Chapter 29
BEULAH
KAL DIDN’T NEED TO SHIFT for his acute senses to identify the visitors.
They made no effort to conceal themselves.
Beulah Porter stepped lightly through the forest’s underbrush, surprisingly silent considering her bulk.
Her youngest son, Penn, trudged morosely behind her, lanky shoulders slumped forward, head low.
Kal straightened from his crouch near the porch railing. Interesting that Beulah had come. He’d expected Saul.
“I’m curious, Beulah,” Kal called into the dark. “Did you volunteer to come and do the dirty work, or were you just unlucky enough to draw the shortest stick?”
Beulah paused, watching Kal with an expression reserved for dangerous predators. Smart woman. “There’s no dirty work, Kalevar. I came to speak with you on my own.”
“And the rest of the Conclave?”
“Losing their collective minds over this mess you’ve made. I expect Saul hasn’t yet come for you because he’s still trying to sort them.”
“Bit late for a casual visit.”
Beulah tsked. “A good time for avoiding curious eyes, you mean. Don’t be coy, Kal. I knew you’d be up.”
Kal couldn’t begrudge the woman’s tenacity. He’d always admired that about her. “What do you want, Beulah?”
She stepped onto the stone path that led to his porch steps, stopping when she reached him.
No fear shone in her shadowed features, only grim resignation and a wrinkle of curiosity.
“I have known you for some time now, Kalevar,” she said.
“You’re not a man prone to emotional outbursts or rash decisions.
What you did was both. I saw you in that arena.
You didn’t just kill the grimalkin for that girl. You broke it. I want to know why.”
Kal could leave her on the step. He doubted she’d be foolish enough to force entry.
Not with her youngest son trailing her like a sad puppy.
Kal suspected Beulah had brought the boy along solely to convince Kal that she posed no threat by her visit.
She wouldn’t have invited him if she intended to do something hazardous.
He should leave both of them on the step. Then again, the woman was stubborn enough to park herself on his doorstep until one of the house’s occupants emerged. Better that the encounter took place on his terms.
“Come in then,” Kal said, fixing the Porter matriarch with a warning look. “But Beulah, I wouldn’t advise abusing my hospitality. I’d hate for Ponzi to become a widower and a grieving father all in one night.”
Kal pushed through the front door. The subject of his most recent torment sat at his kitchen table, stiff-backed and tense, peering out the window.
The flirtatious little siren from earlier was gone.
What do you want? He’d asked her.
I want you to say my name.
Residual anger punched him. Kal didn’t even want to think her name, it irked him so.
She stood immediately upon his entering, watching intently as Beulah and Penn stepped into the foyer after him. The shirt he’d lent her still hung loosely on her frame, and Kal was relieved to find her legs were no longer bare. The trousers he’d provided covered the previous expanse of creamy skin.
So, she managed to fit them after all. Temptress, indeed.
Green-gold eyes noticed him studying her attire and glared.
“So, this is the woman responsible for all our recent troubles,” Beulah mused, approaching the table to appraise the subject of her attention. “Blessed stars, Kal. She doesn’t look like an Asterosian spy. Nor an assassin.”
“No, she doesn’t,” he agreed. She also didn’t look like a proficient fraud, yet here they were.
That glare intensified. “I am standing right here. If you cared to ask, I would assure you I am neither.”
Beulah’s wide eyes flicked to Kal, who shrugged, entirely unsurprised by the young woman’s sharp tongue.
“She’s no assassin,” he said. “And if she’s a spy, she’s a pitiful one.”
The woman he didn’t want to name crossed her arms over her chest, features twisting with contempt. Kal made a gargantuan effort to avoid examining how the movement stretched her tunic, outlining the rounded shape of her breasts.
“What is your name, child?” Beulah asked.
Those lovely eyes found his again, uncertainty cutting through her irritation.
Beulah picked up on the wordless exchange and tilted her head. “We all know it isn’t Railah Harless.”
She bristled slightly, hesitating. Then, “You may call me Kitty.”
Kal clenched his jaw, the nickname he’d given her sending an unpleasant twinge through his muscles.
But she’s not Kitty either, is she?
No. She wasn’t, but that name was infinitely better than the alternative—the one she so wanted to hear from his lips.
The one he refused to say. Kal’s mood darkened at the depth of his avoidance.
At the cause of it. How very unlike him to balk at confrontation, internal or otherwise.
And yet, this was one battle he did not want to engage.
Kitty it is.
