51
HENRY
cy is an understatement for Harlow’s demeanor in the morning. WhateverI heat was between us last night has given way to her frigid contempt. It’s the first time I have ever seen even a hint of her parents in her.
She’s been primping in front of the vanity in her room for more than an hour. I’m pretty sure it’s just an excuse to avoid looking at me. She studies her eyebrows with hawk-like focus and ignores me standing behind her in the mirror’s reflection.
Kyrin is curled up at her feet. He blinks one sleepy eye open to look at me as I set a small glass of liquid beside Harlow and back away.
“What is it?” she asks.
“It’s a blood builder. There’s a unique mix of herbs and it’s infused with some of Elvodeen’s healing magic to help with recovery.”
She lifts the glass and sips it. “This is the same thing they serve with breakfast in the morning. Have you been planning to do that to me since I got here?”
“No, I—” I run a hand over my face. “I like you.”
I have never sounded more idiotic in my life.
She scoffs, takes a long sip of the juice, and rifles through the makeup laid out on the vanity in front of her.
“I liked you right away, and you smell amazing,” I say.
“So I’m just special.” Her voice is laden with sarcasm, but she doesn’t look away from the delicate work of lining her eyes with kohl.
“I wasn’t supposed to do it.”
She arches a perfectly shaped brow. “Fuck me in front of your people a second time?”
“Claim you. There’s something about the way you challenged me that made me want to. I’m not prone to being possessive. I’ve never had that impulse before.”
She doesn’t say anything, but she takes another sip of the drink. She’s naked except for a pair of dark lace underwear that make her ass look spectacular.
I study the scarred skin on her lower back. I was aware of it last night when I was fucking her and felt it beneath my palms, but it’s different in daylight. When I first saw it, I was so incensed by the fact that she had been branded that I didn’t take a good look. But the intricacy of the delicate design is impressive. Someone must have held a brand there for a long time to get something that detailed.
When I look up, she’s watching my reflection. “It’s not polite to stare.”
“I didn’t get to look before. Why stars?”
She pauses with the brush halfway down her hair. “Aidia used to say that stars were a nightly reminder to wish for better. Stellaria refused to be humbled, even by her father. I think Aidia related to that.”
“Is that why he branded you with them? To take that from her and you?”
I’m pushing too hard. I wait for her to remind me I’m not entitled to her past, but she sighs and sets the hairbrush down on the vanity.
“My father didn’t brand me. Aidia did.” She is so deathly calm when she says it that it takes a moment for her words to register.
I stare at her in mute shock. “But I thought —”
I wait for her to say more, but she only offers me the silence to realize I’ve put my foot in my mouth, and there’s no way out of the awkwardness.
Harrick didn’t brand her. Ever since I first saw the scar, I’ve been constructing a specific narrative in my head about it. It’s humbling to see how wrong I’ve been.
“I can’t imagine subjecting myself to that kind of pain,” I say softly.
She turns and gives me a look that burns right through me. “Can’t you?”
I feel her picking me apart, death scar by death scar. I expected her to rage at me. To throw things. To try to escape as soon as she woke up. But she’s dressed and so eerily calm, and that is somehow worse.
“If I’ve satisfied your curiosity, I have some questions of my own,” she
says.
I’m tempted to tell her she hasn’t satisfied my curiosity at all. She’s actually piqued it once again. Every answer I get breeds even more questions.
I wave a hand to encourage her to continue because I am completely at a loss for words.
“How does this work now that I’m claimed?” she asks.
“Nothing changes. Most men of the fort will probably steer clear of you.
It’s really meant to be protection.”
“From you? Because you’re a Drained?”
I sigh. “I’m not a Drained. When I died the first time, my mother prayed to Asher. Both he and Stellaria answered. But I am not the same as the beasts in the wood. I am —”
Her eyebrows shoot up. “Deathless. Like the story.”
“Yes,” I say. “You weren’t supposed to hear that particular story. That’s why I was going to pick a night to take you to the storytelling bars and curate your experience.”
She ignores me. “So you crave blood, but you’re not mindlessly driven to it.”
“And my diet is primarily normal food. I have a full serving of blood once or twice a week, depending on how active I am and if I’ve been injured.
With you, it might be a little different, though.”
Her eyes narrow in suspicion. “Why?”
“Because I claimed you and you’re mine.”
She bristles. “I belong to no man.”
“I know that, Harlow. I’m answering your question. Because I claimed you as someone I want to belong to me, no one else will be appealing now.
