Page 31 of Edge of Stars

I should know better than to believe his smooth murmur. And I don’t. Not that it helps a thing. Certainly not the pressure beneath the hold he’s clamped on my free wrist—after transfiguring his hand into an iron cuff.

“No,” I blurt. “Please—”

“The hell?” Maximus emits it on a low grate, but there’s a full roar in his wide tiger’s gaze. The burst never makes it to his lips. Instead, it shoots up, stirring directly into the clouds overhead. “Are you serious right now, asswipe?”

“Maximus.” I can’t believe I’m squeezing his arm as the calm one now. “The waves. We can’t chance them getting any worse.”

A low, hopefully reasonable, hum from Hermes. “Ah, how I appreciate a detainee who’s smart about their situation.”

And just like that, the shapeshifter has lived up to his power. Within seconds, his reasonable morphs into sinister, meaning Maximus’s snarl turns into my revived strength. My silently rah-rah’ed home team. Go, gorgeous demigod, go.

“Little FYI, buddy,” he bites out, homing in on Hermes. “I-Cuff-It-I-Keep-It Day hasn’t been legal for three thousand years.”

“Of which I am most aware.” But the god’s musical croon comes with a terrifyingly tighter dig around my wrist. He persists with the death-metal brutality, smirking like a lead singer toying with a screaming groupie. “And yet I am also most serious.”

“That makes two of us.”

Though another dangerous thwing of shifting metal accompanies the interjection, I welcome every beautiful British inflection of it.

Though just as quickly, reach for my right to walk the point back.

I’ve never seen Regina Nikian in full bad-ass soldier mode. The sight is more intimidating than I expected, with the numerous dents scattered over her armor and boots. This clearly isn’t a kit she picked up at some Hollywood Boulevard costume emporium—not that any of us need the authenticity certificate, once she extends a sword that’s likely capable of taking out all nine Westeros houses at once.

But she doesn’t need the grandiose reference. After a nip of the blade’s tip, in which she expertly nicked the buttons off Hermes’s dress shirt sleeve, I realize our winter soldier is actually a precision surgeon.

“Rest assured, chum, I’d be chuffed to relieve you of your cuff, as well. Unless you’ve recently gained the gift of growing back appendages like a good little reptile?”

A surgeon and a comedian.

“Fuck the hell off, rank and file,” the god spits at her. “Your king is no longer my ruler. And when my queen is running all of Olympus, she’ll make you bow down before me and—”

A well-manicured hand descends on his shoulder, though it might as well be around his neck.

“There, there,” Hecate croons past gritted teeth, filling in for his harsh chokes. “The little dear will learn soon enough. We don’t want to spoil all the surprises, darling.” She lifts her free hand into a new pose, as if she’s turning a doorknob at forehead height. “Though previews can certainly be fun…”

Before her dulcet tone trails totally off, it sends a cowl of raised hairs across my nape. I’m no stranger to that stretched butterscotch voice—or the sticky circumstances it often brings once it descends.

And I’ve never hated myself more for being right.

Hecate’s little wrist flick wasn’t just for show—as I see with terrible certainty as soon as Reg is swathed in a shell of debilitation. Her mouth is fixed in its acerbic sneer. Her attentive stare doesn’t blink. Her sword slips from her formless grip, clattering to the damp stones beneath our feet.

Maximus wheels around. “Reg?” And then grips her shoulders, shaking her with desperate jerks. “Reg? Come on. Damn it!”

I swallow hard, welcoming the punishing pain. Anything to detract from the sting at the edges of my eyes. And the same agony, squeezing around my lungs.

A torment that worsens when Hecate steps around, moving a hand along Hermes’s shoulder in a strange, nearly sadistic massage.

“Retrieve the minion’s sword,” she instructs.

“Of course, my queen.” The shapeshifter makes fire-under-his-ass haste. I clamp back a wince while he drags me along.

“Now grab Kara harder.” Her voice still doesn’t rise. “Because she’s going to levitate you out of here.”

And there goes that brief battle for self-control. “The hell I will!”

“Then hell is where they’ll be going.” She indicates toward the water, where the pew flowers and the chapel’s potted plants now muddy the eddies between her floating victims. “Oh, and her too.”

At the end of a blithe swipe, she topples Regina down the altar steps—also toward the murky lagoon.