33. Harlow
HARLOW
I really was going to run. I have at least one broken rib from the fall, and I 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.”