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Though I also entertain the idea of just asking for the meal in takeout boxes…
A musing that never reaches a definitive conclusion.
It’s slammed totally out of my head just like the air is beaten out of my lungs—asI’mwhipped off my feet and down the beach by at least fifty yards.
“What the living—”
Though as soon I spew it, I question iflivingshould still be a part of my vocabulary. After my forced flight along the narrow beach, I’ve kicked up enough sand and pebbles to resemble a blob of cookie dough rolled in stale rock candy. The shit jabs in as I swipe a rough hand across my pumping chest, fighting the onslaught of a million vehement questions.
Questions for which I refuse toawait answers.
“Kara?” Question one, a thousand times more important than the rest. I bellow it as loud and desperately as I can, spinning around like I’m on a bad drug trip. If only that didn’t feel so damn close to the truth… “Kara!”
“Here.”
I startle, puzzling how she’s snuck up against my side. Just as quickly, the confusion is eclipsed by unfiltered terror—and raw rage.
My bride-to-be looks as battered as I feel. Her limbs are dusted by thick sand. As that coating starts to fall off, I take in the dark-red splotches that appear along her skin. They’re all over her, as vivid as the crimson storm clouding the edges of my vision.
“Holy shit.”
“I’m okay.”
“Holyshit.”
“Maximus!” She whips a hand up to my wrist, which is still mercifully connected to the hand I’m using to wick her blood. “I’m okay. Sprout too. You’ve got to get it together.Please.”
Her final rasp corresponds to a strange stare she’s shooting over my right shoulder.
I scowl but pivot, following her gaze until I spot the explanation for this insanity.
I’m expecting a wild creature of some sort. Possibly—probably—not something from this realm. Maybe a hydra, considering our location—or Cerberus again, on a crazy recon quest from his ultimate master.
I’d prefer even the underworld hound over an actual beast charging up the beach in our direction. It takes a full beat, then another, for me to absorb that I’m truly seeing this. And then a third long pause to allow the depths of my throat to render their reaction.
“God damn it.”
I yearn, more than anything, that the expression was only an idiom—and not a direct reference to the asshole in the boater hat who’s still stomping straight at me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
MAXIMUS
Z comes to an abrupt stop no more than three feet away, casting a wall of pebbled sand at us in the doing. The eco buckshot has me hauling Kara close, hunching low and tight to shield her as much as I can.
My new position has a secondary advantage. It’s a better angle for hurling a hard glower at my sick sire—because that has to be the explanation for this. For why his eyes are rimmed in a shade of red that’s too damn close to mine. For why the smoke around him is increasingly tainted with the same color. For why his whole posture is heaving like a wild boar with fifty arrows in its back.
Is he fucking kidding?
And what’s his ultimate point? To intimidate me? If I weren’t so furious, that’d earn him a long laugh. If anything, it triples my char.
“What. The. Fuck? Are you out of your mind, old man?”
“Are you out ofyours?” he bellows back.
After tucking Kara behind me, I straighten to my full height. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Suddenly, there’s something in his hand. It seems to appear from midair, but he’s got to know his parlor tricks don’t dazzle me like they do my mother.
