Chapter 193: Never!

"I’d never be ashamed to call myself your little sister!" she decreed, voice trembling, passionate, and so intense it could’ve melted steel.

"NEVER! Not even if you became a villain!"

She leaned further in, pressing her forehead against his, letting the girl stare into his eyes from less than an inch away as she declared:

"I’ll always be proud to call myself your little sister! Don’t you EVER dare assume otherwise! Even if the whole world turns against you, I’ll still be here. Just say the word and I’ll kill them all!"

Alice wasn’t finished. Her voice grew fevered, eyes blazing with fanaticism. "Awakened humans, monsters, criminals, citizens, fathers and mothers, children—"

Kaiden sighed and raised a hand, gently placing a finger against her lips.

"I got it, Alice."

The little sister went stock-still instantly upon his actions. Her heart skipped. Her eyes shimmered.

’He silenced me... just like that...’

Internally, she squealed hard enough to rupture a dimension. Only her big brother could tell her to shut up and somehow make her adore him even more for it.

Alice let out a long, happy sigh and lowered her head to his chest, cheek pressed softly against his chest to dreamily examine the rise and fall of his breathing.

Her own breathing, once erratic and obsessed, calmed. For the first time since Kaiden’s arrival, she simply... rested. But soon, she spoke up with a low, fragile whisper. "... The reason I didn’t run to you right away was because... I thought seeing me might make you sad."

Kaiden’s eyes widened, caught off guard at the revelation. "Sad? Why would-?"

"I know you hate the Ashborn family, and I’m part of it. Same blood. Same name. I thought... if you saw me, you’d think of them. Of what they did. That it would hurt."

She shut her eyes tightly, voice trembling. "That’s why I never visited you at college... Even though I wanted to. Every single day... Every single hour... Minute... Second..."

Kaiden’s expression darkened.

"Alice... How could I hate you? That’s impossible."

She lifted her gaze again, blinking rapidly as if she didn’t dare believe what she’d heard.

"I hated them," Kaiden explained. "The way they looked down on me. The way Father treated me as if I was nothing but a stain on the bloodline. The way our siblings mocked me for being non-awakened..."

He reached up and gently cupped the back of her head.

"But not once—not once—did I ever think of you like that."

Her lips trembled. Her eyes glistened.

"I hate them..." she muttered, voice shaking with venomous grief. "I hate them more than anything. They deserve to suffer. They deserve to die for what they did to you."

Her palms curled into fists against his chest. "I tried... I tried to destroy them. After you left, I trained harder than anyone. I broke myself a thousand times and pieced myself together again."

Her teeth clenched. "But I couldn’t beat them... I couldn’t protect you. I’m a failure."

Kaiden stared at her for a long moment, then, suddenly, chuckled softly.

"Alice. You’re literally the last person on this planet who gets to call herself a failure."

Before she could argue, he shifted to stand. "C’mon. Let’s go greet Mother."

But Alice didn’t move from her spot.

Instead, like some overzealous monkey with a one-person tree, she clung. Her arms wrapped around his neck, her legs around his waist, her face pressed right back to his chest with stubborn resolve.

"I’m not letting go..."

"Ever again."

Kaiden sighed with a resigned smile and braced her weight with both arms.

Alice continued clinging like an adorable, psychotic little backpack.

But then, she sniffed.

*Sniff sniff.*

Her brow furrowed. She lifted her chin to get a better sense of the horrible stench her nostrils had picked up.

*Sniff-sniff-sniff.*

Suddenly, her nose wrinkled as if she’d just inhaled the scent of a carton of milk left open under the sun... ten years ago.

Her expression twisted with disgust. "What is that stench...?"

She craned her head around from her big brother’s embrace, and, at long last, spotted the culprits.

Four of them.

Luna, with wild purple hair and a little grin, directed right at Alice.

Aria, with a supermodel’s body, a soft, mature smile, and curves that could probably collapse nations.

Nyx, whose colossal tits might have had its own gravitational field and whose excitement at watching the scene unfold made Alice’s eyebrow twitch with contained violence.

And then Bastet... Bronzed skin, golden eyes, and a feline grace that screamed exotic. She even had the gall to look around so lazily, so nonchalantly, as if it were she who owned the garden.

Alice’s eyes twitched.

No. It was her very soul that twitched.

She slowly turned her head back toward Kaiden, her voice now dangerously high-pitched and sweet.

"...Big brother~?"

"Hmm?"

"Do we have to bring them?" she asked, fluttering her lashes, trying her best puppy-dog impersonation. "Can’t they wait here in the garden...? We have a kennel somewhere around here... They can stay there while you come inside..."

Silence.

Kaiden’s expression darkened instantly. His brows furrowed, eyes sharpening into blades.

"Alice."

That one word dropped onto the girl as if it were a hammer. She stiffened.

"You know how important these four women are to me. Every single one."

His voice wasn’t loud, but it carried that weight. That pressure that shut down any argument with pure, unshakable conviction.

"So, unless you want to get reprimanded by me seriously for the first time in your life, you’re going to treat them with the same respect you treat me. Understood?"

Alice gulped. Her whole body flinched. She didn’t like the tone her ears were picking up one bit. "Y-yes, big brother..."

Still clinging, still monkey-mode, she nodded obediently. But as Kaiden turned back toward the group, she slowly tilted her head to the side and stared right through the girls as if they were invisible.

Not a word. Not a wave. Not a blink. Just pure, icy, tactical non-acknowledgment.

And with that, Kaiden led the way deeper into Ashborn Manor.