Chapter Seventeen
Harlow
Locked Away Again
He refuses me. He refuses to see me for days.
In the hours after the attack, I am escorted not too gently back up to the Consort Suite by a haggard, blood-splattered Aziel who offers no apology or explanation beyond “for your own good.” And for two cycles of the sun, I am trapped in that room, only visited by one of the other females when she brings me food.
An hour after moonrise on the third night, I finally lost my temper with the undeserved treatment and put some old skills to good use.
It doesn’t thrill me that I have to use them, least of all when I thought I had helped several of the men here survive that fight, but I don’t let the upset stop me. I use it as fuel.
Just like I use the pain in my chest every time I think of Mateo.
I don’t know if he’s all right. Lily and Scarlet have been irritatingly vague, dropping only snippets of information I’ve been forced to piece together.
I gather that I was hauled away because a houseful of hungry vampires is not the safest place for a living, bleeding human.
Somehow, this doesn’t apply to the other two women, but all they say on that is that the bond protects them.
Fabulous. Yet here I am, a consort with a scraped-together comprehension of her importance, and a vampire supposedly destined for me who refuses to bond with me. Even when I offer myself to him, if my heart ever stops breaking over that, I imagine my pride will shatter next.
But Mateo hasn’t spoken to me. In truth, I’m blind to everything that may have gone on in the house while I was locked in the proverbial tower.
I don’t see how they aren’t packing to move after all the devastation, and the mere notion of Mateo up and disappearing on me adds another crack in my heart.
I finally get the damn door to pop open, catch the excited exhale in the back of my throat, and wait for a count of ten to see if anyone rushes up to scold me. I half expect alarms to blare.
When none of that happens, I drop the once-nicely laminated card I’d found in a drawer and slip out into the hall. No Elfde, either.
Please tell me they didn’t already move.
The thought paralyzes me for a beat before bleeding into fresh rage.
If they did, Mateo better hope he moved far, far away, because I have nothing better to do than be angry.
I want Mateo to be recovering well, but I want him to be recovering well with me.
I want to yell at him for abandoning me over the past few days.
I want to cry and scream from the fear he’s put me through.
Mostly, I want to see that he’s okay. I want to feel his arms around me again, or at least the touch of his hand on mine.
I want him to have a good excuse. I need him to have a good excuse.
That’s why I don’t rush straight for the nearest exit, but instead let my feet carry me to Mateo’s room.
It means giving him another chance to hurt me.
I know this. But it also means giving myself one more chance to achieve something I haven’t always believed in.
If Mateo refuses me again, if he has no good excuse for leaving me neglected and locked away, then I’ll know.
I’ll know I’m an idiot who can’t trust her fragile, naive heart.
And I’ll know I need to leave this place for good.
Bullet holes riddle the walls. Plaster has been torn away in chunks, but I’m impressed by the lack of blood.
It’s gone from looking like an active warzone to a recent ruin.
And considering that mostly vampires live here, that feels eerily apropos.
Though I still can’t imagine leaving the more serious damage unaddressed is a long-term plan.
I ignore that curiosity when I reach Mateo’s room. His door is closed, but no one’s around that I can see. I press my ear to the door, but of course, I hear nothing. My heart beats harder as the fear of abandonment chokes me.
He’s in there. He has to be in there, or I might be the one who kills him.
Still, my hand shakes as I grip the knob, and when I hear the soft click as it turns, I almost frighten myself into leaping away. I shouldn’t be so on edge. But I no longer know where I stand, and it’s been a long time since I’ve felt so torn up inside. If I ever have.
It’s dark in the room, but most of the house is dark, so this doesn’t surprise me. I do let out a small, startled noise when a tabletop lamp clicks on as soon as my foot crosses the threshold. The yellow light barely illuminates half the bed, but it reveals enough.
His name chokes me. The urge to run to him rushes over me, and it’s all I can do to ease the door shut and keep it at my back instead.
Mateo hasn’t left. He’s still in the house and still alive—in whatever way vampires live—and as I watch, he pushes himself up to sit on his bed. I think his color might be paler than before, but the quilt falls to his lap, and there’s no red staining his shirt.
“They promised they’d let me let you out,” he says, and I don’t know why, but I swear I can taste his frustration and his disappointment on the back of my tongue.
I don’t let the confusion from that stall me.
“I let myself out.” The widening of his eyes isn’t as satisfactory as I’d hoped, and I’m sure that’s because I’m so emotional over the situation.
I can’t even hold on to my anger before the guilt and worry and sadness start clamoring for space.
But I try. “You promised,” I hiss at him, my voice choking.
“You promised I wasn’t a prisoner here, and then you let them lock me in a cage. No one would even talk to me!”
Mateo swings his legs over the side of the bed, then pushes to his feet, and his movements are just the wrong side of careful. Enough to assure me he hasn’t fully healed.
My anger deflates a bit, and the sense that I have no right to be angry actually makes me mad all over again.
He walks closer but holds himself at arm’s length. The light behind him plunges most of his expression into shadow, yet somehow I’m certain that if I could see his face, I would see guilt and sadness. An aching apology I can already feel in the air.