It’s not that I couldn’t feed from someone in the recovery room. It’s not as if I don’t have plenty of offers.” I relish the hint of jealousy in the glare she levels at me. “But I wouldn’t enjoy it. It would be like wanting a gourmet dinner and only ever having stale bread and jerky. Technically, I would
survive, but it wouldn’t be enjoyable.”
She purses her lips.
I can’t help the impulse to taunt her just to try to get back the dynamic we had before. “What’s the most frightening part? That you enjoyed it, or that you want to do it again?”
Harlow shivers, and it’s a relief to know the memory of last night is as potent for her as it is for me. It’s taking an enormous amount of self-control
to not bend her over the vanity and fuck her right now.
“What happens if I don’t let you drink?”
I lick my lips, thinking about how my wife tastes like iron and wine and cherries. “I had quite a lot last night, so I’ll be fine for a while. But eventually I would need to find someone else willing.”
“Would you also fuck them while you do it?”
“No. I’ll only fuck you.”
“Oh, I think you’ve already done a pretty thorough job in every sense of the word,” she says, her voice laden with sarcasm.
There’s no way she’s going to be amenable to this plan now. “I know you’re angry,” I say.
She holds up a hand to stop me. “You pulled one over on me. I knew your aura was different. It made sense after you explained that your mother used Asher’s magic to bring you back, but I never imagined you were Deathless.
Truth be told, I’d never even heard of the term Deathless until story time the other night.”
I cock my head to the side. “But they’re in the story of Stellaria.”
She shakes her head. “Not in Lunameade.”
I frown. “So, in your version of the story, the man who retrieves Asher just devolves into a Drained?”
She nods. “Because he was divided—neither alive nor dead, and they believe that made him mad enough that he stopped sipping blood from willing people and started drinking them dry—that’s why they call them the Drained.”
That’s an interesting deviation from the original writings and word-of- mouth stories, but I wonder why and how it happened. Oral storytelling comes with variances, but to omit that what really created the Drained was a desire for more power seems an intentional choice. It wasn’t a random adaptation that brought about the strange sickness and reanimation among those the original Deathless fed on. It was drinking well water to try to claim more magic that doomed him. By the time he realized, there were too many Drained and they were too hungry to contain. Their numbers just kept growing.
I wonder when exactly the version of the story changed in Lunameade, and why no one who remembers the old stories challenges it. I think back to the last Dark Star Festival I attended in the city. I’d heard their version of the story and thought it unusual, but I’d assumed that the story changed based on
who was playing the part of Stellaria each year.
Harlow sits straighter, her face a mask of indifference. This is somehow worse than if she were raging against me. It makes me wonder how she will react to Gaven’s death.
“You brought me here,” she says, her voice devoid of emotion. “You talked around what you are and you used me for my blood. Don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed it. But I’m pretty sure you knew how this piece of information would land, or you would have told me sooner.”
I shift, searching for a way to defend myself. “I kept it a secret because I needed you to go through with the marriage so that we can get the resources your family promised. I didn’t bring you here to use you for your blood.”
She glares at me in the mirror. “Whatever you need to tell yourself. I’m not surprised you used me. Truthfully, I’m shocked that I still have the capacity to believe someone would want anything but to use me. Everyone is out for blood. You just happen to be more literal about it.”
I expected her reaction to sting, but I did not imagine that her apathy— that likening me to everyone else in her life—would cut so deep.
I want to argue—to tell her I’m different—that I’m not like her family.
Except I am. I am using her. I did trick her, and I’ll continue to do it as long as I need to. I’m even counting on her sister’s well-being as motivation for her to follow through.
From the first moment my parents hatched this plan, I was fine with any collateral damage to a woman I had never met. I projected my judgment of her family onto her, and I didn’t once consider that a family that would sacrifice the people of the fort wouldn’t hesitate to do the same to their daughters.
For ten years, I have been so singularly focused on my own grief and anger, I didn’t once think about the fact that following through on this plan wouldn’t get rid of it. It would simply pass it on to someone else.
“I thought you would rage more,” I say.
“At you? Why? You’re doing what anyone would do in your situation.”
She shakes her head and begins pinning her hair into a twist. “No. I’m not angry with you. I’m angry with myself for not seeing what was right in front of my face.”
She meets my eye in the vanity mirror. “Are you the one taking women from Lunameade? Or, I suppose—were you and the others like you doing it?”
She’s not afraid when she asks, and that’s more unnerving than her lack of
anger.
I shake my head. “No. We don’t need to do that. Women here volunteer because it feels —”
She gives me a look that says she knows how it feels. She spreads a dark color over her full lips. I know even without being told that it’s red. It’s always red.
She stands, removes the dress from the hanger beside the vanity, and slips it over her head. I don’t bother to offer to tie it for her. She makes quick work of the string anyway.
