33
HARLOW
really was going to run. I have at least one broken rib from the fall, and II need to wrap the cut on my arm. But if I open this door now, they will be right behind me and the Drained one will be right behind them and I shudder to think of what that thing might do if it’s let loose in the fort.
Putting all three men between me and that beast was intentional. Now I can see all of my adversaries at once, but unfortunately, I don’t have anywhere to run.
That Drained is unnerving. The aura void around it is the largest I’ve ever seen. That, combined with the fact that there’s blood dripping down my arm and it hasn’t so much as taken a step toward me, is a clear sign that there’s something very different about the beast. If it truly wants fertile women to breed, then I’m less likely to be killed immediately than these three men, and I will hold them here until that thing rips them apart.
Stefan smirks at my bloody arm and the small blade in my fist. “Move.”
The third idiot man, whose name I don’t know, has the good sense to turn
toward the Drained.
“Roland!” Henry’s voice rings out.
But it’s too late. The Drained grabs Roland and bites into his throat before he even has the chance to scream.
Henry jumps from the catwalk, landing behind the beast in a low, graceful crouch. I faintly remember what he said when he told me about returning from death—how it gave him more animal instincts.
The Breeder drops Roland’s half-drained body and turns to face Henry. It cocks its head to the side and with a voice that sounds like a claw dragged
along bone, it speaks.
“You don’t scare me, death-touched.”
Henry’s face betrays no shock, but his aura flares out wide. Clearly, he has also never heard a Drained one speak.
“I should scare you,” Henry says. “You’re standing between me and my wife.”
The Drained makes a low sound like a rasping laugh. “She doesn’t smell like yours.”
The impulse to run is so strong, but I am not letting these two assholes who tried to pass me off to a monster get away so easily.
I shouldn’t kill them. I shouldn’t hurt them at all. It will make me more of a villain than I already am in Mountain Haven. It will make it almost impossible for me to do what I need to do.
My mind conjures Aidia’s face, and I almost open the door and let them run.
But this is what I do. I punish men who think they can hurt women without repercussions.
The surprise on their faces is so typical. Men are always shocked when they meet resistance to their plans. Comfort has made them all complacent.
I have no such luxury. I was very young when I learned not to expect any softness from life. Violence came for me the way it does for all women. It hunted me, and I let its blade whittle me into something too sharp to touch— so that no man could bleed me without getting bloodied too.
“Are you so weak you won’t turn and fight this beast?” I taunt.
Over Stefan’s shoulder, Henry and the Drained are circling each other.
I need these two idiots away from the door so I can let Gaven in to handle the Drained. I don’t want to show Henry his magic. That was a secret we were keeping as long as we could, but desperate times require improvisation.
“Move or I’ll move you,” Stefan says, his dark eyes full of menace.
His orange aura spikes out, prodding at me, and I have had enough of that.
Much as I loathe them, murdering Divine-blessed hunters of important fort families will do nothing for my mission. If the Havenwoods lose their power here, my chance to help Aidia will be lost as well.
Leaving them alive is also a risk. Stefan is too volatile to be controlled. If
his family takes over, I will have no way to earn his trust.
Both men are looking at me like they’d be happy to kill me just to get through this door—and if they open the door too soon, that Breeder will escape. Much as the people here might hate me, they’ve suffered enough. I don’t wish them any further suffering—especially if this thing is hunting women.
I take a step toward Stefan. Gaven taught me how to fight like a woman, which means following an opponent’s movements instead of trying to overpower them. It has meant learning to ignore the natural fear in my body, to let an adversary close. Stefan comes at me hard with a left hook. I slash across his forearm with my blade and snatch his wrist, using momentum from the punch to slam him against the metal door.
He hits it shoulder-first with a loud pop. As he stumbles to the side, I pin him against the wall, calling up my magic. My lips tingle and my mouth turns sweet as I lean in.
Stefan fights for a second until he realizes what I’m doing. He thinks he’s
getting what he’s owed.
