Because Mara aimed all her spite and censure at Kellen, at the sister of her heart, at the competitor of her physical self, and it would not make her happy to unload on anyone else.

Kellen would be sorry. The longer Mara waited, the more ways she thought to torment Kellen Adams. Kellen and her whole wonderful, happy family.

Look at them. How sweet. It looks like a scene from that goddamn BBC historical series set in a castle.

Kellen sat in a brocade easy chair, reading something that looked like a fairy tale.

Max sat nearby, all noble and strong, and watched his wife as if she embodied his every dream.

Rae reclined on the rug, one knee crossed, the other leg resting on it and swinging restlessly. She held a red leather-bound book in one hand and a pen in the other, and she stared at the ceiling.

Poor kid. She was bored, listening to someone read out loud. Listening to Kellen Adams read out loud.

Kellen had changed. Her hair was longer, as if she’d let it grow to cover the brain surgery scars, and white, as if it had been bleached by the island’s sun. That surgery had left its marks in her face, which was more mature, and on her hand. Mara had done her research; she knew Kellen battled atrophy.

Now, as Kellen read, she squeezed a stress ball to build strength. Once she stopped, shook her hand and grimaced, and Mara saw the way the fingers curled toward the palm.

She wanted to tell her not to bother with the stress ball. In another twenty-four hours, that hand wouldn’t be attached to her body.

Then Mara frowned and wondered—was a damaged hand even worth harvesting? What a dreadful thought, that the hand of her dearest enemy was imperfect and trifling.

Kellen looked up from that book and right at the window.

Mara shrank back. Had she seen her? They had been best friends once, like twins who could speak across long distances. Had Kellen heard her thoughts?

But no. Kellen said, “Rae, it’s getting a breezy. Would you shut the window?”

Mara hated that voice, fond, warm, a little raspy, as if she’d been reading too long. She hated the knowledge that Kellen had refused the psychic connection between them. Why would she pretend not to know they had been sisters in a previous life?

Rae hopped up and ran to the window where Mara stood. “Are you going to read more, Mommy? Tonight, will you read more?” Without looking outside, Rae shut that window right in Mara’s face.

Mara hadn’t seen it before, but that kid…looked like Kellen. Her rage swelled. She wanted to break the window, leap in like Dracula, crush them, drink their blood, cut off their hands.

But no! Not now, Mara. Not yet. You couldn’t win against the three of them.

She fingered her pistol.