I purse my lips. “It’s not a place you even want to joke about, okay?”
“Oh, I’m not joking.”
Despite her charge, she rubs a few fingers atop my free hand, so subtle and sweet, conveying a different intention than her jab. It’s such a mesmerizing mix of affection and derision…but I’m not about to let her off the hook because of it. Definitely not now.
“Damn it, Kell. Tell me what Arden said. You need to tell me, because if I keep writing that script myself…”
For a second—just one—I consider how many of my own violent sides would be rearing right now had Arden inflicted damage on her that wasn’t so easily repaired by her demonic DNA. My soul is already knotted in the spiritual version of the stomach flu, feeling so much of what he’s done to beat her down inside.
“Please, sister.”
“It was very nearly what I just said.” She halts her strokes along my knuckles as the corners of her eyes pinch and their centers glaze over. “I was outside the Aquila Building. Arden showed up. Before I opened my mouth, he started ranting about you and Hades and a million more underworld no-noes you’d somehow heaped on top of the first one.”
“Why would he waste his time complaining to you about it?”
“Because the jerk thought I was in on it somehow. He accused me of helping Maximus and Gramps jump. Like I’d know the first fucking thing about it.” Kell rolls her eyes before closing them briefly. “Then he started going on and on about some book, over and over again, like I’d have a better idea what he was talking about if he screamed it a hundred times. Honestly, I felt like I was in an interrogation room and he was the bad cop—only I never got to meet the good cop. Anyone ever tell the clueless wonder that you only get a confession when the good cop’s involved too?”
She’s giggling about it now.
I’m not.
My bloodstream turns so cold, the stalactites and stalagmites are sharpening each other. I finally stammer out, “A…book?”
She keeps chuckling about the memory, even as my stomach plummets. “He would not let up about it. Kept telling me I knew where it was. That it belonged in the underworld and you had no right to take it.” She blinks slowly—before sniffing toward me tentatively. “Do you know anything about that?”
At once, I step back. I shake my head, forcing myself to believe it so Kell won’t pick up on the lie. “What happened after you argued?”
“Then another one of the quakes hit. It sent lots of people scattering, except Arden. He thought he’d use the moment and create a ‘happy accident’ to get me talking.”
After a few seconds, I shove aside my mounting ire to speak. “What did he do?”
Kell cocks back her head with a sad smile. “The quake was strong enough to rock the statue. He gave it a little extra push.”
“The statue?” I search my recall for the one she’s talking about. “The big concrete treble clef in the courtyard outside Aquila?”
Kell clicks her tongue. “That’s the one.”
“That thing’s ten or eleven feet high.”
Kell shrugs. “It was cracked near the base. He’s strong and fast enough to give it the momentum it needed. Thankfully it didn’t kill me. Then he’d have to marry Jaden. Imagine how peeved he’d be then!”
She starts snickering wildly at her own joke, but again I don’t join her. I can’t.
Through several long seconds, I scramble through the confused brambles of my brain. If I had to paint a visual of them now, they’d look like the stark, snaking vines that covered so much of Dis. The despair that fills me now just thinking about Kell having to defend herself against Arden and that gigantic concrete slab… My heart inches hideously close to the feeling I had then. The emotions that are impossible to revisit. Not now. Not so soon. Please…not ever…
“What’s wrong now?” Kell coos.
“I’m disgusted, okay?” I finally say. “Disgusted and dismayed and furious. He had no right to make those accusations. You’re blameless in all this. You have been since the beginning, and now—”
My rising intensity has her smacking the back of my hand. “Okay, adjust the equalizer settings, please. I thought you wanted to keep a low profile here. Or do you actually want everyone in the building to get an earful of the real Valari secrets?”
I focus on counseling a bunch of calm to myself. But the rage burns higher inside, producing a red haze at the corners of my vision. But I’m more than just angry. I’m sick with guilt, oppressed by helplessness. I was cuddling on the couch with Maximus when my sister was getting assaulted by her incubus. “I’m sorry,” I mumble. “He’s despicable. A belligerent bully.”
She slides her hand into mine again. “Yeah, he is. But there’s nothing we can do about it. The important thing right now is—”
“Making sure you never have to see that heartless bastard again.” I ball up my hands from the first second of her eye roll.
But Kell persists with a declaration that matches her firm handhold. “You need to send that fantasy off in the dream balloon right now, sister. Arden may be a heartless, despicable coward, but he’s also got the pedigree from the powers that be. We both know what that means.”
I drag in another sharp breath. “There’s got to be another way!”
“There isn’t. You’re not making anything better by pushing that agenda. I mean, haven’t you caused enough trouble for yourself already?”
Suddenly she’s not gazing at me with affection.
“Kell…”
She ignores me, rolling to her side to further sever our connection.
“Come on. I don’t want to fight about this.”
“Then let’s not,” she retorts. “I’m really tired, K-demon. Why don’t you go check on Maximus? I’ll have his mom find you when I’m close to getting sprung.”
I hate admitting it, but her suggestion has merit. I can only imagine what fate Maximus is concocting for Arden as we speak—and as much as I’d love to get in on that plan, messing with him further is not a brilliant concept right now. Via just the few details Kell has supplied, it’s obvious Arden has tight inside tracks all the way to Dis, perhaps to Hades’s inner circle itself.
No. Not perhaps.
Probably.
Which makes him an enemy best kept at arm’s length but alive—whether any of us likes it or not.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Maximus
“Room for one more at the table?”
Kara’s murmur supplies the final dose of sanity that I need for turning off my finger lightning. As she sits beside me atop one of the break tables, I try to calm the small squall that’s still whipping at the edges of the patio.
She loops her arm beneath mine and rests her cheek on my shoulder. I sweep my head down to taste her…needing her spice more with every passing second. I’ll never stop craving this gorgeous, fiery female…
Her breath catches at the last minute, ramping my desire by the key notch that’ll keep the rain steady for at least another few minutes. Neither of us notice. Just like that, we’re totally lost in each other again.