In a way, he is.
My lips are a breath from his when I’m grabbed by my hair and jerked back. I stumble a few steps. Joe releases my hair and tackles me to the ground. He tries to pin me there, but something inside me snaps.
It feels like I’m being pulled apart by a living anger, like all the rage in the world is splitting me up the center and coming out to rip these men apart next.
It’s only a blink of an eye that the world disappears in a flash of white, but when I come back to my body, I’m straddling Joe’s waist, ripping my blade from a raw, bloody wound in his neck.
“Harlow!” Henry’s voice drags me from the daze. He’s circling the beast, but his shirt is torn, bloody scratches weeping on his side.
Stefan is leaning against the wall next to the door, holding his shoulder, which dangles at an odd angle. I must have dislocated it when I shoved him.
I sprint for the lock. When Stefan sees what I’m doing, he tries to cut me off. I throw my full weight into him, ignoring the fierce protest of my broken ribs. His head hits the door with a dull crack and he collapses against the wall.
For a moment, I can’t figure out how to open the door, but then I see the pointed blood lock on the wall. I hold my breath as I press my finger to it,
praying to the Divine that it will work like the locks in Havenwood House.
The bolt clicks, the bar sliding to the side. It’s heavy and the notches fit into the wall like a puzzle, but after a long moment of fiddling, it finally lifts and the door is unbarred. I press my ear to it and knock three times—my signal to Gaven that we established years ago to let him know when it was safe for him to come into my room.
It’s immediately wrenched open, and Gaven sprints past me. Carter rushes in after him, yanking the door closed and barring it again before any drunken hunters can get a good look.
Carter takes one look at my blood-soaked hands and dress and stops.
“What —”
“It’s not mine,” I say. “I don’t know what happened.”
I couldn’t possibly explain it. The anger carried me somewhere else and I was gone for what could have only been seconds.
Across the room, blue fire flares from Gaven’s hands and the beast lets out an unholy keening sound as it burns into a bright blaze of holy fire.
Within moments, it’s nothing but a pile of putrid ash.
Henry doesn’t even wait for it to cool before he’s stepping over it and rushing toward me. He looks me over, patting my arms.
“It’s Joe’s blood,” I say. “Not mine.”
He looks at the shredded throat of Joe’s body on the ground beside us and then back at my face. “Did you have to make such a bloody fucking mess?”
He cups my chin roughly and wipes my cheeks with his handkerchief. I stare at the dark stubble on his jaw instead of meeting his eyes, until he
brushes his thumb to my tingling lips.
“You tried to kiss another man.”
I lick my lips. “It seemed practical in the moment. I didn’t think you
would mind.”
“You can use your —”
Hands. He’s going to say hands.
I yank his face to mine and kiss him. It’s quick, just a subtle parting of our lips, just a hint of whiskey on his tongue mixing with the poison sweetness on mine before I pull away.
“I told you that no one else knows that,” I whisper.
He bends so his lips brush my ear. “So many secrets, but your days of poison kisses are over.”
Gaven is suddenly yanking me away from my husband.
I realize when I look at his stunned face that I never told him Henry is immune to my magic.
“Relax, Gaven. Henry is as impervious to my poison as he is to my charm.”
Gaven’s relief is instant, his face morphing from a look of panicked escape-planning to one of annoyance. After all these years, I would think he’d be used to being kept in the dark.
Bryce jumps down from the catwalk and saunters over to us, appraising Joe’s body with raised eyebrows.
“Would have been helpful to know you could wield holy fire this whole time,” Henry says, eyeing my bodyguard.
Gaven crosses his arms. “My duty is to Miss Carrenwell. That wasn’t information you needed to know.”
“How?” Henry asks. “According to the records, you’re not blessed.”
Gaven looks to me for permission.
I wave a hand. “May as well.”
