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“Cian said you’d prefer apple to orange.”
After what Anna Jackson did to me, I don’t think I could look at a glass of orange juice in the same way ever again. “I do, thanks. Is there a problem with their business?”
I pick up my fork but make no move to eat yet.
Have I been getting in their way, distracting them from their business?
Guilt floods my body.
She crosses over to the drapes and pulls them open to reveal a beautiful blue-skied morning with a blazing hot sun.
Hali turns from the window, shrugging. “Not sure what they’re working on, but they’ve been hard at it. They had their attorney here as well.”
I’m about to dig into my eggs when I halt. “Attorney?”My stomach flip-flops at all the reasons they must need their attorney. None of those are good. I move to put my fork down so I can leave.Now. “If Lawrence is causing problems, then I’ll go. I don’t want—”
“Oh, it’s not Lawrence,” Hali interrupts.
I hesitate, searching her expression in case she’s just saying it to reassure me. “I thought you didn’t know what they were working on.”
“I don’t,” Hali confirms. “But Kylian didn’t look like he was getting ready to kill someone, so it isn’t Lawrence.”
I recall what Kylian said about nearly shooting the servant in the cell. “AndisKylian often in the habit of looking like he’s getting ready to kill someone?”
Hali flashes me a grin. “Only when he wants to protect the people he cares about. There’s nothing he won’t do for those he loves.”
I part my lips to ask if he has ever killed and then promptly shut my mouth again.
Hali eyes me for a little longer then crosses her arms, leaning on the wall beside the window flooding my room with sunlight. “His dad was an alpha who fucked over his beta mom, so as soon as he was old enough, he killed him.”
My eyes must be as big as the sun outside. “What?”
She shrugs. “He killed him. His dad was like this rich alpha and his mom was a beta servant who—”
“Stop.” I dart a rapid glance at the bedroom door, speaking in a loud whisper as I hope to hell wherever Kylian is, he isn’t close enough to listen to this. “Should you be telling me this?”
Hali gives my bedroom door a longer look than the one I just gave it. Still making no attempt to lower her voice, says, “Kylian won’t mind.”
“You telling me hekilledsomeone?” My voice is dry. “Because I think he might.”
She nods at me. “You’ve entered his protective orbit. That means he trusts you, and it means he would want you to know.”
I don’t see that he would. This is beyond personal. Illegal, but also the stuffheshould be telling me, not Hali.
I shouldn’t ask for details. I really shouldn’t. Especially about something only Kylian should decide if he wants to tell me, but…
“Why did he do it?” I still ask.
“His dad acted like he loved his mom. When he got her pregnant, he threw her some money and told her to go away and get an abortion. He had a family he didn’t want to know he was screwing around.” Hali’s blue eyes harden. “She refused, so he got her fired from her job and she nearly starved to death on the street before a women’s charity stepped in and helped her.”
“What happened to her after? I mean, Kylian seems to have done well for himself?”
Hali’s smile is both bitter and sad. “She died. She’d stayed on the street for a long time, some of that time during winter, and picked up something she never shook off. Kylian was five.”
Maybe a plague wiping out all alphas wouldn’t be such a bad thing after all. As long as it didn’t touch the three alphas in this house. Because it’s starting to look like the Ashes are the only decent ones.
“So Kylian found out who his dad was and killed him?” I ask.
“Eventually.”
