“No need to whisper. They can’t hear you.” A devilish smile glides up the side of his face. “Or should I say,
we
can’t hear you.”
“Oh my, God.” I march right up to the edge of the bed.
“Like a closer view would you?”
“No.” I shake my head, but I can’t take my eyes off the two of us. His body gliding over me in a steady rhythm just like in those visions, the soft moans choking from my throat. I watch as Marshall lifts my hand high over my head and presses in as I let out a strangled cry of pleasure.
He slips his arm around my waist and pulls me in. My entire body sighs into his.
“Why don’t we delve a little deeper just this once,” he whispers.
“Just this once,” it quivers from me.
In a moment, I’m whisked away. It’s dark, my eyes are closed, and I can’t seem to pry them open. A body lies over me as hips grind into mine while my face is peppered with heated kisses.
“Oh, Marshall!” I hear myself say.
Marshall
? I panic for a moment as my eyes open and confirm my theory. There he is, lost in all-consuming lust as he pants over my mouth, his eyes heavily glazed over as he gazes into mine.
What the hell just happened?
What better way to experience the ecstasy than inside your own mind as it takes place?
His body flexes with mine. His heated skin melts over my stomach, and both the present and future me groan in unison.
He starts in on an open-mouthed kiss that plunges us into another fit of pleasure so rife with passion that it’s nearly impossible to want to evict myself from the here and now.
A hard protrusion scrapes against my thigh, and my legs part far too eager to accept whatever burst of passion he’s willing to give.
Game over, Dudley. The picture is perfectly clear. We get it on in the future.
And?
he asks as if I had left out one crucial detail.
And I enjoy the hell out of it
. Damn it. True story.
Marshall pauses from his tongue-lashing while looking down at me lovingly. “Skyla,” he whispers, intensifying his gaze.
You know I’m here.
Of course, I know you’re here.
He smiles from above.
You know you’re here as well.
Really?
I suddenly want to ask myself a million questions, like who will I choose—but given the present situation, I think it’s pretty damn obvious.
“Love me, Marshall.” It pumps from me like a dying plea.
Marshall dives down with his entire body pressing into mine as a searing heat ignites inside of me in the most intimate of places. I press him in by the lower back and feel the sting as a burst of rapture spasms inside me. My legs tremble as he burrows in deep.
The room warbles, the molecules rearrange themselves until we appear in another room, Marshall and me at the foot of another strange bed. He wraps his arms around me from behind, and we watch the growing mound of sheets rise and fall until I peer over the bare shoulder of the man on the bed and realize Marshall and I are at it yet again in the future.
Marshall whisks me from scene to scene—me in a corset, the two of us in the barn, the beach, the woods behind his estate, on horseback, a car, the base of Devil’s Peak, deep in the ocean, an unfamiliar high rise, whips and chains, leather and lace, an entire litany of long drawn out bedroom scenes, bathroom, kitchen, dining room table, the entry, the hall, rooms in Marshall’s palatial estate I have never even seen before and then, as if starting from the beginning—an entire montage of hot scenes that encompass time travel as a factor, ages and stages of human history proliferated with our love, so graphic, so amazingly beautiful I can’t look away.
“Marshall,” I say it breathless, my body still quaking from his touch. “That was so incredible.”
A gavel sounds, and I look in the direction of the clatter to find my mother seated with the Justice Alliance. The erotic rooms filled with our love are all but gone, replaced with the Elysian Fields. My mother and her panel are seated high over a lake that reflects the lavender sky.
“What was so incredible, Skyla?” My mother rises to greet me.
“Yes, Skyla.” Logan pops up beside me and reels me in. “What was so incredible?”
***
A nest of lightning goes off like a crown of thorns above the altar my mother and her three counterparts sit at. The two men that look startlingly like Marshall act as her signature bookends, then there’s Rothello, the love of Logan’s grandmother’s life, with his long dark hair, a patch over one eye. Weird.
“Can they hear me?” I whisper to Marshall. It’s happened before when my thoughts ran rampant through the ethereal plane without my permission.
