. She wears a smile perfumed with peace. Her features look strikingly familiar—I know that face, those mysterious sky-washed eyes.
“It’s you!” I marvel at my grandmother in all her eternal glory. “You’re so beautiful,” I say it breathless, lost in her unblemished features. Both she and my father hold the gift of youth, neither older than thirty.
“Please, don’t stay,” my father begs. His loving eyes bow in sorrow, his voice wrapped in all of the pity he can muster.
“You can’t stop me.” I land safe in his comforting arms. His entire being emits a vibration, so soothing and calm, it rivals anything Marshall is capable of producing. This is love. It pours from him, saturating my soul with his ceaseless affection. I take in his familiar scent—hold the frame of his body, strong as a tower. “I love you so much.”
His voice drips with grief. “You need to do something for me.”
“Anything.”
“Go home.” He bores the words into me. “Write this down and remember it. Each day I want you to look in the mirror and say, ‘I’m as pure as gold.’”
“I’m as pure as gold?” I look up at his sun-drenched features kissed by the strange light that ignites this new world.
“Pure as gold—I promise.” He drops a kiss on the tip of my nose.
“Take me somewhere.” My entire body yearns to run free and explore this alien mural come to life. “I want to see everything.”
“You mustn’t stay.” My grandmother touches my hair. “It’s not your time.” Her eyes reflect silver pools much like my own. I’ve never seen her look so beautiful, so regal—elegant as royalty.
“You still have work to do, Skyla.” Dad nods with a grieving smile. “I’m going to scare you now. I want you to wake up. Do you hear me?” He holds me back by the shoulders as he morphs into a thing of horror.
I let out a viral scream that rattles through every existence I’ve ever known.
A sharp quiver runs through me, and I bolt up in bed. A cold sweat trickles down my cleavage.
“Hey—” A hand smooths over my bare stomach. “It was just a bad dream.” A seam of blue moonlight falls over the man lying next to me. I recognize those infectious dimples, that ebony-glossed hair—Gage.
He pulls me down toward him and drops a soft kiss on my cheek.
“It was my dad.” I pant. “He had this giant eye on his forehead. It was just blinking out into nothing. Scared the hell out me.” The image of my father, the Cyclops, brands itself into my memory, deep into my subconscious as a tool of torment for later.
A soft rumble of laughter thunders from his chest. My leg washes over his, and I’m all too aware of his hot flesh, the soft hair on his shin—his bare thigh. It’s not until he pulls me in and covers my body with his that a slight rail of panic spirals through me. I seem to be just as unclothed as he is.
“Where are we?” I flex up my elbows, trying to adjust to the dark.
The walls, the bed—it’s all in the wrong configuration. I don’t recognize this bedroom, and it disorients me.
“Come here.” He jostles me by the knee as if to wake me up from my slumbering stupor. “I’ll remind you.” Gage lands a searing kiss over my lips—wet kisses that stream forever. His body arches over mine, his stomach relaxing against me.
“What are you doing?” I slap my hands against his chest in an effort to keep him from sticking the landing.
A peaceable smile comes over him. His dimples dig in deep, turning into twin black pools under the anemic stream of moonlight.
“You’re my wife, Skyla.” He dips a quick kiss to the tender skin below my ear. “We do this all the time.” He pushes my knees apart with his and nestles his body over my hips with his weight. The singe of his skin against mine sets me ablaze, and every inch of me detonates with pleasure.
A light explodes over me. I’m in another room—another dream.
Blinding light, white-hot pain.
“You can do this.” A male voice pants in my ear. He sounds familiar, but a fire gnaws at my insides like a train derailing at a million miles an hour. I cry out in pain, and the room fades to grey.
The gentle roll of the ocean fills my ears, as the scenery changes again. My feet sink into warm sand as the beach greets me with its wide-open arms. A tiny hand squirms in mine. A blond head bobs beside me. A beautiful little girl stands level with my hip. I look up to find Logan holding the other small hand. He smiles over me and winces into my confusion.
“Another perfect day.” His voice swims with a melody all its own.
A clap of darkness overcomes me as the scenery morphs.
I’m in bed with Gage again. He writhes over me, plunging a passionate kiss on my lips. He has me surrendering all of my formidable anger—all of the charges against him are dropped in an instant. I would worship at his feet all night long for him to love me like this under the cover of darkness with all of his smoldering affection, his heated skin over mine.
“Skyla,” a voice whispers tender in my ear.
My eyes grit like sandpaper as they struggle to open.
The room takes shape, altogether different than before and I’m fully awake.
A warm leg hinges around mine.
I look up and see a bare chest, then follow the contour of his neck to his face. It’s not Gage lying beside me this time—it’s Logan.
Chapter 2
Room for Two
The lights are on. Logan and I lie side by side on a bed smaller than my twin. My body glides over the sheets, slick and cold, devoid of any clothing. I pull the covers to my chin and scoot against wall in a feeble attempt at modesty.
I peek beneath the velvet cloth that acts as a blanket and affirm my theory.
“I had to take off your dress.” He offers a threadbare smile. “You were bleeding, but the wounds healed. Are you in pain? Do you feel weak?”
“No. I feel…” I reach to the back of my head. “I feel fine.”
“Good.” Logan lets out a sigh. “I’ll give her one thing, she managed to miss vital organs and spinal cords—we have that to be thankful for.”
The idea of a laugh rumbles in my chest. I can’t find it in my heart to be thankful for anything having to do with Chloe. She’ll forever be the vindictive witch who linked Logan and I together with Demetri’s haunted blade.
“I had these weird dreams.” I reach u
p and pat my fingers along the high ridge of his cheek. Logan is weathered, older—noble like his light-driving self. “You’re so handsome,” I whisper. I stop shy of mentioning Gage, the way he defiled me as his wife. “Are you OK?”
“Don’t worry about me. You’re the one with an egg the size of a softball back there.” He adjusts the pillow under my neck.
The room forms around him. It comes into focus with its black-and-white checkered floors, cathedral stained-glass window emblazoned with two fighting lions, and a ceiling that rises eternally to the sky. A bookshelf lines the back wall of this tiny cloistered space, smaller than my room back on Paragon. Dozens of novels and board games sit unattended, watching over us in stacks.
A water globe the size of a cantaloupe sits proud in the middle. A tiny black serpent glides along the inside, slithering from end to end as if looking for a way out—probably Demetri’s dick.
“Where are we?” The words reverberate in my skull like a cymbal.
“I’m guessing the Celestra tunnels.” Logan secures the blanket between us like a barrier, runs his hand over my thigh before relaxing in the divot of my hip. “I’ve heard Barron mention them. He was glad that at least our parents weren’t dragged off here.”
“Oh great.” I groan. “So basically you’re saying this is a fate worse than burning alive.” Not the outlook I was hoping for.
I take in the fairytale-inspired room. It hardly seems capable of delivering such a grizzly fate.
“I tried to break down the door and shatter the window.” He shakes his head with futility. “They’ve got the mother of all binding spirits guarding this place.” He slides his hand up over mine and presses out a wry smile. Can you hear me now?
Yes, I say.
“That’s all we’ve got left. No other powers work down here. Other than telepathy, we’re practically human.” He twitches his brows as if this amuses him on some level.