“I’m not,” Gaven says. “But I showed enough promise when I was a young man that Harrick Carrenwell hired me to protect Harlow and offered me a unique gift.” Gaven rolls up his sleeve and bares his forearm, showing off the dark, shiny inked sigil of Vardek.
Henry narrows his eyes at me as if it’s a betrayal that I didn’t tell him, but I can’t imagine he would have been forthcoming if our roles were reversed.
My husband looks at the mark. “I’ve always been aware of magically blessed objects that transfer power for limited uses, but I’ve never seen a blessing infused into one’s skin.”
“They didn’t want to risk me losing the object in a fight,” Gaven says.
“Best to have it marked right into my body with a brand and ink made with well water.”
“Holy fire. How can Harrick Carrenwell bestow a Divine blessing?”
Carter asks.
“I can only use it to protect Harlow from threats against her,” Gaven says.
“I can’t power a city wall, or fire it off at will. She needs to be under threat.”
Henry rubs a hand over his face. “That’s why you kept the Breeder between you and Harlow. As long as it’s a threat, you can use that magic.
That’s how you survived the horde alone in the woods on the ride here. They were standing between you and her.”
Gaven nods. “She and I have trained extensively on how to maneuver
ourselves in a fight. Now, if we’re done exchanging secrets, what are we going to do about this mess?”
The ashes of the Breeder are the least of it. My dress is soaked in Joe’s blood, and Stefan is unconscious, bleeding from a slice along his left forearm.
“Carter, can you…” Henry gestures.
“Can I make the last twenty minutes not have happened?” he asks, a nervous pinch in his brow. “No, Hen. Afraid not. Polm’s gifts are powerful, but not that powerful. We need a strategy.”
“Drained attack?” Bryce suggests.
Henry shakes his head. “They weren’t on duty, and it makes my family
look bad.”
“Training accident?” Carter says.
“This late at night?” Gaven counters. “And it still makes the Havenwoods
look bad.”
“They attacked me,” I say.
Carter sighs. “That makes Henry look bad.”
My trembling from Stefan’s fear magic has stopped, but I know I don’t have much time before the adrenaline hits me.
I’m good in an emergency. It’s born out of necessity—out of years of needing to show a brave face and suffer quietly far from prying eyes. It’s like my mind and body have learned how to postpone the panic until all the danger is gone, but the delay costs me. When it comes on, it comes on very hard—until I’m a shaking mess, entirely unable to compose myself.
I don’t know how long I have before I fall apart completely. I need to get away from Henry and everyone else before that happens.
For the first time in my life, I wish for my sister, Electra. She is beautiful in a cold, cruel way—much like our mother—but her blessing from Harvain gave her the ability to erase or reform memories. I used to resent her for being granted a much less brutal gift by the same Divine. Most of my family have blessings from Harvain. It was part of the reason my father chose to marry my mother.
Harvain is the wildcard of the Divine. His blessings are the most unique and least predictable. They’re also highly coveted because there are fewer defenses to counteract them. I know I’m ungrateful, but I wish he’d granted me something I could control.
“How does your magic work?” I ask Carter.
Carter looks to Henry first. Bleeding woods—don’t they ever get tired of
looking to him for approval? How does Henry even have such allegiance from two men who look like they could at the very least go a few rounds with him in a fighting ring?
When Henry nods, Carter looks shocked, but his gaze turns skeptical when he looks at me.
“It works a little bit different for everyone because no two gifts are exactly the same,” Carter says. “But, generally, Polm’s gifts are most effective on someone with whom you’ve established a personal connection.
What Henry is asking for here is a challenge, to say the least.”
“But you can do it,” Henry says.
Carter holds up a hand. “If you could give me a second to think, I could.”
He paces back and forth a few times, then looks toward the catwalk and back at the bodies on the floor.
My hands are still tacky with drying blood. It’s a reminder that my time to escape without making a scene is dwindling. I try to think like Kellan.
How would he manage a situation like this? He would never use his manipulation on someone who wasn’t asking for it.