“Consciously block them out. Listening in is strictly for visitors that have no place here. You have destiny, you’re the victor in the war of their making—you belong here as much as they do.”
“Be seated.” My mother sounds the jade gavel in her hand as those next to her lower into their vaporous thrones. Her gavel glows a gentle shade of sea foam as she strikes it liberally against some invisible surface. I take in her sparkling hair, those clever haze-filled eyes. Her sharp beauty is a contrast to this paradise of sorts. Had I ever looked so alarmingly gorgeous to others? Did I ever fill the space around me with an otherworldly beauty that both startles and stuns? Am I even remotely capable?
Logan pulls me down to the grassy knoll and settles me in his lap. He nestles his face in my hair, brushes his lips up and down my neck, and I’m a bit surprised by the brazen moves he’s choosing to pull, right here in front of my mother.
“This is all your fault,” I whisper to him.
Marshall steps toward my mother and bows his head as if placing it on a chopping block, as if giving into a conviction he’s yet to receive.
“It was worth it.” Logan blows it hot in my ear like an erotic poem.
“Sector Marshall, the court has convened.” My mother clears her throat. “Let us review. Under the list of grievances falls, coveting a human and entering into a covenant with her, meddling in dealings that neither effect nor progress the Kingdom works, and finally—aiding a human in resurrection after a severe beheading without the proper authority.”
“That was Michelle,” I whisper. “If Marshall goes to hell for that I’m going to rip Miller’s head off all over again.”
Logan chuckles, and his chest rumbles over my back. It feels so good like this with Logan. It’s almost as if we’re right back where we’re supposed to be. Marshall and those indecent light drives pop back into my mind, and I swat them away before Logan catches a glimpse.
Mom sounds her gavel, and this time I note it’s morphed into clear crimson like that of a ruby. “How does the celestial court find Sector Marshall?”
“Not guilty.” I jump to my feet as Logan groans beneath me.
My mother averts her gaze in frustration. “I wasn’t speaking to you, Skyla.”
“I’m sorry, but I think my opinion matters. That man—that
Sector
, protected me on occasions where my own mother left me out to dry, quite literally. And if that doesn’t make it clear, let me say it this way—he didn’t hesitate to save my ass time and time again.”
The entire celestial sphere takes in a collective gasp.
“
Skyla
.” My mother sharpens my name over her tongue. “
Enough
. You are his bride. You have no jurisdiction to testify either for or against him. Everything you say shall be dismissed.” She glances to her right and left. “Disregard the outburst. I demand you to forget every word from my daughter’s lips regarding the matter.”
“No,” I sound off like a siren. “Rothello?” I take a few steps in his direction, and the lake ignites in a current that promises a painful, rather prolonged death by way of electrocution. “You loved, Jean.” I glance back at Logan, a little proud that I remembered his grandmother’s name. “You broke the same rules as Marshall. I bet if I dug a little deeper I could rattle a few proverbial and literal skeletons in your face.”
“She has a point.” One of the Marshall twins peers down the aisle at his comrade in once-upon-a-human arms.
“Are you through?” My mother glares as if she’s about to liquefy me with her disappointment.
“For now.” I step into Marshall and take up his hand.
Good show, right?
Oh, Skyla,
it depletes from him with the utmost sorrow.
Apparently, you will never learn.
“Now”—my mother’s lips spread in a thin line—“where were we? Oh yes.” She says it bored as if she hadn’t forgotten at all. “The matter of conviction.” The four of them talk amongst themselves nodding and coming to a rather quick conclusion. “Says one, says all?”
They give a unified shout, “
Guilty!
”
“What does this mean?” I whisper to Marshall. I’m panicked over this. None of this would have happened if it weren’t for me, and perhaps Michelle. But then again that was mostly my fault, too.
It means whatever they want it to mean
.
“Sector”—my mother stands—“step forward.”
Marshall and I take a few strides toward the lake, and a sizzle of electricity bites through our hands separating us quite painfully.