The dark silk is so delicate and thin, it may as well not be there at all. The draped neckline dips between her breasts and the thin straps crisscross in the back several times, showing off the delicate muscles of her upper back. It stops just above her scar. For a moment, all I can think about is untying that bow, watching the dress slip away from her pale skin, and spreading her legs wide so I can taste her.
The dress is a punishment, and I have never liked a scolding so much.
She runs her fingers over her collarbone and up her neck, pausing right over the place where I first bit her last night. I’ve healed all of the marks I left on her delicate skin, but I know she’s trying to remind me what I can’t have.
“My intention wasn’t to hurt you.”
She bristles. “I’m not hurt. You had some score to settle, and I will go along with whatever I must, but let me be clear about how this is going to work. I won’t tell my family what you are. When we go back to Lunameade in three days for Dark Star Festival, I’ll ask you to do something, and you won’t question it —”
“I can’t promise that if I don’t know what it is,” I argue.
Harlow holds up a hand. “The entirety of my cooperation is dependent on you helping me get my sister back. If you become yet another thing standing between me and her, I will be forced to manage you the way I’m managing everyone else.”
This is a trap that I have to step into. If I don’t give her something now, she will ruin everything—and she’ll enjoy making me suffer.
“Fine. I agree.”
She holds out her hand, and I shake it.
“Good. Now, is there anything you’d like to tell me?” she asks.
My mind churns through all the things I’d like to say. I killed Gaven. I’m using you to help overthrow your parents as leaders of Lunameade. I can’t
stop thinking about the way you sigh after you come.
But this is not a time for confessions. I can’t say any of these things.
“Can I ask you something and you’ll answer honestly?” I ask.
She puts her hands on her hips. “I’ll certainly consider it.”
“Why have you put up with all that your parents have done when you clearly don’t agree with their methods?”
She tips her head back and sighs heavily. “What other option is there, Henry? This isn’t about some destructive affection I have for them. The city needs my father to hold the line. There is no one else in all of Lunameade with holy fire. Who else will light the wall? It’s already almost too much for him and Able to maintain together.”
I think back to Gaven’s confession. “Do you think it’s odd that Vardek has never blessed another person from the city with holy fire?”
“Do you think it’s weird that Vardek hasn’t blessed someone else at the fort with holy fire?” she counters.
“We have a considerably smaller population. It’s improbable that there wouldn’t be a single one in Lunameade.”
She waves a dismissive hand. “You don’t know that. The Divine work in mysterious ways, or so I’m told.”
“I do know.” I was not supposed to tell her that yet, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
She crosses her arms, searching my face, as if trying to spot a lie. “Why should I believe you? All you do is lie. You weren’t trying to hunt down Rochelli for the rebel attack that hurt your mother at the engagement dinner.
You’re working with him.”
I run a hand through my hair and try to salvage this. “Technically, I wasn’t aware that we were working with him then, and that attack was orchestrated by a group of rogue rebels—not under his direction. When we were in Lunameade and I stole that note from you and dropped it in the fire, it was because I recognized the handwriting as my father’s.”
She doesn’t react, but I have her full attention, so I press on.
“Until then, I didn’t know for sure that they were working with Rochelli and the rebels. But that confirmed it, and when we got back, I confronted
them.”
“Your father is Rochelli?”
I can’t tell her that Gaven told me about the Vardek-blessed children right after I dealt him a death blow. I need to lie and lie believably. “No. He’s in
the network but not their leader. Apparently, all correspondence from rebel agents is signed by Rochelli, but with a lowercase r. The correspondence from the leader Rochelli is uppercase. But he has it on good authority from someone in the network who would know for certain that your father had anyone with holy fire killed.”
I wait for her to doubt me, to debate the merits of this information, but she looks resigned to its validity—more disappointed than surprised.
“I never personally witnessed a blessing from Vardek. I should have been more suspicious of the infrequency, but I so rarely attended blessings. My older siblings used to rotate through, but Kellan took over doing most of them a couple years ago. Of course, my family has ways of making people forget things…” She shrugs.
It’s the first hint of any of her siblings’ magic that she’s offered up. I can’t tell if she just means Kellan’s manipulation or if she’s suggesting one of the Carrenwells can erase memories.
Harlow is so calm. “But even if new blessings come in time, it will be years before a teenager can control their holy fire enough to light the whole wall. My father is an unfortunate necessity.”
“Not if you’re using well water. You must notice that we only light the
fort wall every other night.”
Harlow’s eyes light up, and she nods.
“We supplement with well water and coat our weapons in it.”
