Page 85 of Edge of Stars

She’s alive.

They both are.

A fact that needs to go in my positivity column right now—but fails to get there.

“Max? Oh my God…is it really you this time?”

Not even my mother’s weepy joy can tick it over. If anything, her emotion supports my wrath by digits on an exponential climb. The only tethers that keep me from ordering one of the lightning spears out of the sky and through Hades’s chest are the ones still wrapped around my mother’s tremoring, whimpering form. The fire ropes that are clearly under his control, not Hecate’s—a factor that introduces conflicting implications.

Hades has been tasked with handling the clout they have in hand: Mom and Veronica. I will put that part into the advantages lineup. Like it or not, a fraction of the dickhead’s DNA runs in my own veins, and I’ve spent more time in the trenches of his world. Reading him is less of a slimy chore than deciphering—or not—the nuances behind Hecate’s coy games. But Hecate herself heads the disadvantages list. Why has she passed off the big responsibility to him? What’s she clearing her slate for?

And why can’t I admit that I already know that answer—and am being a full wuss about facing it?

This isn’t the time for weakness. Not physically, and especially not mentally.

“Mom.”

And yet here I am, still on my haunches in a rising tide, battling to find a way through the chains that have left terrible welts all over her exposed skin. There’s a lot more of it now too: the chiffon of the gown in which she felt so pretty is a collection of remnants now, fried and torn across her hunched and defeated limbs.

“It’s going to be okay, Mom. I promise,” I grate. But I can’t even touch her to enforce the point. I can’t reach her.

I can’t reach her…

“I—I can’t talk right now, Max,” she soughs past quivering lips. “I—I just—it hurts too much…”

Her strange drop-off has me looking over to Veronica. For a bizarre moment, I expect—or hope?—the always-elegant woman to fill the pause with a pithy line from her unending supply, if not borrowing from a favorite like Coco Chanel or Vera Wang. But my mother-in-law only hits me with a hollow stare that’s a tormented thumbs-up on Mom’s summation.

It hurts.

“All righty, then.”

The contrast of Hecate’s interjection, along with her demure handclasp at her waist, slams my teeth together with enamel-whittling force. I swing a glance around, confirming that the extra heat I feel is blazing straight from Kara’s glare, already prepared to become a full flamethrower at the goddess.

Hecate drops her chin like my wife is merely a pouty child with a tree branch sword. “Are you ready to talk now, darling missy?”

At once, I hate what that does to Kara. Part of my soul sinks as her shoulders do. Not all the way, but enough that I hazard a strong guess about what’s going on beyond the surface. My confirmation comes with the flicker of her gaze toward her own mother, along with Veronica’s responding moan.

Conflict digs into her face. But not for long. It’s full torment within seconds, the force she needs to power a response that the arrogant sorceress can hear. When she lifts her head higher to speak it, I’m damn sure that my flamethrower comparison is about to become reality—but my incredible bride delivers a better blow. A stronger force. A conviction that she pulls from a deeper power.

“I’m not going to give you the words you want to hear, Hecate.” She shakes her head, actually lifting a rueful smile at her former champion and mentor. “This child isn’t yours. Not now. Not ever.”

As she speaks, I push back to my feet. After the last four weeks, I can’t predict a single thread of how the goddess will stitch her reaction. In a couple of seconds, we could be locked up back in our cottage back at Iremia, chained on the sand next to our mothers, or even marooned among the stars that the witch manipulated for us in the first place.

At least fifty more scenarios join my what-ifs—all of which I’d readily register for in place of what she actually does. I make the conclusion even before she’s done with her soft, eerie smile or readjusting her stance like a gaudy, contemplative monarch.

“Now, Kara,” she chides. “You must know that I don’t want only her.”

Against my will, a long growl rushes up my throat. My wife herself is the sole reason I swallow it back down, a new portrait for me to fixate on when self-control feels like an impossibility.

In excruciating moments like now.

“I’m sorry, goddess.” There’s zero regret in her enunciated murmur, and I’ve never loved her deeper or harder. “I’m not a diamond for your collection either.”

I’m pulling in a lot of air as the witch queen does, though I admit it’s more fun to watch the pinch of her nostrils as the salty sea air moves through me. But her fury keeps churning, whipping up beach pebbles in its wake.

“Foolish chit!” she stabs out, ramping the tempest higher. “Do you still think any of this is about me?”

Incredibly, Kara is able to spit a small laugh. But there’s nothing mirthful about it. “If any of it isn’t, then stop teaching me foolishness by example. You can stop all of this, right now!”