Page 28 of Edge of Stars

She’s the spectral, astronomical opposite.

A newborn sun. A quasar in creation. A light so intense, it carries sound too. A sizzling vibration, as if a lightsaber is tangling with a Taser.

“Ag…gg…hhh!”

Hecate’s moan is broken up as she stumbles back, tripping over the soaked layers of her gown. She flails and tumbles all the way into the puddle that used to be the church’s center aisle, riding her own screaming flow of Greek profanity.

I don’t take the time to translate it this time because I don’t care. Nothing dominates my attention more than my resplendent wife, who has me grinning and grimacing at once, one arm shielding my eyes while the other reaches for the back of a pew. I need the fast purchase, considering Kara starts exuding more than light. There’s wind around her too, kicking up the water until her skirt is soaked and her hair is whipping. Within seconds her veil flies up too, and I’m captivated by the glow of the altar candles through the sheer fabric.

But then, so much more than captivated.

For the first time, I notice the embroidered design along the tulle.

It’s stars. Yet not just that.

It’s constellations. Specific ones.

The same formations that lit up the western sky over the Malibu shore at Rerek’s place nearly two months ago. The stars that beamed their approval as Kara and I declared our love aloud for the first time. We’d already been wonderfully aware of it but hadn’t actually spoken the words themselves. Not until those magical moments on the sand. The sea had swelled and churned as if rising in tandem with our passion…

With the same intensity that it fills my ears now.

Only without the enjoyable excuse.

I wheel around, hoping I’m the only one who notices it. Wondering—praying—that the waves bashing at the chapel’s windows are concoctions of my imagination alone. That I’m reaching and clutching the back of a pew bench from stupid apprehension, my exhausted mind making up the building’s creaks and groans as it fights to keep the whitecaps outside.

For the first time in my life, I long to be the party idiot. A stressed-out lunatic, losing it more and more by the second.

I really wish my father’s approach wasn’t corroborating the opposite.

He’s taking wide sloshing strides, tossing water at least six feet wide in his wake. His wildly bright glower gives me no choice but to fully look at him. It’s what seizes my attention first, but not for long. Not when the more outrageous element is the load beneath his arm, fully explaining his dragging steps despite his sprinting stare.

He’s carrying my mother.

Shit.

I have to force my eyes to stay open. She looks more like a mannequin, her eyes glossed over and her limbs still as stiff as support rods jutting from a concrete block. Though Z cradles her as gently as a pillow he’s hauling to a sleepover, his expression tightens as if he’s on the wrong side of a truth-or-dare round.

“Get her and grab her,” he growls when my limbs join my mind, refusing to activate. “Your woman, damn it. Secure her, Maximus. Right now!”

As soon as he gets to my name, I’m lunging back through the wind and water. His voice—the urgency in it, so different than the imperial assholery that usually kicks in when he’s ordering me around—is all I need to soak in now.

And there’s my dropped vocabulary ball for the night. Soak? That would imply a relaxed dip, right? In these insane minutes, nothing’s further from the truth. As in China-to-Argentina far.

So I’m not a delusional crackpot. But that’s no therapeutic reassurance. The sanctuary’s really shaking that hard. The waves are crashing that relentlessly. And the wind—

Shit, the sequel.

It’s not emanating solely from Kara anymore. I know that because I’ve managed to lock an around her waist. The gusts that were just tearing at me from one direction have been violated by a raging crosswind, promising to tear my hair out of its double-strength tie like it’s dragged my jacket halfway down my torso.

There’s not a second to reseat the thing. I let it tumble off into the water, while the currents are still calm.

Because if my instincts are true, this tempest really is the calm part.

Sure enough, the fresh winds are emanating from the chapel’s back doors, billowing back and forth on their hinges to the point that several inches are exposed between the portals when they reach the peak of their sways.

Sways that become pushes.

Pushes that become shoves.