“Could you make him believe that he hurt his friends?” I ask. “Like, could you make him stab them now and then trick his brain into thinking he’d done all this violence?”
“That is a degradation of a blessing,” Carter says, his face the picture of genuine disgust. “Just because Polm is Divine of Malice doesn’t mean his blessings have to be used for harm. Very few even have that level of power.
It’s a rare gift that can force someone to do a physical act.”
Henry meets my eye, and I wonder if he’s thinking of the fight against the rebels at our engagement dinner—of Kellan forcing all those men to lie on the ground until dawn. Kellan’s magic is very powerful. It’s the reason he’s the leader of the city guard.
“Doesn’t seem rare enough in Lunameade,” I say.
All of them stare at me blankly.
“There are those who would use their blessings to—force women,” I say.
Henry’s aura billows out like an explosion in all directions. “What are
you talking about?”
All three of the other men flinch.
I scoff, trying to shove down the panic and rage. “Calm down, my wolf.
Not me. Women I know. Women in my community.”
This is too close for comfort. Anger claws its way up my throat, dragging
something from the center of me. I take a breath, shove it all down, and level a glare at the men.
“Do you know one of the first things a girl learns when she’s young? The first thing her mother teaches her when she’s coming of age?”
None of them speak.
“How to recognize influence blessings. What the first press of it feels like —how to ground yourself so that it can’t get in deeper. I don’t imagine that men learn the same, judging from the looks on your faces. It might be rare in your circles, but it’s not rare in this world.”
Even Gaven looks chastened.
It’s a slip-up. I am slowly splintering, and I need this figured out now so I can leave this room that smells like mold and death and breathe clean air.
“Their families—” I gesture to Joe and Roland’s bodies. “They’re powerful, right?”
Henry nods. “Not as much as Stefan’s, but still very connected.”
I scour my brain for a believable lie. “What if Joe and Roland were tired of playing sidekick? What if they wanted to take Stefan on?”
Henry frowns. “It would make more sense for them to wait until I was out of the way too, but it could work.”
“Can’t you just make him forget?” I ask.
Carter rolls his eyes and bends to check Stefan’s breathing. “I can’t erase a memory or remove it, but I can refocus the mind on different parts of a memory. The more you know the person, the easier they are to influence. To know them is to understand what motivates them. Minds want to take the path of least resistance. But Stefan hates Henry and, by proxy, you. I’m not sure how I’d find a way in.”
I replay the few interactions I’ve had with Stefan in my mind. “He wants to fuck me.”
Henry’s jaw clenches. “And how is that relevant?”
I place a hand on his chest. “Calm down. You can’t be the bad guy, but I can. What if I make myself the slut everyone already thinks I am?”
“Absolutely not. That will humiliate me,” Henry says.
I glare at him. “And yet, somehow I’m certain your ego will survive.”
Carter and Bryce muffle nervous laughter.
“You could make him think I lured him here to seduce him. We thought it would be somewhere that we wouldn’t be disturbed.”
“Harlow, no,” Henry says at the same time Carter says, “That could
work.”
I push my advantage. “The people here already hate me. If anything, you’ll get sympathy. I lured him away. We thought it would be safe here. Joe and Roland were supposed to stand guard. The Breeder got free of its cage.
There was a fight and all of you showed up at the tail end of it.” I turn to meet Carter’s gaze. “Could you do that?”
He gives a half-hearted shrug. “I could.”
“Absolutely not. There has to be another way,” Henry says.
Gaven sighs. “I don’t like it either because it puts her more at risk, but we’re running out of time and I don’t see another option. The hunters outside those doors are going to be wondering what happened. This story holds up for them and it holds up with what’s here in the room.”
I can feel Gaven’s disapproval, but I can’t tell if it’s because of the kiss or
the suggestion or both.
Henry looks to his friends.
“She’s right, Hen. It’s the only way to keep the target off of you,” Carter says.
“But they’ll hate her. It will be more dangerous for her,” Henry argues.
