Celestra: Books 1-2

  Celestra Books 1-3

  ethereal

  tremble

  burn

  By Addison Moore

  CELESTRA BOOKS 1-3 Copyright 2013 © Addison Moore

  ETHEREAL Copyright 2011 © Addison Moore

  TREMBLE Copyright 2011 © Addison Moore

  BURN Copyright 2011 © Addison Moore

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  Books by Addison Moore

  New Adult

  Someone To Love (Someone to Love 1)

  Someone Like You (Someone to Love 2) Coming 2014

  3 a.m. Kisses (3 a.m. Kisses 1)

  Contemporary Romance

  The Solitude of Passion

  Young Adult Paranormal Romance

  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)

  Toxic Part Two (Celestra Series Book 7.5)

  Elysian (Celestra Series Book 8)

  Ethereal Knights (Celestra Knights)

  Ephemeral (The Countenance Trilogy 1)

  Evanescent (The Countenance Trilogy 2)

  Entropy (The Countenance Trilogy 3) Coming late 2013

  ethereal

  Celestra Series Book 1

  Addison Moore

  Copyright © 2011 by Addison Moore

  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.

  All Rights Reserved.

  For the mafia princess and the backseat boys.

  You mean everything to me.

  Preface

  Falling in love is a lot like death. It chooses you. It decides the moment and the chain of events that will preclude the precise intersection of life in which it occurs. It uses you—treats you as though you were malleable in its warm pliable hands. It doesn’t bother to ask if you want it, or need it, just fills the gaping hole of destiny’s design.

  Love. My world blooms with its beautiful never-ending ache. I would give all of my blood to my enemies to have it completely—if I knew it would satisfy them—if I could live without it. But I know the resolution. I know the end of the story before it ever begins. I must choose love. And for this, I will surely die.

  It is that time in my life—a time for love and a time for death. Fate had intertwined the two, bereaved of any mercy. It is in the architecture of my being, the infrastructure. The pillars of my life had been established long ago—the blueprint written in my bloodlines.

  1

  Move

  A white stagnant cloud surrounds us—fog so thick it makes the world look ethereal—like a relic from some long forgotten place. Our car glides off the ferry, and my stepfather takes the keys from the porter.

  Tad, my stepfather, hands him a crumpled bill in secret. Tad is the cheapest living creature on the face of the earth. I’m embarrassed to look at the porter so I begin with the business of climbing in the car.

  “Skyla,” my mother pulls me back, “let your sisters go first.”

  My sister Mia, and stepsister Melissa, both crawl into the third row of the minivan. I’m stuck with Drake, per usual, my half brother who entertains himself with bodily functions and tries to get me in on the action. He’ll be a junior next month like me.

  My mother thought it was a sign that she and her then boyfriend had kids the same ages, plus two deceased spouses. I’m really happy for Mia since both she and Melissa are going into seventh grade together. Junior high in general is kind of scary, plus she’s off my back now. Before Melissa came into our lives, Mia was constantly bugging me and getting into my things, and now it’s like I don’t even exist. Drake on the other hand, I’m not so thankful for. I’m already aware that his presence will effortlessly degrade my social standing.

  I push in my ear-buds and lean back for the ride.

  Paragon Island is off the central coast of Washington. My mother made a list of odd facts about it and stuck it to the vanity just above my desk, which isn’t there anymore because everything I own has been shipped to our new residence somewhere on the west side of the island. I don’t remember the laundry list of ridiculous facts, just that it’s twenty-six miles in length, two high schools, two malls, and is complete with a load of freaks that specialize in the art of inbreeding. And by the use of deductive logic, some of those freaks will be my classmates—inmates—for the next two years. OK, that last one wasn’t actually on the list, but factual nonetheless. Also, there’s the whole deal about east side, west side, which suggests to me I should be expecting musical gang fights and lots of girls named Maria.

  I already miss my old school—old life. Not that I was super popular or anything, but it was home and what I was used to. No one had any real expectations of me, and I was comfortable in my nonexistent clique of girls. I also miss my dad who died two years ago, whose death is the entire reason my universe disbanded. He was the gravity that kept my sanity aligned. Without him I’m adrift in this world, without a compass and without a home.

  I wipe a lone tear off my face and force myself to take in the landscape—row after row of skeletal trees that stretch to the sky, fog-laden roads illuminated in black and white. Something about this feels right. This is how I imagined the world right after my dad died—lonely—one solid grey scene after the next in some muted old-time movie. L.A. was always sunny, always telling the wrong story, ending with miraculous sunsets that looked like they belonged in a fairytale. It was a murky grey reality that I craved. It’s like this island knows me. It knows me right through to my gossamer riddled heart.

  “Is it always like this?” I pluck out an ear-bud and lean toward Mom.