“Normally, no one here would harm you, regardless of whether you’ve accepted your role as consort or not,” he says, voice quiet.
“But with so many of us injured as we were, the temptation of fresh blood might have been too sweet to ignore for some. It was a risk Aziel decided we couldn’t afford.
And while I hate how he handled it, I do agree he was right. ”
I bristle and take a step forward. “I did accept my role!” My voice rises and pinches somehow simultaneously.
“You were the one who rejected me. Don’t twist that.
” My heart seizes, too many half-formed thoughts racing through my mind for me to catch any one.
“Instead, you left me up there, locked away. How long would you have left me if I had waited for you, Mateo? Days? Weeks?” Tears pour from my eyes.
“I’m glad you’re doing better. I am. But if you’re always going to have an excuse to hold me at arm’s length, and if I’m always going to be locked away because, spirits forbid, I’m human, then I can’t stay. ”
Mateo’s eyes widen enough that I can see the shape of them in the poor lighting, and pain lances through me, nearly knocking the breath from my chest. At the same time, he reaches up and curls a fistful of his own shirt, as if he feels it, too.
But my pain is internal—the final spear through my heart—so I push on with the words I’m trying to say.
It doesn’t matter if I have somehow fallen in love with him.
It doesn’t matter to anyone, so I can’t let it matter to me.
I could trust him with myself, my safety, and my heart—if he reached back—but he hasn’t.
“I’m no expert,” I say, the strength of my words failing, “but love shouldn’t be conditional, Mateo.
It hurts ... even to say all of this. But I have to have boundaries.
And I meant it when I said I wouldn’t accept being locked up anymore.
So, even if that monster is still out there somewhere, I’ll have to take the risk. I have to do what’s best for—”
Mateo makes a strangled, growling sound, and the next thing I know, the room is spinning. Rather, I’m spinning through it until I’m quite suddenly dropped onto the bed, my knees hanging off the edge, and Mateo is scowling above me.
My body and brain have very different reactions to this, all of which only serve to fluster my heart further.
“I can’t let you do that, Harlow,” he says, his voice too gruff. It’s hard to read his tone, but the pain in his eyes is undeniable. “I know. I know locking you in that room was the worst thing, and if I’d been able to get out of bed, I would’ve come to get you.”
I frown, trying to tell myself that his words are not an apology. “You weren’t even in bed.”
A grimace pulls at his lips, and he bows his head like he might kiss my cheek, but he stops himself.
“I blacked out,” he murmurs. “As soon as Aziel sealed you into the room, losing my anchor to you zapped my strength. Next thing I knew, it was halfway through the next night, and I was in so much pain I couldn’t think straight.
If I’d seen or scented you in that state, I could’ve seriously hurt you. ”
My heart aches. I know perfectly well he was terribly hurt. My hands stretch up to his face, fingers brushing along his jaw. “Is that ... is that the real reason you refused me?”
His eyes close, and he leans into my touch, drawing a deep breath. “In the moment, yes.”
“In the moment?” I don’t mean to repeat the words out loud, but I have. Might as well finish the thought. “Does that mean you have another reason now?”
He opens his eyes, expression somber, dark eyes burning.
“When you offered yourself to me before,” he says, “emotions were running high. Adrenaline was pumping. I would understand if you had realized you weren’t thinking clearly or far enough ahead.
We haven’t talked thoroughly about everything a consort means and all the consequences—”
Agitation flashes through me, and I grab his hair, yanking Mateo down until our lips crash together.
The kiss is almost painful at first, but then he groans against me and sucks my tongue into his mouth.
One of his hands tangles in my hair, and he reaches down with the other, digging his fingers into my thigh.
It takes no time at all for all my frenzied emotions to melt into burning need.
Of all the things I’m still certain of, it’s that something deep inside me has chosen this man. Love almost doesn’t seem like a strong enough word for the feeling.
My tongue ghosts across one of his fangs, and Mateo goes stiff before pulling abruptly away. Just enough to break our kiss and meet my eyes. I can still feel the heavy length of him against me, taunting me.
“Harlow...”
Nerves threaten, and I swallow. “Consorts are like vampire soulmates, right? That’s why you call me your soul?” I lick my lips and watch his eyes track the movement. “Why should I be afraid of that? Why ... won’t you listen when I tell you I want it—want you?”
His eyes flash, and his nostrils flare as he studies me. “You can forgive me? For letting them do that to you?”
I consider demanding an apology, but I feel like we’re on a precipice, and crossing this threshold is much more important than articulating words I can see in his eyes. “If we bond like Kyson and Scarlet have, it won’t have to happen again, right?”
“It won’t.”
My smile is genuine, as is my answer. “Then yes, Mateo. I can forgive you.” I reach for him again without thought. “Because I love you.”
His exhale feels like a weight having been tossed aside after far too long.
“Let me make it right, mi alma,” he murmurs as he leans toward me again.
He angles his head and nuzzles my jaw. “I might still be a little rough if I bite you tonight.” He doesn’t lift his head, instead following his words with a trace of his tongue against my skin and a throaty groan I feel straight to my core.
I slip my fingers into his hair. “Maybe that’s how I want it.”