“They already think she’s a selfish, spoiled city girl from a corrupt family. If we play into their expectations, they won’t look for another explanation,” Bryce says.
I hold up my hands. “Good—it’s settled. I need to go back to my room
and wash up.”
“You’re hurt,” Henry says.
“You’re hurt worse. Clean up here. Gaven will walk me back to my room.” I thread my arm through Gaven’s and start toward the door before Henry can argue.
Bryce makes short work of the bar on the door, ready to intercept the half-drunk hunters as we slip out.
Gaven and I walk in silence down the gravel trail back toward Havenwood House. Silver moonlight turns the evergreen tree shadows ghoulish as we cut up the trail toward the back door.
He waits five blessed minutes before chastising me. “That was incredibly foolish.”
“Believe me. Silk would certainly not be my first choice for a fight with the Drained, but —”
Gaven jerks me to a stop. “Is the careening toward oblivion going to stop
at some point? The risks you were taking in Lunameade were one thing, but this isn’t a controlled environment and you are not invincible, Harlow.”
The venom in his voice is as startling as the use of my name. As much as I resent his coddling, Gaven has always been a better approximation of a father than the man who raised me. A more gracious woman would appreciate his concern, but it just makes me feel stupid.
I glance back the way we came. “Stefan and his friends caught me off guard. They must have spotted me and followed me through the sixth level. I just wanted to peek and see if the Havenwoods were really keeping a Drained, especially after what that idiot at the bar told me about the Breeders.
I’m here to do a job and I got in a little over my head, but I’m not trying to make a regular thing of rumbling with these mountain men.”
His scrutinizing gaze rakes over me. “You fell from the second story?”
I don’t remember the fall. I remember the moment before and the moment of impact, but the falling is a blank spot in my mind, just like stabbing Joe. It frightens me that this could be my descent into the same madness that claimed my father and brother.
Forcing the thought away, I shrug. “Fortunately, Joe broke my fall,
so —”
“What happened in there?” Gaven snaps.
“A man put his hands on me.”
“And?”
“And I put my hands on him back.”
He clenches his jaw and looks away. “We’re going to discuss this later.”
That’s all the scolding I can take. I continue up the trail toward the house, listening to Gaven’s footsteps behind me as I cross the back patio and duck inside the large glass doors of the solarium.
The glass panes of the ceiling form a moonlit checkerboard on the tile floor and highlight the white, shimmering petals of the Stellarium Blossoms.
I’ve only ever been in this room in daylight, when the blooms look withered and dead. They’re named after the Divine of Stars and Darkness because of the way they come alive in the dark.
These flowers are rare in Lunameade, but grow wild in the mountains here. They’re stunning. Moss grows over the rims of the planters and the vines cling to the glass walls, forming an intricate pattern all the way up to the ceiling. Their soft floral scent fills the space, blending with the ever- present beeswax smell of the rest of the house.
Havenwood House is quiet. The gentle clatter of dishes echoes down the hall from the kitchen.
The glass door creaks open behind me as Gaven enters. “His parents should already be in bed. I ducked in the kitchen and let them know you’d need a bath.”
My scolding from him and the sight of the flowers offered only a temporary distraction from the growing panic in my body.
Gaven steps up beside me, and I let him lead me up the back stairwell to my room.
He posts himself beside the door and gives me a hard look. “Don’t sneak out again.”
I know he thinks it wasn’t worth the risk, but he always thinks that.
Besides, I learned something valuable.
When I push through the door into my bedroom, Cora, my maid from the wedding ceremony, is waiting for me. She quickly fetches water to fill the bath—not well water like below the manor, just fresh water from a nearby river channeled through a network of pipes in the fort. She places heated sunstones in the tub.
I begin to wash the blood from my hair, face, and hands in a bucket of warm water she brought separately, so that I can keep the bath from getting bloody.
“I can help you with the bath, miss. I don’t mind,” she says, clearly noticing the way I’m struggling to move with my broken ribs.
