Page 157 of Lethal King

“It’s a king’s duty to—”

“Enough of the king shit,” I stop him. “Until the dust settles, I won’t have it. For now, I’m a soldier. Just like I’ve always been.”

“There’s such a thing as a warrior king, you know,” Maksim notes. “A man can be both.” Lunging ahead, he opens the door to the basement for me.

I’m immediately hit by the scent of paint.

“How is she?”

“Fine,” Maksim says, following me into the darkness below. “But you know your sister, sometimes it’s hard to tell.”

“She cares more about others than herself,” I confirm.

“It’s admirable,” Maksim says.

“It’s stupid.”

Our footsteps must be loud, because we’ve barely hit the bottom step when Mel’s head pokes out from behind a half-opened door.

“Who are you calling stupid?” she asks. But her banter is half-assed. She’s not at full strength today, and it’s completely understandable.

“You,” I say, not bothering to hide my frustration… or my fear.

“That’s mean,” Mel says. Her voice is so quiet I’m not sure if she’s playing up her innocence for sympathy points, or just fucking with me.

“I’m not mean,” I insist, pushing my way into her makeshift studio. “The stranger you met the other night is mean.”

“He didn’t seem so—”

Lifting my palm in the air, I stop her.

“Where is it?” I ask. My eyes are still adjusting to the brightness as I look around the sprawling space. The path down here is so dark, yet the walls of the studio are white, and there’s a miniature flood lamp in every corner, shedding a blinding light over the sprawling room.

“Over there,” Mel shrugs, lazily pointing in an unspecified direction.

I follow her lead, but still have trouble picking out anything from the clutter of countless half-finished paintings and empty picture frames.

“It’s a mess down here,” I note.

“You should have seen it before we got rid of the cats,” Maksim chuckles.

“I miss the cats,” Mel sighs.

“What happened to them?” I ask. Buried under a mountain of painting supplies, I think I see what I’m looking for.

“We’ve shipped them across our empire,” Maksim says. “They’ve gotten good homes, I made sure of it.”

“Any sign of Mel’s kitten?”

“No,” Maksim says, shaking his head.

“She’s not mine,” my sister stubbornly points out. “She’s supposed to be yours.”

“I don’t want a cat,” I grumble.

But that’s a lie.

There is one cat I want.