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I stalk across the waiting room. “I don’t thinkfailureis a word the grimoire likes either.”
“The grimoire that was created by Hecate. Who is a goddess created by Zeus. Who is, last time I checked, the baby daddy ofyourbaby daddy and able to find him no matter where he goes,” she counters. “So now that we know it, let’s work together and brainstorm something better than a hide-and-seek reboot.”
I don’t want to tell her that she’s possibly right. Not yet.
Instead, I turn to where an escalator is located beyond a pair of flawlessly polished glass doors.
“Doesn’t this mall have a few maternity stores?” I venture, already anticipating my sister’s predictable derailment.
Kell’s low moan ricochets off the glass walls. “That’s a damn dirty move, mama. But this time, and only this time, the judges are allowing it. Ferragamo texted to say they got the new peep-toe booties in my size. I swear I can hear them calling my name.”
“Your partner in crime is here, scamp.” Doug grins. “Never met an inch of Italian leather I didn’t like.”
I look at Maximus, a step down from me on the escalator but still several inches above my sightline, while swinging our joined hands. “Guess you’re stuck with window-shopping for elephant dresses with me, Professor. That is, if you’ll lend me your jacket to hide our little glowstick?”
A surge of a good mood hits me, waiting for his response. There’s so much good literature to mine for windows and elephants that I’m excited for what fun quote he’ll pick.
My hopes are scuttled as soon as the space between his brows knits into deep canyons. And his gaze, like a river through those canyons, gains Prussian shadows—as he fixates on something far down the way, past the modular silver furniture and shiny bustling stores.
No. Not something.
Someone. A someone I recognize too.
“Mom?”
His query hardly carries any sound, and I already know why. Because Nancy Kane isn’t alone.
She’s with someone else. A figure I also recognize but am instantly uneasy about doing so.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
MAXIMUS
“Mom.”
I wait until Kara and I are much closer, about ten feet away, before stating it again. This time, not as a question. This time, imbued with the force of what I’m really feeling.
Shock.
Confusion.
Ire.
Stuff that would probably already be escalated to more if I weren’t so worried about hauling Kara’s arm out of her socket with my run-walk across the mall’s polished concourse. Though I know my fierce beauty can take it, I’m not a dog driven solely by my balls and tongue.
Not like other beasts who are leaving their trail across all this white tile.
“Maximus?” Mom grates, slamming a hand to the base of her throat. But only one, because her other is fitted against the broad palm of the male by her side. The one now soaking in my glare like a Jedi staring down a red saber. Calm to the point of maddening. “And Kara. Hello there, sweetie. So nice to see you again.”
Liar.
How does she think any of this isnice? For any of us?
Okay, maybe Momisactually enjoying herself. Grudgingly, I take in her dewy face and fancy attire. She’s in a form-fitting dress that flares slightly at her knees, with strappy shoes in the same shade of gold. Her pretty features are framed by hair that’s been carefully, possibly professionally, styled.
Damn it.
I almost seethe it out loud.
