Page 30 of Edge of Stars

“No.” Again with the galling tea-time serenity, except that the kettle’s not the only thing with a fire up its bottom. The white embers in the goddess’s scrutiny are kindled by the challenging flares at the edges of her mouth. “Not me. You know it, don’t you?”

She spreads an arm out, flicking a finger high enough to make a passing floater jerk his knee up. It happens to be Arden. Nothing else changes about him, including his dark and somber expression.

“It’s not me. You’re the one who can save them, Kara. And you know exactly how.” She flows her arm back in, extending toward my wife with graceful fingers. “Simply say the words. Tell me you’re coming with me, and your loved ones live on. Or deny me and say your final words to them right now.”

CHAPTER NINE

KARA

I hate her.

And right now, I hate myself just as much.

Disbelief and disappointment join the self-loathing club as my VIP guests. They’re perfect, here to keep making me wonder why and how I ever trusted that my destiny and happiness ever mattered to her. That her interest in my purpose ever counted beyond its fit into fulfilling hers.

Though even that investment is gone now.

If I was a cog in her machine before, I’m just a means to her end now. The courier for the prize she really seeks.

Over my dead body.

Fires flare in my gaze as soon as my mind rages with the quip, but Hecate only lifts an earth mother smirk in return. As inscrutable as the smile, I can still decipher the inner reply that’s hooked to it.

Glad to grant that wish any way you like, sweet one.

I slide back fast. Hook my elbow under Maximus’s with the same speed.

Nearly as swiftly as the tears that cloud my vision.

I can’t surrender to her. I won’t.

It’s not a flight from wondering how she’d end me. It’s the visions of what she’d do to my daughter afterward.

The enlightening.

The controlling.

The captivity.

More awful than anything I endured in Dis. Worse than what my family is going through now.

But what will they endure next? How merciful will their deaths be?

I have no theory to conjure for that. Nothing I have the courage to imagine.

Instead, I whisper the only words that are consuming my mind.

“I’m sorry.”

The goodbye that this shrew demanded I give them.

“I don’t have a choice,” I whisper. “I’m sorry. I don’t—”

Clink. Thwiiip.

“Wha…”

“You’re right.” Hermes’s glacial growl turns my bloodstream into an equally Siberian river. I don’t waste time wondering how he’s broken free from his icebox. I’m only disgusted for not connecting the obvious dots as soon as Hecate started gesturing to the room like a triumphal princess. “You don’t have a choice, darling.”