“Just Sector Marshall for now.” My mother gleams a wicked smile. “The high court finds you guilty of malfeasance and charges you to relinquish your standing in the holy of holies, banishing you to mortal servitude—living out your days shunned from the people of your allegiance. All that’s been entrusted to you must be returned prior to the announcement of the victor of the faction war where your garments and trinkets will be entrusted to another. Here are the items you are to return immediately: your wings, the Chalice of Visions, and the Eye of Refuge. Failure to do so will result in the termination of your being.”
“You have come to a formidable conclusion.” Marshall nods into their obvious bullshit.
“Skyla!” My mother’s eyes spin with fire.
I try to erect a mental block, strong as steel, to keep my mother from prying into my private musings, but it’s useless. Besides, she should totally know how pissed I am right now.
“As I was saying,” Marshall continues. “It is just and right. I shall return the wings, and the Chalice of Visions at once. As for the Eye of Refuge, it is no longer in my possession,” he says it sharp as a razor directed to the stringy-haired Rothello.
“I passed that hedge down generation after generation, and it was safe until your lady love gifted it to her bumbling relative.” He turns to glare at Logan.
“And you blame me for this?” Rothello gapes. “You placed it as a wager during the soft war and lost. Don’t point the finger when you, yourself, laid it at my feet. Besides, it almost made it to your bride. It came very close. You should be proud,” he purrs as if he were mocking him.
“What soft war?” I whisper.
Marshall ignores my question. “A close second that has become a danger to us all.”
“Is Chloe the danger?” I scuttle forward and take up his hand.
“This doesn’t concern you, Skyla,” my mother bleats.
Marshall huffs. “This very much concerns her. Everything points to her very being.”
“That’s enough.” She darts a finger at Marshall, and my hand goes limp as he disintegrates, first to a shadow, then he’s gone, evaporated into thin air.
“Oh God, no!” I cup my hands over my mouth in fear.
“No cursing in the house of the Lord.” Mother smiles, pleased with the sentence she’s administered. “Sector Marshall has been escorted to retrieve his things.”
“He doesn’t have the protective hedge, and, for damn sure, Chloe won’t give it back. You can’t just zap him out of existence for something so ridiculous.”
“I can and I will,” she challenges, as the ring of lightning in the sky turns an amazing shade of purple. “He has until the Decision Council reaches a conclusion. That, my love, is called
mercy
. Do you wish to say anything else?”
“Yes. I’d like a moment to speak with you alone, you know, a little mother-daughter bonding time.” Where I pepper her with questions and shake the shit out of her until she answers every single one.
“Denied.” She holds her false smile a little longer than necessary.
My mouth opens in disbelief as Logan takes up my hand and clears his throat.
“I have another complaint to file against the Justice Alliance,” his voice booms across the nebulous expanse like a drum.
“Also denied.” She frowns into him a little annoyed—for sure she’s not as annoyed with him as I am. “Once you’ve filed a motion, it needs complete resolution before you may file another.”
Skyla, tell your mother you want to file a motion.
“I would like to file a motion.”
What the hell am I filing?
Tell
her you want to bring the Counts to the Justice Alliance over the resurrection of the eighty-nine Celestra.
“I would like to bring the Counts to the Justice Alliance over the resurrection of the eighty-nine Celestra and possibly more that I’m unaware of.”
“Skyla”—my mother crimps a sad smile as if she were sorry for me—“we’ve discussed this already. It falls under the Prisoner of War Act.”
Tell her the act is fraudulent. The Counts stole souls from the ethereal plane. As far as I can tell, the earthly plane is the one the Justice Alliance can’t intercede in
.
“Those Celestra were drawn from the ethereal plane. You and I both know, the Prisoner of War Act is only valid on Earth.”
Way to sound confident
. Logan gives my hand a squeeze of approval.
The not-so fantastic four confer with one another before returning to their upright,
uptight
positions.
“Very well.” Candace narrows her steely stare over at my being and sends an ice bath flushing through my veins. “Is this what you wish, Skyla? To bring to court an entire faction of Nephilim brothers?”
Mia and Melissa, Brielle and Ellis run through my mind.
“No, I suppose not.”