But I can’t bear one more person touching me today.
I dump an unnecessarily wasteful amount of soap into the tub and the room fills with the soft lilac scent of it as I peel the last bit of sticky silk and lace from my body.
The bubbly water is divine on my sore muscles as I step into the bath.
The ache of last night is still alive in my hamstrings, inner thighs, and even inside me in a pleasant way that I feel when I twist. But the ache from the fight is more present. My forearm stings where the fresh cut is red and angry, and the growing pain in my ribs makes it hard to really relax.
I resign myself to quickly wash my hair and scrub the day from my skin. I lean my head back, lifting my hair over the lip of the tub and resting my neck.
Now that I’m safe—or at least as safe as I have ever been—it all hits me.
The adrenaline is like being struck by lightning. One moment, I am
functional, and the next, my body is trembling like I’m electrified by delayed fear.
I try to suck in great gulps of air, but it’s like my lungs can only hold a mouthful. The air wheezes in and out quickly. My heart is so thunderous, pumping so loudly, it’s all I can hear. Tears burn in my eyes and I’m afraid I will drown here, not in this tub but in whatever this torrent is.
It feels like dying—or at least what I imagine dying feels like.
Though it always passes, I wish so badly I could feel nothing at all. That I could be the woman I am in the tense moments when I can think clearly and strategize. I don’t want to be someone who breaks, and I definitely don’t want to think about that moment of blind rage.
The anxiety builds to an all-consuming peak, and at the center of the storm, I try to call up Aidia’s soothing voice—how she would tell me to look for something in the room to ground me.
“My heart,” I rasp between desperate gasps of breath.
But there is no one to say, “My bones.”
And it feels wrong to say “Our blood” when I’m alone. I’m so miserable that I let myself miss her—feel frightened for her—desperately wishing she were here.
I sink under the water and allow myself one good sobbing scream even though it sends a fierce shock of pain through my ribs.
When I come up for air, my chest is burning and my vision is spotty, but it’s like the scream let something loose, and the tension begins to unwind.
I’m homesick. This feeling is nothing new—the instinct to go home, but not to my home. Maybe it’s just the fleeting human impulse to seek shelter, to endlessly search for comfort even if you’ve never really known what it was to begin with.
I’ve been hit enough to know that pain is not a home, but it felt like all I deserved. Over time, I started to believe it.
Some old base instinct clings to the possibility of something better—the myth of it alive inside me, the way a story sinks into bones and becomes as real as the ache in your ribs when you watch two lovers kiss.
My breathing slows and the very real ache in my ribs returns. I splash water on my face and sigh, batting a mound of bubbles onto the carpet.
The bathroom door flies open, and Henry storms in so fast I don’t even have time to reach for the dagger I left on the shelf next to the tub.
“Get out,” I snap.
His dark hair is damp, and he’s changed into linen pajamas. There’s something about the contrast of seeing him with a feral look in his eyes while wearing matching navy pajama separates that makes me want to laugh.
He sniffs the air and narrows his eyes at the bubbles like an assailant might be hiding beneath them in the giant tub. “I wanted to make sure you were actually in here.”
I stand. The bubbles slide down my body and my skin tingles as his gaze follows their path. “Leave.”
He arches a brow. “Is that what you want? After playing games with me?
After touching yourself where I couldn’t get to you and making me watch?
After going upstairs in a boarding room with another man? After trying to kiss Stefan?”
A slow smile tugs at my mouth. I didn’t think any part of this assignment would be fun, but driving this man out of his mind is so easy.
“First of all, there’s nothing wrong with a woman practicing a little self-
care alone in her safe room.”
He huffs a laugh. “Self-care.”
“Second, I went upstairs with that idiot to get information about a dangerous situation within the fort. I’m miles from home and surrounded by strangers, and I think I deserve to know about the very real threats to my safety.”
His hand flexes at his side. “You are the greatest threat to your safety.”