“Very well, Kitty,” Beulah said, oblivious to Kal’s introspective tempest. “I am Beulah Porter. I believe you’ve met my son, Penn?” She placed a plump palm on her son’s lanky arm. The poor boy looked worse than Kal felt.
Kitty’s features softened. Her voice dropped, suffused with remorse. “I am sorry, Penn.” If Kal hadn’t come to intimately learn her skill at twisting the truth, he would have believed her to be fully sincere. “You were kind to me, and I took advantage of you. I hope you can forgive me.”
Penn mumbled a reply, likely wishing he’d rather be anywhere else.
Beulah studied Kitty a moment before settling her considerable bulk at the table.
“Now, then. As you know, this whole affair has caused quite a stir.” She pegged Kitty with a stern eye.
“You were found wandering the wood without a code. The code is our law. It keeps us safe. You broke that law and were expected to submit to a trial. If you doubted your abilities to survive, you should have swallowed your pride and chosen the verbal inquiry.” Kitty opened her mouth, but Beulah turned her attention to Kal and barreled on.
“And you have lived among us long enough to understand how things work here. You helped write some of our laws, for divine’s sake.
Shame on you, Kalevar. You’ve taken everything we stand for, everything that maintains order within our boundaries, and flipped it on its head.
Saul’s got members of the Conclave calling for your inquiry. Lucian wants you exiled.”
Kal huffed, unbothered. “Lucian is a worm. The man couldn’t physically force a pigeon off his stoop.”
“That’s not the point,” Beulah snapped. “You have single-handedly tied up our whole governing body in a Solomon’s knot, and I want to know why.”
Kal shifted his weight, leaning against the wall, but otherwise didn’t answer. What was he supposed to say? That even his own customarily logical mind couldn’t provide a satisfactory answer to that very same question?
Kal was a man of reason, decisive action, and acceptable risk.
People expected that of him. He expected it of himself.
When he’d shifted and launched into that arena, he’d been none of those things.
He had become rage and wrath—pure, condensed, brutal savagery.
His focus had zeroed in on one thing without thought or sense.
Kal’s attention landed on the young woman sitting mutely at his kitchen table.
The same young woman who, for the past week, had been bathing in his tub.
Who smelled faintly of his soap. Who slept pantsless in his bed.
The stunning young stranger who’d unknowingly compelled Kal’s very sensible mind to forgo every rational thought he’d ever had in favor of utter recklessness.
He didn’t even know the woman, and he was consumed by the need to protect her.
Days ago, when Kal had thought of her only as Kitty, he’d wanted her so badly it hurt. And now that he knew she was a liar? An enemy, even?
Damn him to the depths of hell. He wanted her still.
“Are you in love with the girl?”
Kal’s stunned black gaze snapped to Beulah’s face. Across the table, Kitty’s mouth parted on a sharp inhale.
Beulah leaned back, hands folded over her considerable abdomen. A smug expression crept across her round features. “Don’t look at me like I just cursed your ancestors, Kalevar Kaine. It’s the only plausible explanation for your emphatic lapse of judgment.”
“I don’t owe you an explanation, Beulah,” Kal growled, recovering.
“I acted. I’m not yet sure if I regret it.
” He avoided looking at Kitty and continued.
“As a member of the Conclave, all you need to understand is that this woman does not currently pose a threat to the citizens of Meress. We are safe. If that status changes, you have my word that I will personally handle it.”
Beulah leaned forward, keen cerulean eyes piercing. “The way you handled the trial?”
Kal stiffened. “Careful, Beulah.”
She harumphed.
Penn stepped up to his mother’s shoulder. “Kal’s protected us for years, Ma. If we can trust anyone’s word, it’s his.”
Beulah sighed and rubbed her tired eyes with squat fingers. Kitty sat at the far end of the table, gaze somewhat unfocused, lost in private thoughts.
“What would you have me do, Kal?” Beulah asked.
“I’d have you return to the Conclave and help Saul placate the others. I can’t change what’s done. The trial is over. If Saul wants to discuss the ramifications, he knows where to find me.”
“You can’t stay holed up in this cabin forever,” she cautioned. “Word is already spreading about what you did. Soon, more than just the Conclave will come seeking answers. And, Kal, they won’t be here to talk.”
Kal eased off the support column, eyes flashing. “Let them come.”
Beulah raised a fair eyebrow before turning to address the only other female in the room. “Congratulations, Kitty. You’ve bespelled our infallible Mr. Kaine. I hope you are prepared to handle all that entails.”