47. Henry
HENRY
W hen I step out of my parents’ study, my mind is still spinning. It’s only made worse when I see Carter waiting for me at the end of the sunlit hallway. His arms are folded, and he leans back against the wall, but the relaxed pose doesn’t fool me. Something is wrong.
“What now?” I ask as I walk toward him.
He falls into step beside me, casting a glance over his shoulder. “The bodyguard was poking around, trying to get into the recovery room.”
“Of course he was,” I grumble. “It’s fine. I’ve been given permission to take care of it.”
“I thought you had suspicions that he might be leading the rebellion,” Carter whispers.
I rub the back of my neck as we walk up the stairs to the second floor.
“He might be involved, but according to my father, he’s not one of our contacts.
The problem is that he’s trying to sway Harlow and I’m at too critical a point for that.
” I pause at the top of the stairs. “I’ve just been given permission to remove him from play. Can you get the holding cells ready?”
Carter’s eyebrows shoot up. “You sure this is a good time? It might set her back.”
I shake my head. “We’ll make it look like an accident. ”
“Henry, think about it,” Carter urges, his voice tinged with annoyance. “She’s smart and she knows you don’t like him.”
“ She doesn’t like him,” I counter. “He doesn’t even know she can poison with her hands. He’s never even protected her from people in her own life.”
Carter shakes his head. “Are you blind? She may love to antagonize him, but she definitely cares about him. As your friend, I would be remiss not to warn you that this could be a huge setback.”
“I have no choice,” I say. “I overheard the tail end of a conversation they were having the other day. He’s too observant and too suspicious.”
Carter sighs and nods. “So be it. Divine help us with the fallout. What’s the plan?”
“I’m going to try to get any last information out of him in the holding cells. There’s no one who knows Carrenwell House’s layout better. I’ll kill him out with some sort of fast-bleeding wound and I’ll make it look like a message from Stefan.”
“She’ll kill him,” Carter says.
“She’ll want to, but she won’t,” I counter.
“She hasn’t killed the man beating her sister yet, and she’s been watching that happen for a while.
She can have restraint when she wants to.
” Even as I say the words, I’m not certain they’re true.
Holding back on Rafe might be the very thing that makes her more prone to go after Stefan.
In her mind, he could be a score she could settle immediately, and that might be just the thing to release the pressure valve on her rage.
But I have to trust that she sees how perilous things are here the same way she sees how perilous her family’s position is in Lunameade. ”
Carter scrubs a hand down his face. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
“My job? Getting the revenge we’ve worked ten years for?”
He smiles sadly and squeezes my shoulder. “I think you have to ask yourself, is it really revenge if you’re still losing something?” He pats my back as he walks down the stairs.
As I walk toward Harlow’s room, his words burrow beneath my skin and make me itch. I’m not losing anything.
Harlow is not what I thought she would be, but she’s remarkably resilient and not one to get emotionally attached. She’ll be upset about Gaven and angry at the end of this, but ultimately, she’ll be better off without her terrible parents anyway.
Gaven isn’t waiting in the hall outside her room. Either she’s out, or she sent him away to snoop.
When I step into Harlow’s bedroom, she’s not reading in a chair by the window where I left her.
My heart pounds as I check her closet. She’s not in there or the connecting bathroom.
I walk through my closet and into my bedroom.
Kyrin perks up from where he’s lying on the floor in front of the fireplace. I finally spot Harlow.
Wearing a dark lace bustier and matching underwear, she props a foot on the windowsill as she fastens the stays on her garter belt to the top of her stockings.
My relief mixes with lust.
“You seem to be back to yourself,” I say, my voice hoarse.
“It’s dark green,” she says without looking up.
“Hmm?” I’m incapable of forming intelligent words.
“You like to know what color I’m wearing. This lace is dark green, like the forest at dusk.”
I stare at her, dumbfounded, as she turns to face me. “It’s very nice.”
“Nice?” She scoffs. “Careful. You’re looking at me like you’re forgetting to hate me.”
“I don’t hate you.”
She laughs and turns back to the mirror to adjust the cups of the bustier. “Whatever you say.”
When I don’t offer a clever comeback, her gaze snaps to mine, something like apprehension on her face.
I don’t know how to meet this version of her. Not with what I now know. For so long, revenge has been the driving force in my life—but the concept of payback was abstract at a distance. It’s different to look someone in the eye while you take something from them.
