Evanescent - By Addison Moore Page 0,85

whatever reason they’ve decided to keep hush hush, and I don’t see the point of outing them just yet—if ever.

Nope. My strategy to win Laken back for good is quite the opposite. Stay one step ahead of the enemy and draw Laken closer to me by opening up my entire world to her.

I take her up by the hands and kiss them in tandem.

“Are you ready for a night you’ll never forget?”

“Are you ready for a night you’ll never forget?” She twists in her shoes as if she were making an offer. “I might have a little surprise cooked up for us later myself.” She licks her lips like a promise and my dick perks to life.

My hands slip over her sweater safe from the confines of her eavesdropping mind.

“I’m looking forward to every single moment this night has to offer.” I pull her in and hold her for a good long while.

It sounds like Laken is ready and willing to take this relationship to a whole new level.

I should be over the freaking moon, but something has me rattled.

I press a quick kiss into her neck.

Screw it. I’m game for whatever it is that Laken wants to give me.

Hell, I’ll encourage it—beg for it if I have to.

I take her by the hand and lead her toward the bloody brick road.

“Off to see the wizard.” Laken chimes without missing a beat.

“Something like that.”

And the wizard’s name just so happens to be, Skyla Messenger.

10

Tenebrous Terror

Laken

A darkness you could feel, solid to the touch, surrounds Wes and me as we make our way further from Henderson Hall on this, the unholiest night of the year.

Wes leads me past the dumpsters, down the rolling lawn and behind a circle of evergreens that stake themselves in the center of a clearing, proud and erect, as if they were the overseers of Ephemeral.

He pulls me between three trunks with soft, coconut-like husks and holds me. He runs his hands over my back, warming me the way old Wes knew to do. If I close my eyes and numb my heart he could still be the same boy I once cherished, the one who put his seal over me with that first simple kiss.

“Is this where you wanted to take me?” My body shakes, my heart flutters like a kite lost in the wind—ready to crash and burn and take me along for the ride.

“Not quite.” Wes presses his lips together, and his dimples dig in deeper than I’ve ever seen before. My stomach squeezes tight at the sight of him. For a moment he’s my sweet Wes again. Wesley Parker, the boy I’ll always love.

A horrible sadness grips me because if I’m right, this night will prove beyond a doubt that my version of Wesley is already too far gone to ever come back. There’s no way in hell my Wes would hurt another living soul.

“Remember how I told you in the beginning that Celestra needed to be overrun so that the Countenance could reign over the Nephilim people?”

“Yes.” I remember that psychotic day in the library when I first arrived. And to my surprise there was no shortage of psychotic days after that as well. “I believe your exact words were, ‘they would be eradicated by prom.’”

He gives a dull laugh. “I’m not sure about that anymore, but I need you to understand they’re a real danger to our people. Even though they’re smaller in number they’re very, very powerful. They’ve held supremacy over all Nephil races since the beginning of time, Laken. They cling to old ideas. They hold out their authority without credence to what the other factions might want. It’s a dictatorship that has to end.”

“Sounds corrupt.” I try to strain all of the sarcasm out of my voice. Wesley really does know how to paint a nasty picture. And if there were no Celestra tunnels, no haunted woods where they sucked the prisoners dry, I might have sided with him. I might have done so if my mother, my sister, and the others weren’t down there, but this is all inexcusable now.

I take up his hand, so I can pry into his thoughts like he did mine when I first arrived.

“Laken, where I’m going to take you isn’t pretty. It’s scary, and there are souls down there who are undergoing very real suffering.” I can’t sugarcoat this. If honesty is my new policy, then I need to open the door as wide as possible.

He smiles as if he’s added