Page 68 of Edge of Stars

Bigger decisions.

Does he really mean bigger than the step we already took in LA?

And why is it so unnerving when Zeus steps forward again, looking better equipped to answer that?

Except that he doesn’t.

For the first time since I met him, my father readily defers the floor in a group conversation. To, of all people, my diminutive but determined sister-in-law.

“Hecate isn’t done with her fun yet,” she declares with a disgruntled head shake. “Seriously. Can someone just offer the shrew a reality show deal and put us all out of her misery?”

“What is it now?” Kara’s interjection emerges in angry spurts as she finishes tugging down the tank top that’s still smudged from her wedding makeup session.

I frown at them for a second, unable to believe that was all only yesterday instead of last year. “What’s happened? The guests. Everyone in that room—”

“All gone by the time Proteus and I returned,” Po supplies. “And, according to the local news feeds, all safely returned to their homes and hotels. I left him behind to double-check the list and make sure.”

“I suspect a multi-level spell,” Z adds. “After Po fired up the bubble and sped you out, I turned to see if there was anything I could do about the mess. But aside from a reverse wind to suck out the remaining moisture, I couldn’t dare anything else. My lightning kills most humans on impact. If I’d tried breaking up the mud that way, with the crowd so close together…” He spreads his hands, indicating the obvious and awful reasoning. “Once I looked toward Hecate again, she had roused Rerek from the muck and hauled him into a huddle along with Hermes.”

Kara’s cheek trembles against my chest from her vehement shudder. “You mean the shitty shifter in cheap velvet?”

“Big sister for the color commentary win,” Kell quips.

“But what about other analysts?” Kara stiffens all too quickly, shooting a matching look at my father and uncle. “It’s been picked up by the SoCal news outlets. How are they explaining it? Did they interview anyone?”

Z meets her gaze without hesitation. Which shouldn’t reassure me but does.

“Many,” he says. “Who are all relaying the same story. That right after you two were proclaimed legal, a sudden squall hit the sanctuary.”

Poseidon precedes his insertion with a brief trident bounce. “The stories all match, nearly to the second.” With the second tap, he adds an acrid grimace. “Fucking weird, if you ask me. But it supports Z’s theory like the grunion at full moon.”

I support his scowl with one of my own. “An amplified spell, likely cast at the same time for maximum impact.” I don’t want them to see my double-take, but it digs in before I can help it. “Did you say Rerek was in on it?”

“Didn’t look voluntary,” my father comments. He adds, too low and too fast, “Another reason for the code red speed bubble trip.”

Much too low. Way too fast.

Since Kara and I are the only ones who heard the assertion, Po continues with the bigger subject at hand. “I still don’t understand why the press is accepting every account without follow-up questions. They’re all only interested in how none of the guests observed such an ominous rager approach. Valid concerns, of course, but that’s all they’re inquiring with their follow-throughs.”

“Are the answers just as singular?” Kara inquires.

“More or less.” Po doesn’t relinquish his frown. “Different wordings but same message. They all say that they were entranced with the wedding itself. That your ceremony was so beautiful, they never noticed the weather freak on the horizon.”

A rough tremor takes over the base of my throat. “Freak,” I repeat in a sparse growl. “Well, they’re not wrong. Except that you’re all now looking at the freak.”

Jesse’s grunt isn’t surprising. “Do I need to call Mrs. Ahern out here to order your daily mirror affirmations?” He cups his hand as if inviting Kell to a confidential klatch. “Ahern. Our school counselor. Every day she gave him I am good enoughs and I am worthys like a priest with the rosary prayers.”

“He doesn’t need any of them.” Kara tucks herself back next to me, all but shimmering with the belief in her words. I’m sure she makes me glow with the tender press of her lips to the underside of my jaw. “You’re the freak who made it possible for your uncle to mobilize and get us out of there. You saved our family.”

I dip my sights down to her, shamelessly soaking up every morsel of that vocal glitter that I can. If I look like a smitten disco ball after it all, so be it. I’ve got to return to the goth grunge all too soon. It can’t be ignored, considering the growing stack of implications to which Daddy Dearest keeps adding.

“But I think this is bigger than you, me, and Niki now.” I swing my gaze back up at my father. “I’m right about that, aren’t I?”

Poseidon rolls his eyes. “His father’s own son.”

“Okay, so tell me how right.” I’m more adamant about that part, despite the latex smoothness that Z keeps pulled across his features. But I pick up enough tells from Jesse and Kell, even after one line of direct insistence, to know the freak himself isn’t wrong here.

But I wish the two of them didn’t pull out all the stops at once. Between Kell rubberbanding the hair tie she probably brought for Kara and biting the inside of her lips raw, and now Jesse thwacking his trusty rubber hand against a pier piling, I come to an unnerving conclusion.