“How can I help you?”
She steps up, sending a pair of forceful clacks down the hall courtesy of her elegant high heels. The rest of her outfit is decidedly casual, though her jeans have Italian detailing and there’s a three-carat ruby on a glistening gold chain around her neck.
“Listen.” Her voice is surprisingly quiet, even gentle. “I care deeply about my sister, okay?”
That makes two of us.
Outwardly, all I do is clear my throat. Her decorum deserves the same in return. “Thank you for sharing.”
She folds her arms. “Well, she did a little sharing of her own with me last night.”
“Regarding?”
“You.”
Thank God I expected that part. I’m ready with my sham of nonchalant surprise. “Me? In what sense?”
She ticks her head to the side and leans in to calmly scope me out. “I think you already know.”
I square my jaw along with my shoulders. “I know that I’m your sister’s literature professor. Whatever else you’re intimating—”
“Stop.”
“Stop…what?”
“Just stop.” She steps back and takes in a sharp, deep breath. “And let me be clear about this part. I’m not asking you to stop these denials, which are kind of hilarious now that I’ve smelled the proverbial roses.” She gestures up and down with one hand, figuratively painting the air in front of my form. “Maybe pretending to the rest of the world will make it easier for you to put on the brakes with Kara behind the scenes too.”
A lead brick thuds its way down my throat. “Theoretically speaking, if I were seeing Kara…socially…why would I choose to ‘put on the brakes’ with her? Last time I checked, your big sister was a grown woman with impressive control of her own mind.”
“Her mind? Sure. I’ll give you that much.” She’s not vehement about it now. Her voice cracks with a new emotion. Resignation? Sorrow? “It’s just the rest of her she’s got to worry about.”
The brick’s now in my gut. “What the hell does that mean?”
Kell shakes her head as if I’ve jarred her from a trance. “Listen. I’m begging you here, okay? Just…let her go. And do it soon. The longer you let her think there’s any kind of viable choice, the worse—so much worse—it’ll be for her in the long run.”
Against my will, my jaw clenches. The stabs in my blood are now blinding flashes behind my eyes. I haven’t had a migraine since the early days of middle school, but damn it, I recognize the approach of one now.
“Choice?” I growl it out but swear my utterance sounds like thunder. Or is that the sound of the sky outside? “She’s a bright woman. Whatever she elects to do with her life, there’ll be plenty of choices.”
“Right.” The woman’s bitter laugh is hollow as she casts a bleak look at the darkening day outside. “Choices galore. That’s the life of a Valari woman, all right.”
I blink hard, struggling to keep focus on her profile. At this angle and in the dimming light, she reminds me even more of Kara. The proud chin. The petite triangle of a nose. The smooth, high forehead.
“Bitter subtext is one of my favorite themes,” I confess. “What, in all this universe, are you talking about? I imagine your lives can often be burdens you haven’t asked for, but you’re grown adults. You and Kara have the ability to write your own fates.”
At first, Kell’s answer consists of nothing but a long laugh. But this time, there’s no acrid undertone to it. “Our own fates?” she counters. “Sure. I’ll give you that one too. Fate will have a field day with all of us.” She looks up at me with an even darker grimace, her eyes full of anguished flames. “But Maximus Kane, you are not part of my sister’s fate. You never can be. And the sooner you get that through your thick skull, the better.”
The fire in her declaration matches the heat of her eyes, now intense enough to scorch me like a flamethrower. But I don’t look away. I can’t. Every buzzing cell of my blood, battering every inch of my veins, orders me not to stand down. To fight everything she’s just said with all the fiber of my being.
Thunder that now booms in support of me…in every inch of the sky outside this building.
Chapter Fifteen
Kara
Dalton opens the front door as I pull up the drive. He welcomes me with a graceful, sweeping gesture. “Good evening, Miss Valari.”
I stride up to him. “Hey. Is Mom home?”
“I’m sorry, she isn’t. She’s having dinner