The thought of vengeance on the Carrenwells has been the anchor holding me fast through all the chaos of the last ten years. This is the first time I feel apprehension about seeing it through.
“I made you something. It’s on your bed,” she says.
I cross the room to the large bed and notice her gift immediately. A new white throw pillow stands out against the black sheets. The thread stitching on it reads, “Disembowelment? ”
“Well?” When I spin to face her, she’s grinning broadly. “The thread is red. I know that’s your favorite. It took me quite a long time, so I’m hoping I finally got it right.”
My wife stitched her next guess at a way to murder me into a throw pillow. I laugh, a real laugh from the sheer shock and absurdity of her relentless commitment to offing me.
She bites her lip. “Does that mean I’m right?”
I shake my head. “I’m sorry, lovely. I don’t have a definitive on that one. You would have to ensure that was the thing to actually kill me because you’d be risking blood loss first.”
She frowns and blows out a labored sigh. “It sounds exceptionally messy, so it’s probably for the best.”
I clear my throat, trying to ignore the fact that she’s nearly naked. “I know you didn’t listen last time I told you this, but tonight is hunt night.”
“How often do you have them?” she asks.
“Hunt nights? Every fifteen days, but when the weather is bad like last night, we move them back to the next clear night for safety. Please stay in our room until I come back to get you.”
She pushes her lower lip into a pout. “Are we not participating, my wolf? It seems the sort of thing that newlyweds would be into.”
The thought of chasing her through the woods and fucking her into submission is very appealing, especially when she’s standing there in nothing but some strategically placed lace.
“No, we’re not participating. Unless you’d like to have an audience for the second time I fuck you.”
She smiles wickedly.
“Harlow, I’m serious. Given the rumors that you started about yourself, I don’t know how people will react, and Stefan could very well be participating. I have a quick errand to run right now. I should be back just after dinner. Poke around as much as you want, but don’t leave the house.”
She continues with her exaggerated pout as she steps into the closet and emerges a moment later in a white off-the-shoulder dress, a hint of dark lace peeking out the top of the sweetheart neckline.
I don’t need to be told it’s white. That’s a color I know on sight.
It has to be something she brought with her because I never would have had a white dress made for her.
My reaction to seeing my wife in that color is primal and instant.
The cut of it is so Divine-damned sexy that a cold sweat breaks out on my skin.
She’s fucking with me—pushing my buttons in the maddening way she enjoys so much. She knows it’s hunt night, so she wore a white dress like prey.
“Harlow.”
“Yes, my wolf?” she says, ignoring the lethal edge to my voice as she closes the distance between us.
“Don’t test me today.”
She walks her fingers up my chest. “Then don’t make the testing so fun.”
I grab her wrist and nip at her finger, and she laughs. “Go to the library or the gallery. Just say you’ll stay inside.”
She rolls her eyes and sighs. “I’ll stay in the house until dinner is over, but I make no promises about after.”
It’s the best I can hope for, given her love of antagonizing me. I pray she learned her lesson after her last adventure ended in her almost dying or worse at the hands of a Breeder.
She grabs a book from her nightstand and settles into the chair by the fire to read.
Gaven isn’t waiting in the hall at his usual post when I leave the bedroom, but that’s not entirely unusual. I know that Harlow sends him to snoop around the house when she knows I’m distracted.
Fortunately, I don’t have to search very long. I find him standing on the back patio, looking down the hill at a couple of guards sparring.
“Do you miss it?” I ask. “I haven’t seen you train since you’ve been here.”
He doesn’t turn to look at me. “I get by fine on my own.”
“If you change your mind, I’d be happy to go a round or two with you, old man.”
He turns to scowl at me, and I hold up my hands in surrender.
“I’m serious,” I say. “The offer stands. We’re going to be spending a lot of time together. I know you’re determined not to like me, but as a matter of practicality, you’re helping to protect my wife?—”
“You’re helping to protect my charge,” he counters.
I sigh. “What I mean is we have a similar goal, and it’s in her best interest if we both stay sharp. ”
He crosses his arms. “Fine.”
“In the meantime, I have a wedding gift for Harlow I was hoping you could help me with.”
Gaven’s eyebrows shoot up. “Astonishing that you have interacted with her this much and still think you’re going to be able to buy her a gift she likes.”