“And that’s enough?” Harlow frowns. “Wait—don’t distract me. Do your parents know who Rochelli is?”
I shake my head. “No, they don’t know. I’m not trying to distract you.
I’m just saying that holy fire isn’t the only way to defend the city walls, especially if your father is killing anyone who could have the chance of replacing him.”
She blows out a heavy sigh. “Who would you suggest rule over Lunameade, then? Rafe? If he’s Rochelli, what do you think happens when he takes over? You saw him. He’s much worse than my parents, which is saying something.”
I hold up my hands to brace against her frustration. “I know that. I have no love for the man, but right now I’m focused on this new information about your father.”
“What are you looking for? Permission to hate him?” She laughs bitterly.
“Permission granted, Henry! Get in line. You’ll find it’s quite a long one.”
I scrub a hand down my face. “Rest assured I hate him fine, whether you permit me to or not. What I’m asking is that if the opportunity presents itself to find a way around your father, will you stand in my way?”
She crosses her arms and looks away, but she says nothing.
Bells sound outside. I’m out of time to make peace with her for now.
I clear my throat. “It’s time for —”
“The luncheon with the ladies of the fort,” she says. “I know. Why do you
think I’m dressed like this?”
“To make me suffer.”
She hums and smiles wickedly. As she stands, Kyrin flops over onto her feet and whines.
“Hush, you,” she says, bending down to pet him. “Such a baby.”
She rises to her feet and begrudgingly takes my arm. I usher her out of the room. She stutters a step when she notices Gaven’s absence.
“Where’s your shadow?” I ask.
“Wouldn’t you like to know, my wolf?”
Snark is better than suspicion, but I sense the uneasiness in her rigid posture.
It remains that way until we get downstairs. As we approach the feast room, I see a man and a woman standing in front of the double doors. It’s not until the man pats the woman on the shoulder and turns that I realize it’s Stefan.
I hesitate, but Harlow keeps walking, a smile plastered on her face. She nods as we walk by him, ignoring his lascivious smirk.
“I told you that you’d pay in blood. Maybe now you’ll learn to keep your mouth shut,” Stefan taunts. He offers me a mock salute. “Thanks for the show, Havenwood.”
There have been so many times over the past few years when I’ve wanted to kill Stefan, but never more than at this moment.
The point of claiming is to make a public statement, but I hate that he saw
her like that.
He breezes by us.
Harlow seems suddenly tense. She glances over her shoulder again,
looking for Gaven.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
She glances down the hall at Stefan’s back. “We had an altercation the other night where he threatened me and Gaven almost gutted him on the spot.
Stefan threatened him, of course—said he would make him bleed.”
It’s the perfect way out of the mess I’ve made. It was always my plan to blame him, but the fact that she’s already suspicious makes it even more believable.
I squeeze her arm. “I thought you sent him to snoop.”
She straightens and smiles, and I turn to see two servants rushing down the hall with trays of cakes.
“I’m sure it’s nothing,” she says, nudging me forward.
As soon as we walk into the feast room, I regret telling her this was a good idea. All of the female storytellers and the women from the families who secure the fort with their magic are in attendance. The tables are covered in teapots and trays of small sandwiches and cakes, and it very much does not feel like the kind of event where Harlow would be at home.
She smiles brightly as I lead her into the room, to her place of honor beside my mother.
Before I can escape, Harlow grabs my arm and clicks her tongue.
“Running off without giving your wife a kiss?” she says with a faux pout.
She grabs my shirt and tugs me to her.
When she kisses me, all I can taste is sweet poison. My wife is trying to poison me—and I like it. I am fully entranced by her viciousness.
Then she looks at my mother. “Don’t you think he should stay and honor all of us ladies with his presence? I just can’t seem to keep my hands off him this morning.”
I read my mother’s skepticism immediately, but the ladies at the surrounding tables whistle and tap their silverware to their glasses in agreement, urging us to kiss again.
Harlow obliges them. And just like that, I’m trapped at the ladies’ luncheon along with her.
The minutes drag by as I pick at honey cakes and sip tea and try not to fall asleep from the sheer monotony of listening to so many conversations at once.
It’s a relief when Carter appears at the door, even knowing I’m going to have to engage in the best acting of my life. He waves, but I wait for Harlow to notice him.
She leans close. “It looks like Carter needs you.”
I lift my head. “I’ll be right back.”
None of the other ladies seem to notice I’m sneaking out of their party,
but I feel Harlow’s gaze on my back as I step into the hallway with Carter.
“You ready for this?” he asks.
I nod. “Apparently, Stefan already did the heavy lifting for us. Harlow admitted that she was worried because Stefan threatened Gaven the other night.”