“Thank you for the vote of confidence. I’m inclined to agree with you now that the deadly evolved vampire is gone.”
Henry glares at me.
I step out of the tub onto the plush carpet and grab the soft white towel from the hook beside the bath. Wisdom tells me not to test him, but I haven’t had nearly enough fun tonight.
Instead of wrapping it around me, I slowly begin patting myself dry— starting with my neck, then my breasts, then sliding it between my legs.
Henry tracks my progress with interest before he snaps out of his daze. “I should heal your ribs.”
The vanity counter is cold against my ass, and I shift back to lean on my hands. I intentionally leave my thighs spread. I don’t actually want him to fuck me, but I like knowing that he’s thinking about it.
Henry drinks me in for a long moment, like he’s saving this view in his mind for later. He mutters a curse and places his hand over the cut on my
forearm.
My skin tingles pleasantly, then itches horribly. When he lifts his hand, there’s no trace of the wound. It stuns me every time. I wish I could place his hand over my mind and erase whatever ails me.
He gently moves his palm to my left ribs, prodding tenderly with his finger until I wince. “Two broken. You’ve felt it before. Bones are one of the
most uncomfortable things to heal.”
I hum in agreement, closing my eyes.
The tingling healing sensation sinks through my skin, a cooling balm against the angry, heated pain in my side. Goosebumps rise on my skin, my nipples tighten, and I shiver. Then, the wretched itching sensation in my bones returns.
Henry senses it. “Distract yourself. Talk to me about something.”
I can’t look at him when I ask, so I just keep my eyes closed and head tipped back. “What happened when you died?”
I feel Henry still for a moment, and the itching seems to halt with that stillness, but it’s so quick I doubt myself.
“That’s too personal,” I say, swallowing the lump in my throat. “I shouldn’t have asked.”
Even though my eyes are closed, I swear I can feel him looking at me.
“I won’t let anyone hurt you, Harlow.”
It may as well be a door slammed closed in my face. Stupid of me to ask.
Now I’ve tipped my hand and let him know he has something I want.
The itching in my ribs is almost unbearable.
“You didn’t have to agree to take the blame,” Henry says.
I sigh. “Of course I did. I can’t help Aidia if I can’t help you.”
“I’ll keep you safe,” he says, his thumb brushing lightly back and forth over my skin.
The itching finally ebbs as I blink my eyes open. “You can’t promise that.”
He looks at me like I’ve insulted him, which I suppose, by their cultural standards, I have, but the day I rely on a man to protect me will be my last.
Even Gaven, who has literally saved me from the Drained and men alike on multiple occasions, can’t be fully trusted.
Henry steps back as if realizing that I’ve closed the door to any intimacy between us.
“You’ll sleep in my bed tonight.” He says it with a truly astonishing
certainty for a man whose death I spent hours planning this morning.
“And be imprisoned by your snuggling again? No, I don’t think so. It’s been a long day and I need rest.”
His aura is wild, swirling around both of us. It’s always been unique in both color and opacity, but now it’s blown out wide, filling the whole space.
It’s such a deep, warm purple, as if he’s so angry, even his aura is smoldering with it.
He stands over me, all menace and desire and a cocky self-assurance.
“You kissed me.”
“To shut you up,” I counter.
“You could have covered my mouth with your hand,” he says.
“My hands were bloody.”
“I think you like kissing me, Harlow.”
I glare at him. “I think you want me to say I like it so you don’t have to think about the fact that I have nothing to compare it to.”
There’s a scratching sound at the door that leads to my closet. Henry crosses the bathroom and opens the door. Kyrin struts into the bathroom, nuzzling his head against my hip. I run a hand over his fur, and he yawns and nods his head toward my bedroom.
I turn to follow him as he trots into my room, casting a glance over my shoulder at my husband. “Sorry, Henry. This bed is only big enough for one wolf, and that spot has been claimed.”
I take pleasure in slamming the door in his face for the second time in a day.
