Page 41 of Edge of Stars

My head rears back. “Okay.” The word is slow on my lips, corresponding to the syntax I understand but the logistics I refuse to accept. “I did hear you. Every word. But how are we going to communicate? On that note, you remember that I’ve got a pregnant and nervous wife here?”

“Of course. But you know what works great for nerves after one’s wedding was crashed by a delusional witch and a lackey who turned himself into a six-foot utility knife?”

Fresh comprehension hits me in a humbling wallop. “Okay. Maybe the hydro hideout is the best call for now.”

Po hefts his jaw as if the whole plan has been my idea and not the other way around. “If that’s the plan going forward, I suggest no pings in or out. Both Hecate and Z have likely guessed I brought you to familiar waters. They’re probably ordering their stealth sirens to the Aegean as we speak.”

“Damn it,” I mutter.

“Hey.” He looks ready to cuff my shoulder again, intense about pushing his support into me, but he’s interrupted by a telling sound from the depths of Proteus’s throat. It’s past time that they get going. I know that now.

Before Poseidon turns, he murmurs to me, “I’m not your father, okay? It’ll be much less than eighteen years before you see me again. And I’ll arrive with news, good or bad. You’ll get it all from me straight up, nephew. No fuckery on the board.”

Choppy air makes its way up my chest and out my exhausted lips. I lift my view up and over the water, to where the crests of the gorge seem to come together in a deep V. Nested in that gap are whipped cream clouds, making it difficult to gauge any realistic distance out of here.

“No fuckery, eh? You’re really going all-in for that one, with Hecate and her dice still on the board?”

As my uncle backs up, his confident steps offset by Proteus’s impatient finger drums on a pier piling, one side of his mouth kicks up along with a lift from one of his fingers. The speeder bubble starts bobbing on the turquoise water, salty foam billowing between it and the pier.

“Then it’s a good thing I like to roll hard, yeah?”

As he leaps after Proteus into the conveyance, I watch for a few more seconds before they close the hatch and rev away. The pause is barely long enough for my soft but sardonic parting shot.

“Is it?”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

KARA

As I wait for Maximus to walk back up the dock, I’m amazed I’m not swaying like the palms and oleanders that bend in Poseidon’s newly summoned wind. My limbs are as flimsy as their stems; my will to remain upright is even more blown-out. Even the flagstones at my feet are looking like a great substitute for a mattress at this point.

I only stay on my feet by focusing on one thing.

Him.

My mighty demigod.

My incredible husband.

His wide steps are the timing for my breaths. His body, graceful and powerful, turns me into a grateful refugee watching a rescue plane on approach, only better. Faster. More beautiful. A new gust breaks a few more buttons of his shirt free, exposing the broad slabs of his bronzed chest. His hair, whisked sideways by the same breezes, is as virile and vibrant as his gaze. The rich blues that don’t surrender their focus on me for a second.

The azure atmospheres that only haul me in deeper as he shrinks the universe between us.

Right now, that’s exactly what this is for me. A world of our own. The inside of our own cosmic treasure chest, filled with flowers that have turned into gems and waters that are now mirrors, reflecting the energy of our love with twice the wattage. Soon even at triple power, as the gap between us is reduced to inches.

And he’s here again. Lifting one hand to my cheek, the other to my waist.

During those perfect moments, a massive weight leaves my chest. The shed is a profound miracle, its abruptness hooking huge tears from the vulnerable spaces behind my eyes.

At once I fight the pull, frantically swiping at whatever’s gotten loose down my cheeks. But Maximus is fast on the ball, tenderly drawing them away by folding fingers around my knuckles.

I’m less stupefied by his action than the expression with which he wields it. Both brackets at the corners of his mouth are lifted, conveying the secret he already sees. The fact that I’m bringing with all the weeping like an emo video girl out of sheer bliss.

“It’s all right, sweetheart,” he soothes. “All of it. Don’t hide from me, Kara. None of it. You never have to again, okay?”

And that fast, the man has invited a hundred more emotion assassins into my tear ducts. I’m unable to fight them off, too obsessed with trying to justify my extended laugh. My man stares down with blatant perplexity, seeming unsure whether to join me or brace for a hysterical switch-up.

“Just be patient with me, husband,” I console. “Hide mode has been a default since I was ten. Scraping it from the cerebral core is going to be like peeling off spirit gum after a ten-hour glitter shoot.”