Carter pinches the bridge of his nose. “Kind of him to make it so easy on us.” He glances past me, toward Harlow. “How is she feeling this morning?”
“Vindictive. Even though she can’t stand the sight of me, she trapped me at this luncheon with her because she knew I would loathe it.”
Carter shakes his head and claps a hand on my shoulder. “Are you sure this is the time?”
Telling Harlow about Gaven during this luncheon was the plan, but that was before she found out I’m Deathless. I’m worried this is too much at once.
“It’s already been almost a full day since it happened. I don’t think we can put it off much longer without things getting messy,” I say.
Carter gives a resigned nod. “I hope you know what you’re doing. I’ll meet you outside.”
He retreats down the hallway, and I stand there for a moment, as if I need time to compose myself. Then, I turn and walk slowly across the feast room. I don’t have to pretend to dread this because between pissing her off last night and the secrets I’ve revealed this morning, I’m genuinely afraid of her reaction to this news. If she retreats from me entirely, I don’t know how I’ll make up the ground I’ve lost in time for Dark Star Festival.
Harlow looks at me expectantly as I approach.
“What’s wrong?” she asks.
I nod toward the door. “Will you step outside with me?”
She frowns. “What’s going on?”
“I think we should step away and discuss it.”
Harlow is trying hard to look calm, but she has her hands clasped in a white-knuckle grip. “Henry, just tell me.”
I glance at my mother and then look back at my wife. “They found Gaven’s body in the woods behind the house. He’s dead, Harlow.”
She doesn’t say anything at first. Then she turns and whispers something to my mother, who nods and pats her shoulder.
She rises from her chair stiffly and takes my arm. I lead her out of the room and down the hall in silence. She shivers as we step out into the chilly winter morning, and her face looks especially pale in the bright sunlight. I
shouldn’t have taken so much blood last night.
Carter, Bryce, and a few other hunters are waiting for us just inside the woods behind Havenwood House. It’s the very edge of the hunt grounds. I felt bad leaving Gaven there all night, but it was necessary to sell our story.
The men part, and Bryce ushers them away to give us some privacy.
Harlow stops short when she sees Gaven’s body. His eyes are shut, but his clothes are very obviously soaked in dry blood.
She stares at him for a long moment. “It’s beneath him to be mastered by some prick with an ego. I’ve seen him kill Drained like it was nothing, even without holy fire.”
I lick my lips, my mouth suddenly parched. “Stefan isn’t just mortal. He’s like me. The Deathless are faster and stronger, with better focus than the Drained.”
She lowers her gaze, and suddenly, I’m worried she’s going to cry. But when she looks up, her eyes are full of fury. “I’m going to kill him.” Her
voice is low but full of certainty.
“You can’t.”
She glares at me. “I’ll not let this stand. It is one thing to try to assault and kill me. It’s another to murder my bodyguard. That is an attack on my family, and to let it stand would make me look weak.”
“I know well you can’t simply act on every impulse.”
“I’ll make it look like an accident,” she says.
“Harlow, if you do, my mother will be forced to call him back again.”
She looks at Gaven’s body. “Then have her call him back.” Her voice wavers, and my stomach sinks.
I keep my voice gentle, fighting the urge to reach for her hand. “It’s been too long. It won’t work.”
She stares at him for a few long moments, and I think of his final request.
Not telling her what he said is eating at me. Divine Asher does not smile on those who ignore final wishes, but there’s no way for me to tell her what he said without implicating myself.
“We had a complicated relationship, but he did the best he could,” she says softly. “It wasn’t enough, but it wasn’t nothing.”
The guilt churns in my stomach. “He said something in passing the other night. I asked him about why he puts up with your attitude, and he said because he was sorry about something that happened six months ago.”
She goes still. “Six months ago?”
“Yes.”
She makes a soft hum of consideration. “No idea what he means.”
I press on. “I got the impression he regretted not standing up for you in a more general sense.”
Harlow is quiet for a long moment before she turns to face me. “And here I thought the two of you were forever at odds.”
“I sparred with him yesterday afternoon. It’s probably the most he’s spoken to me,” I say.
She rolls her eyes. “I’ve never met someone who talks so much during a fight. Honestly, he was never working hard enough.” She swallows hard and looks away. “We should light a pyre at dawn. Do you think your father would start it with holy fire? Gaven was particularly devout when it came to
Vardek.”
“I’m sure he would.”
“I’d prefer for it to be private if that’s okay,” she says.
“Whatever you want.” In my own ears, I sound too agreeable—too guilty, but Harlow doesn’t notice, and that makes it worse.