  “The weather? Rains a lot, too.” She beams her paper white teeth in my direction, her crimson hair fringes her face. She knows how to radiate a smile, how to pull one off even when the situation doesn’t warrant it. I wish she could turn down the volume once in a while, but that would be like asking the sun to tone down its beams. Sometimes I hate how perky she is, like she doesn’t miss dad—like he never existed.

  “Perfect.” I move my lips, don’t let my voice escape.

  Tad points toward a long stretch of homes. These aren’t the run of the mill suburban streets that stamped out Los Angeles like a disorganized quilt. These houses sit on top of long narrow driveways, each on their own perch, nestled in a private forest of pine trees so thick you can hardly make out the structure of the home itself.

  “Third one,” Tad says, hovering over the steering wheel.

  Now would be a great time for the airbag to deploy. I imagine his shocked expression as it explodes into his chest, knocks him backward and breaks his neck. I can practically see the blood trickle from his nose.

  “We’re here,” my mother sings.

  My mouth drops open as we trail up the driveway. It looks massive compared to th
e beach bungalow we lived in back home. A wall of glass looks out at the street below, tall double doors with twin fixed windows set in both—one of them broken. It takes a minute for me to absorb the sheer mammoth size before I realize it’s nothing more than an overgrown cabin. Large fat beams run across the façade, and it reminds me of the Lincoln logs I used to play with in preschool.

  The fresh damp air hits me as I file out of the car, baptizes me with the unexpected scent of eucalyptus. I like it like this—nature all around—perfumed air to greet each day. I think I could get used to living here. Paragon is proving to be morbidly beautiful in its own special way.

  Drake emerges from the car picking at his nose, his eyes glued to the house in a daze.

  Suffice it to say, I’m more than slightly mortified to be forcibly associated with him. Drake is my own personal social suicide, and the sooner I accept that, the sooner I can come to terms with my loner status at the school library.

  “Landon family?” A light female voice calls out from the fog at the bottom of the driveway.

  A thin brunette with her hair pulled back wafts in and out of the fog like a ghost. Auburn highlights electrify her ponytail as she jogs up to meet us.

  “Hi! I’m your neighbor,” she jerks her thumb at the house next door, “Brielle.” Her tiny hand jets out in my direction.

  I reach for her, but Drake sideswipes me. He over exaggerates a handshake, lets her know he’s a douchebag right from the beginning. No sense in saving the surprise for later.

  “Skyla Messenger.” I shove Drake aside with my shoulder and shake her hand like a human who actively participates in civilization.

  She reminds me of the army of Barbie’s I used to play with as a kid, same perfect features—bright green eyes. Except for the hair. I’ve got the requisite blonde hair that you need to survive in L.A. If you’re a female and have access to a bottle of bleach you’re required to go bimbo by the time your sixteen. Lucky for me it grows out of my head this way. I let it grow long after my dad died. It’s him I get the curls from.

  “Come on.” Tad waves us up the stairs onto an expansive porch and the wood groans from the weight of us. A picnic table sits abandoned in the corner with an umbrella is spiked through the center, chock full of spider webs.

  “I’ll give you the tour,” Brielle offers, stepping in before me. She bounces through the door with far more enthusiasm than I’ve had in years.

  Tad and Mom head toward the back of the house, with my mother pointing out how nice everything is and Tad refuting her claims. The girls take off upstairs and fill the hollowed out house with the echoes of their laughter.

  “You’ve been here?”

  “Oh yeah, tons. My friend used to live here.” Her face smoothes out as she stares past me with a glazed look in her eye.

  “Where’d she go?”

  “She died.”

  I stop abruptly, stunned by the revelation. I don’t know why I wasn’t expecting death as an answer. Sometimes it feels as if death is something unique to my family. I keep forgetting its necrotic arms stretch out to the rest of the world as well.

  “You didn’t know?” Brielle takes me by the hand and pulls me up the stairs at a decent clip—her enthusiasm still awkwardly bubbling to the surface.

  “No. So, um, what happened?” Truth is, I don’t want to know. I hate ghost stories by the campfire, and I don’t listen to the news. I can’t stand freaky things so I avoid them at all costs, that’s exactly why I maintain the ability to sleep at night. But this is different. The poor girl lived here once. I should at least care to ask what happened, but Brielle doesn’t say anything just keeps walking with a hop in her step as though she didn’t hear.

  We make our way down a huge hallway with coffee stained walls—cobwebs in the corner, dense enough to qualify as curtains. I watch as the ghostlike tendrils of spider webs long forgotten give a gentle wave from the crevices of the dusty chandelier above.

  Mia and Melissa have staked their claim to the bedroom at the far end, near a set of double doors, which I assume is the master. Drake is already gassing up the one just off the stairs, so I’m left with the one in the middle.

  “Chloe’s room,” the words whisper from her lips. Brielle steps in and drinks it down, wide-eyed and terrified.

