Page 17 of Edge of Stars

At the edges of my consciousness, I’m aware of those words slipping out on my tearful whisper. It’s easier to hear what he says, equally soft but twice as gruff, in reply.

“As I love you, Kara Kane.”

Thick emotion surges up in me, a flow of awe and exhilaration, mirroring what I capture from Maximus’s mien. Kara Kane. My heart has dared to utter it a few times, but it’s the first occasion I’ve actually heard it on the air.

It sounds…amazing.

Intoxicating.

But in many ways, perfectly normal. Like the sunset beams that outline his head, just…meant to be. Hecate might have interfered about how and when it happened, but the reality of this—the inevitability of us—it was as certain as our first breaths. We would have found each other if I were a shepherdess in Mongolia and he ruled a Fortune 500 empire in Manhattan. Somewhere, somehow, it would have happened.

The sun always finds a way to shine.

A soul always finds its way to its other half.

Mine stretches for his now, tying with its mighty fabric until we’re tightly knotted. But I don’t stop there. Out comes the steel thread from my spirit, stitching in frantic rows—especially as the minister murmurs something about kissing to seal the deal on our union.

A kiss I despaired of ever sharing with him.

But now, falter about even starting.

Because starting it means finishing it. And finishing means our gateway into the next part of this day.

We have to step free from the star. And into our well-prepared crucible.

Maximus doesn’t want to do it either. It’s evident in the persistence of his lips and then the rebellious vibration of his grunt. That’s all before he drags up and away, though only by a few inches. He’s still close enough that I can denote the darker blue rings in his irises, as intense as the brackets that appear at the corners of his mouth.

“You ready to do this?”

I answer his murmur with a small smile. The tension lines trace all the way up to his forehead, conveying his confusion, but there’s not enough time to explain my whole reasoning to him. It’s not what he’s asked, but how. The gift of his concern, wrapped in the strength of his respect… He might not ever comprehend what a gift they both are.

But I have to shelve the explanation for now. Group it with all the other things we haven’t found time for. So much we have to say to each other. So much we have to do.

So much we have to save for the moments when our life truly begins.

Moments, I pray, that aren’t far off.

This has to work.

This has to work.

I panic, realizing I’ve rasped it aloud when Maximus grabs my hands tighter.

“Hey.” His murmur commands my head up. His face is firm with conviction. His nostrils flare, and his gaze is close to igniting just like mine. “It’ll work. They’re dealing with us now.”

“The cuckoo Kanes?”

His soft snort is like a summer wind on the winter of my jitters. “If that’s what it’ll take to get through to this bunch, then color me eighty shades of cuckoo.”

I pull in a steadying breath. “If I can’t get this spell to work, my love, I might be sharpening your crayons.”

“And doesn’t that win the trophy for today’s finest euphemism?”

The jibe, drawled so serenely that it’s nearly obnoxious, has Maximus matching every inch of my startled pivot. But three seconds later, the description is no longer relevant. I pass up startlement for all-out alarm, once my logic rules out all the usual suspects as its source. Jaden, Jesse, Kell, and Arden are all as silent as watchful saints.

So…who…

Once I affirm the perpetrator, I struggle to hold in my stunned gasp—though am even questioning myself about that. Why am I this stunned? How is this hitting me as anything unusual?