Page 66 of A Dusk Of Stars

“So you’d be fine with someone forcingyouinto a life you don’t want for yourself?”

“Alright,” I concede, but that only brings me to my second point. “You’re a professor who’s not even trying to teach the kids, let alone be a good role model—”

He cuts me off with a scoff. “Well sorry for not wanting to play at kindergarten with a bunch of sheltered, privileged little pricks.”

“If that’s what you think of all this,” I demand with a frown, “then why are you even here?”

“Maybe I needed a change of scenery,” he starts reciting with a shrug, “maybe running a business has become less challenging, maybe there were certain external pressures…” He leans a little forward, his eyes narrowing at me. “Or maybe I was just in need of a smartass grilling me about my life choices.”

“Cute,” I say flatly. “But I’m not done. Because you’re not just a packless alpha or a shitty professor. Your little gambling enterprise isliterallybased on exploiting people’s weaknesses. As you yourself once said, ‘if we’re not targeting vulnerable individuals, what are we even doing?’”

“You remember that?” he asks with a smirk.

“I have anoutstandingmemory, so if you don't want me to remember you saying something…” I give him a flat glare. “I suggest you don't say it.”

He blows a laugh, then shakes his head. “How naiveareyou, Novak?” he asks with a smile. “Exploiting people’s weaknesses, that’s whatallbusiness is. Mine’s far from the worst. At least it’s not selling candy-shaped poison to kids or pricey snake oil to sick people. It’s selling a real possibility of getting rich to adults who know exactly what they’re getting into.”

I don’t like it, how his words are getting to me. “Yeah… even if that were true,yourselfishness goes much beyondthat.”

“Careful, you’ll make me feel special.”

I let out a scoff, lifting a hand to start counting. “Looks, strength, dominance, connections, money,” I say forcefully. “It’s basically every type of power a person can even have. Unlike the vast majority of people, you don’t just have one or a few, you have themall. And what do you do with them? The world ispractically going up in flames all around you andyou, you busy yourself amassing a kind of wealth no single person would ever even have a need for.”

When he only keeps looking at me with this unperturbed curiosity in his eyes, I stare him down, gritting out, “So yeah, as I said, you’re the very embodiment of this world’s casual immorality.”

To my surprise, he lets out a laugh.

“What?” I demand.

“I’m just happy to finally see you get caught in that little trap of yours,” he says with a smirk, leaning in to explain, “This is not an i-mmoral world, Novak, it’s an a-moral one, entirely indifferent to anything we do. Which is why it doesn’t matter what you do, good or bad, when in the end, all it ever comes down to is survival.”

The words make my own doubts rise to the surface, but I shrug them off. “That’s a ridiculous way of seeing things.”

“Is it?” he groans.

“Yeah,” I insist. “It’s one of those things thatsoundcool, deep and true, when in fact they’re just a cowardly cover-up for avoiding responsibility. That’s the main difference between us, why we’ll never be able to see eye to eye. So we can just drop it.”

Now, for some reason, that last bit makes anger flash through his eyes.

He just stares at me for a second.

“You know,” he starts, his tone rigid, “there was this guy I used to know.”

Anticipation takes my breath away, when I realize he’s about to give me a glimpse, however marginal, into his life.

“He was anactualbad guy,” he keeps saying forcefully, not taking his eyes off me. “Part of one of the more infamous còmhlans, which is basically what they call shifter gangs backwhere I grew up. He did godawful things for the leader of his còmhlan and she showered him with money in return.”

It makes me frown, how far this is from what I’d expected him to talk about.

He shakes his head. “He could buy anything he wanted, but he couldn’t stop letting his addictions ruin his life. There was this violent sadness and self-destructiveness in him that just wouldn’t let up.” His eyes narrow at me. “You’dprobably say he was miserable because he wasn’t exactly a good man and it was forever catching up with him.”

Pausing for a second, he continues in a deceptively merry voice. “Then, one day, he left the còmhlan— he needed a lot of help to do it, but he got it. He started living this virtuous life, and three years later, he was found dead in his new shithole of an apartment, killed for escaping the life, along with dozens of people who served as a warning. Now, where’s the moral inthat, huh?”

I don’t say anything — it’s obvious he’s not being logical but emotional right now. I just keep looking at him, swallowing around a lump in my throat with this sadness burrowing deep into me at the first ever glimpse into his pain. It’s dark, murky, and so layered, I can’t make anything out.

There’s this overwhelming urge to take it away, making me remember what happened that time Raven touched me. Without really knowing what I’m doing, I find myself lifting my hand to his upper arm.

I see his eyebrows pull down. Still, he lets me touch him. It startles me, when I actually start drawing it all out and into my body. Surprise flashes through his eyes, but he doesn’t pull back.

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