  “Chloe’s room,” I echo. An icy chill penetrates my bones. I look around at the dingy rectangle with bare walls and dark-planked floors. A large bay window with a built in bench fills the back wall. It lends the room a romantic appeal in a haunted sort of way.

  “So your friend—” I start in slow. The last things I want is to do is pull the pin on the grieving grenade in the event it’s still fresh—in case her death still stings like hell to think about like it does with my dad. “What did she die of?”

  Brielle’s face bleeds out all color, her eyes widen at my seemingly irresponsible oversight.

  “She didn’t die of anything. She was murdered.”

  2

  Adulation

  It doesn’t take long before I talk my way out of unpacking duties and ditch the haunted house for a quick tour of Paragon Island piloted by Brielle herself.

  The movers pull in just as we leave and I see them haul my old dresser out and hoist it upstairs. It looks so foreign here against the backdrop of the pines. All of my furniture, all of my things transplanted to this unknowable place. It scares me on some level knowing life will never be the same again.

  “They never caught who did it,” Brielle says as we drive down a black velvet highway. “Found her in a shallow grave near the base of Devil’s Peak. It’s weird because we hang out at the overlook all the time.” She pulls her leg up on the seat and steers the wheel with her knee for a good stretch of road. “And there she was right there at the bottom.” Her eyes glaze over as tears begin to fall.

  I’m too busy honing in on her sorrow, matching it with my own over my father to notice we’ve drifted lanes. A horn blares without ceasing and shakes us both back to reality. I grab a hold of the wheel and help maneuver us into the proper lane.

  “Crap!” I’m half laughing. It feels good like this to have the laughter chase the tears away. One more solid second, and we would have flooded the Jeep with a river of sorrow.

  “I’m so freaking sorry,” she says, pressing her hand to her chest. “Trust me vehicular homicide wasn’t high on my to-do list when I got up this morning.” She lifts a finger over at the bowling alley across the way. “Let’s go there.”

  Paragon Bowling Alley, the large neon sign blinks with all the fanfare of some D list joint off the Sunset Strip. It sits across the main thoroughfare, overlooking a jagged shoreline. The sun’s dismal glow illuminates it from behind a mass of dark clouds. It sets over the establishment like an orange ember as if prophesying something about that very place.

  We make our way inside and a violent seizure of light attacks our senses, subtle as a funhouse. The name Arcade Heaven is painted on a plank right above the doorway. The dark cloistered room is lined with video games that blink on an off in a spastic stream of energy. A group of teenagers, mostly Goth looking guys, hunch over the blinking mechanisms making hasty strides with every jerk of their hand.

  “This way!” Her voice rises up over the noise.

  She leads me through the tiny room and into a well-lit expanse devoid of the sensory pollution of the entry. It looks like your average bowling alley with lanes lining the two opposing walls of the colossal structure. A giant squared off cashier’s station sits to our right with a wall of shoes behind it. Every now and again a set of pins knock over followed by a gasp or scream. The place is nearly empty, but then it is a Thursday afternoon in August. I suppose even the village shut-ins take a vacation now and again.

  “Bree,” a male voice spikes from behind.

  We turn in unison. A pair of guys around our age make their way over, both tall, one with gold hair that matches my own, and one with hair the color pitch. It’s the blonde that gets my attention. He looks familia
r and yet I can’t place why. He presses out a smile and my insides explode with head. It feels as though the entire room has lost its light, harnessed all the beauty life has to offer and shifted its lust-filled focus on the two of us. I bask in his perfection, straight Roman nose, sharp almond eyes, broad chest, shoulders as wide as a baseball bat.

  My mouth falls open stupidly, and I can feel the drool pooling beneath my tongue.

  “Guys, this is Skyla. She’s moving into Chloe’s old house.” She gives an apprehensive look. “Skyla, these are the knuckleheads I work with, Logan and Gage.” She waves her hands over them as though they were prizes.

  Logan.

  Immediately I’m lost in his trance—like he’s cast a spell on me and now I can’t look away. It’s simultaneously the most comfortable and frightening feeling in the world. I want to tell him that he’s gorgeous, that he could start a forest fire with his looks alone, but something far more banal escapes my lips in the form of hello.

  “Skyla?” The dark haired boy leans in. “Gage Oliver.” He takes up my hand and steps into me in an effort to capture my attention. He smiles and his face ignites in a set of severe dimples that make me weak at the knees. His eyes are the purest color blue I have ever seen—the color of a cobalt sea off in some exotic part of the world. His stunning features are a work of art, and I’m perplexed that standing before me are two of the best looking guys on the planet. Normally, I would have been ripe to worship at his feet, but it’s the Adonis to his left that has me spellbound.

  “You have a very unique name. It’s beautiful.” The Adonis takes my hand away from Gage and brings it to his lips with a smile. “Logan Oliver.” His voice dips as he emphasizes his first name.