Read Online Starfire by Kate Douglas - Free Book Online

safe. Everything we’re doing is to save him, not harm him. Remember what you said when we met, that your husband had changed, that he lost his soul many years ago?”
    Gaia’s eyes went wide. She shook her head, denying Ginny’s words and her own. “No. No, it was only a figure of speech. I didn’t mean it literally.” She laughed, still shaking her head, but it was a harsh and broken sound. “He has a soul. I know he does. He must!”
    Ginny took another step closer and wrapped her arms around Alton’s mother. Gaia felt rigid, almost brittle within her embrace. “We fear it might have been taken from him,” she said, using soft, soothing tones. “Not by his choice. By demon possession. He’s in a safe place, where we can help him. So we can help Lemuria. And you, Gaia. We want to help you, too.”
    Gaia’s eyes flashed from Ginny to Alton and back to Ginny. Nervously she licked her lips. “I don’t know.” She practically moaned the words. “I heard him cry Alton’s name in anger, but then he was gone. His thoughts are always with me, even though he doesn’t want to share them. Ever since we wed, he’s been with me. What have you done to him?” she demanded.
    “A trance, Mother.” Alton ran his hand over her hair, soothing her as if she were a child. “That’s all. Merely a form of compulsion that will keep him from being afraid until we can help him. You know he’s not the same man he was. You see the difference, don’t you?”
    Gaia closed her eyes and turned away. “Many, many years ago when we were still young, we were so much in love. He was a good and kind man, a loving father.” She turned to Alton, raised a hand as if to touch his face, then dropped it heavily to her side. “You remember him that way, don’t you?”
    Alton looked absolutely stricken. “No, Mother. Not since I was a small child. Maybe then, but not for most of my life.”
    Gaia didn’t appear to hear him. She stared at something. At nothing. “Something changed.” Slowly, she shook her head, still denying the obvious truth. “I thought it was me, that I wasn’t a good wife, that the stress of our world sinking beneath the sea, the move, his father’s disappearance … I blamed so many things for the changes in Artigos. Changes I couldn’t explain.”
    Alton rested his hand on her shoulder. “Let’s sit down, Mother. We have a lot to discuss. I know this is quite a shock.”
    “Yes.” Trembling from head to toe, she nodded and turned away. “Where are my manners. What would you like to drink? May I bring food?”
    “No, Mother. We’re fine. Sit. Please.” He waited until she perched nervously on the edge of a long, low sofa. He sat beside her and took her trembling hands in both of his.
    Ginny sat on Gaia’s other side. She smiled at Alton, encouraging him. This had to be so hard for him.
    “What happened to Grandfather? I don’t remember him very well.”
    Gaia shook her head. “He disappeared during the big move, when the DemonWars were just ending. It all happened so quickly then. Our world was being destroyed. There were earthquakes and terrible upheavals. Huge waves drowned entire cities, and buildings collapsed and fell into great rifts in the earth or were washed away by the seas. Artigos the Just was overseeing the transfer of many ancient records, but he was supposed to meet us here, in our new home. He never arrived. Your father bravely stepped into his place and took on the heavy task of governing our world. Everything was chaos. So many of our people were lost during the chaos of the move, from the horrendous cataclysm, from the war. Terrible times. Just terrible.”
    “Is that when Father changed?”
    Gaia slowly nodded her head. “I blamed the pressures of the move, the massive responsibility, but it was something more. He stopped coming to my bed. He no longer wanted anything to do with you, his only son.” She raised her head, and her eyes were wide. “He banished the warrior women,