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Maximus strides forward with a defined growl. “Of course she isn’t. Kara?” The prompt comes after too many seconds of my pensive silence. “No. Absolutely not. You’re not going to entertain one morethoughtabout—”
“Why?” I push to my feet but far too quickly. Once again, my vision swims. I mask the weakness with a tighter glower. “Because you said so?”
His nostrils flare. “Because you’re carrying my child, damn it. And next time, Hecate might not keep her perimeter—or her watch over you—so casual.”
I bristle. “We don’t know for sure if I’m—”
“Oh, we’re sure,” Jaden interjects.
“Surer than sure,” Kell adds.
“Even so, I won’t show for a while. And if this is really going to happen, and we need to learn more about Hecate’s plans—”
“Then we’ll find other ways,” Maximus snaps, only to shake his head as if apologizing. “Kara. Please. This isn’t something I’ll negotiate on. Not after watching that witch peer at you like the Codex of Leicester.”
“Whatever the hell that is.” Kell already brandishes the expression she gets before silently reversing our birth order. “Regardless, I’m with the big guy on this one.” She thumbs toward Maximus. “If you go back to Iremia, no way will you leave just as easily. Hecate’s already reeking of raw ambition—believe me, it’s not an aroma one forgets—so she’ll make good and sure you’re under her complete control next time.” Her eyebrows hitch a little higher. “Your choice, of course, but do you really want to go down in history as the witch queen’s warhead?”
I spin away from all of them, pacing toward the big window. “I don’t want to go downanywherein history.”
A sigh spills as my gaze tracks across the rooftops, toward the place where full nightfall is encroaching on the last lavenders of the sunset. Those last holdouts of the daytime are like the places inside that I can still identify asme. How long will they hold out?
“I just want…”
“What?” Maximus’s murmur is close enough to brush the fine hairs along my nape. He steps closer, pushing back the weight of my hair so he can rub the back of my neck. “What do you want, Kara? Just tell me, love. Tell me, and I’ll move the universe to make it happen.”
It’s not just his words that squeeze my heart until my chest pangs. It’s my surety that he’ll do it. Whatever I ask. However quickly I need it.
That conviction, of simply knowing it, brings the wildest joy—and fear—I’ve ever known. Do I know how to live in a world where my value isn’t about my silhouette in an evening gown or the few years of orgasms I’ll bring an incubus? Can I define myself past the life I’ve been trained to live for over two decades?
Hecate made me believe that answer wasyes.
And in that affirmation, so many worlds started opening for me. My spirit gained wings, translating into the ability to do the same thing for my body. Levitation.Flight.Despite the fear of the situation, when I soared high over Rerek’s rooftop and looked out over the ocean…for just a few seconds, I was exhilarated. A creature of incredible power. My heart was one with that endless sky, stretching into an endless horizon of possibilities and ideas…
So was that it?
My only glimpse of all the dreams?
Did Hecate free me from my cage in Hades’s wasteland, only to be hiding the gilded one in her mystical sanctum? Was she wooing me with the view before locking me back behind the bars? A place where I’d have to sing for my proverbial supper—and likely Maximus’s too.
“I just…want it all to be over,” I finally rasp in reply to him. I can whisper it like that because the man hasn’t moved from my side. Nor will he ever. I know that with aching completion, abiding joy. He’s the love of my world. The destiny of my soul. In so many ways,he’salready my dream spun to life. “Or back to the place before it began.” My hand moves up, drawn to the magnificent line of his jaw. “So that we know what’s coming now—and to just run before it finds us.”
Maximus releases a formidable sigh. He pushes his face against my palm but slowly moves away again. Not far. Just until our gazes are fully fixed with each other.
“We wouldn’t run,” he utters. “You already know that. We wouldn’t do it then, and we won’t do it now, because we’re doing it together.” He leans in, making sure I’m really looking now.
How can Inotbe? His blues are infused with the last purple light in the sky, shot through with frissons of his unmistakable electricity. I know it. I feel it. And in this moment, I cherish its chaotic kinship.
I push up on tiptoes while tugging at his beard, compelling him into my long press of a kiss. Best move I’ve made all day. His arms encircle me in possessive ferocity. His mouth becomes pure command, ordering me to feel every degree of the commitment behind his words.
Stopping feels like another faraway dream, but we somehow—barely—manage it. Maximus releases only my lips. The rest of my body is still wrapped in his blissfully bold grip—most especially my stare, fully enthralled by the lightning flashes still reflected in his. I’m going to drown in his stormy, sexy cobalts—and I’m going to love every tumultuous second of it.
But when he speaks, his murmur is velvety as spring rain—with an underline of thunder that halts all the breath in my being.
“So,what do you want now, Kara?”
CHAPTER THREE
MAXIMUS
