58. Henry #2
Harlow presses a palm to her heart and tries to still her quaking body. “This is where it hurts,” she rasps. “I used to know how to endure. I could do it because Aidia did it too. But they gave her to that monster and now she is gone and it’s all my fault.”
The light has gone out of her eyes. She turns and shoves everything off her father’s desk.
The fine set of crystal glasses and ornate lantern shatter on the floor.
With a great heave, she flips the desk onto its side, then picks up the fireplace poker and starts to hit the mantel.
Glass shards explode from the vases and expensive-looking statues placed there, and when the poker gets stuck in the portrait of her parents, she shreds it.
She starts to batter the desk, all the rage and hurt coming out in vicious swings of the iron poker.
“I will not be a good little soldier. I will not be a weapon. I will not be quiet. I will not be them !” Her voice is raw. Her rage is a life force.
She pounds a fist against her chest. “This is where it hurts. Here. And everywhere else and it will never stop.”
She turns and swipes the poker across the desk. It catches in the wood and slips from her hands, clattering on the floor.
The floor is covered in broken glass and the remnants of expensive, fragile things, but Harlow isn’t finished. She looks around the room, wildly searching for anything else to destroy.
I see the war in her. I see a monster who doesn’t want to spread the hurt around. Just like I see the woman who knows how easily she could tip over that edge and become the thing she fears.
If I don’t slow her down, she’s going to hurt herself, either on the shards on the floor or the explosiveness of her anger. I grab her shoulder, and she spins on me with her fist raised in the air.
She stills, looking at her hand like she’s surprised.
Slowly, I reach up and take her fist in my hand. She lets me take it, but when I thread my fingers through hers, she grips tightly.
She squeezes until my bones creak, like she wants to press her pain into me—like violence is the only language that will make me understand. And I want to take it. I want to drink down all that poison if it will keep her from feeling like she’s dying.
Finally, she looks up at me. Her beautiful face is streaked with tears, her hair wild and half-undone, one shoulder of her dress ripped. She looks savage and so beautiful.
“You win,” she rasps. “I hate them. ”
Guilt unravels in my stomach. I want to say that isn’t what I wanted—or that why I wanted it has changed. I wanted to use her anger against them, but knowing how they’ve wronged her now, I want them to suffer not just for what my family has endured, but for what Harlow has survived and lost.
Something tugs free at the center of me, like a hook behind my sternum, like a skip in the rhythm of my heart. I squeeze my eyes closed and press a hand to the strange ache. When I open my eyes again, the world is blurry, then bright.
I blink rapidly to focus, and when my vision snaps into place, it’s on Harlow’s eyes.
Harlow’s dark violet eyes.
I stumble back a step. The first color I’ve seen in ten years is the bold violet of Harlow’s eyes, and they are stunning.
In black and white, my wife is striking, but in full color, she is devastating—so angry and fiercely alive, it’s breathtaking. The flush of her cheeks, the red of her lips, the emerald of her dress. I never realized how much I missed color until I see all the colors of her.
Harlow Carrenwell is beautiful . And I’m in love with her.
No, no, no. This is not the time. When I claimed her, it was just a raw animal wanting. It was just the blessing and a need to feel like I could in some way tame her, but she was not supposed to stay mine. This is not how this plays out.
I keep blinking, trying to get the color to go away, but it just gets brighter and more vibrant.
“What?” she asks.
I’ve been staring at her for too long. The confession is on the tip of my tongue, but I have never loved someone like this.
I didn’t know I had this in me—not once I came back to life the first time, and certainly not after the many subsequent times.
I don’t know how to translate something so shocking into words.
“I see you.”
She frowns, and I tilt her chin up and kiss her. Finally, the tension in her body starts to melt away, and for one moment, she is mine.
The sound of voices and footsteps down the hallway startles us apart.
I glance at the destruction in the room. “We should get out. ”
Harlow holds up a hand. “We can’t. Your plan was to overthrow them, right?”
It’s jarring to hear her say it so plainly. “Yes.”
“Then we can’t leave now or they’ll think there’s a break-in, and that means extra security. It will be impossible to get to them. You leave. I will play madwoman.”
“I’m not leaving you with them,” I say.
Harlow crosses her arms. “You are.”
“What if they lock you up?” I ask.
“They won’t.”
“Why?”
“Because they need me for the Dawn and they won’t risk upsetting you when you’re their witness. That said, they can’t know that you’re aware of the madness. So you really need to go.” She points to the window.
I want to argue. It goes against everything in me to leave her here after the day she’s had, but I know she’s right.
Just once, I’d like to be selfish and not think about the bigger picture. But it’s not just my people at stake. It’s hers, too.
“Do you think Kellan knew?” I ask.
“I intend to find out. Don’t count on me coming back to the boarding house until after dinner tonight.”
I take a step toward her. “I should be there.”
She shakes her head. “No. They will never be as open if you’re there. This is something I need to do on my own, but I swear you can help with Rafe. I’ll meet you back in our room for the Descent.”
The footsteps in the hall grow louder, and she darts across the study and locks the door. I climb out the window, thanking the Divine we’re on the first story.
She crosses the distance between us and leans out the window. Her face softens, and she clicks her tongue. “Don’t look at me like that, my wolf.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re forgetting to hate me?”
“I could never forget,” I say. But it’s a lie.
It has been long forgotten. That’s why I can see the pink flush of her cheeks and the violet of her eyes .
Bleeding woods, no wonder Carter wouldn’t shut up about her eyes. I can’t stop staring at them.
A fist pounds on the door, and she nods toward the path behind me.
“Now go before they send people around the outside. And don’t be seen,” she says.
I turn and force myself to walk away when what I really want is to throw her over my shoulder and bring her with me. It’s tempting, but if I rob her of this chance to find out the truth, if I risk my own shot at vengeance, I would never forgive myself.
I take one last look back at my wife. She stands in the window, watching me retreat with the fire poker braced over her shoulder and her bright red lips twisted into a smirk.
I can’t believe I’ve done the one thing I thought impossible. I fell in love with my wife.