Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
Harlowe
My muscles were loose when I woke the next morning, languid and satisfied in a way I hadn’t felt since my last situationship in college in the spring.
I layered an oversized sweater over the slip I’d worn to bed, the cabin surprisingly warm given the raging snowstorm still blustering outside, and walked down the hall to the main bathroom upstairs.
All of the windows reflected nothing but large swathes of white.
The snow hadn’t slowed at all, still coming down in heavy sheets, the wind swirling the flakes into a wall of white.
I peeled off the bandages from both bites, dropping the gauze into the trash beside the sink and then washing my hands. Neither set of punctures had opened overnight, so I didn’t bother to mess with either of them yet. They could wait until after I’d gotten some caffeine and carbs into my system.
Just as I was starting to comb through my hair, my phone pinged multiple times and then vibrated with a call.
One of the girls must have woken up and seen the string of texts I’d sent last night after Landon had finished the forgotten spaghetti and made sure both sets of punctures were bandaged.
I supposed the caffeine and carbs would have to wait.
Tessa’s face filled the screen when I answered the incoming video call.
“Are you serious?” she asked without preamble.
I twisted my wrist, showing the new set of bites.
The bruise had indeed darkened to purple, but the punctures themselves were small and already well on their way to healing.
Even the ones in my neck looked better, whatever he’d done when he’d kissed them last night working wonders.
Not even Mom’s healing tonic could move that fast.
“Holy shit,” Tessa breathed, her eyes wide.
“Oh, is it Harlowe?” Rhiannon’s voice preceded her face. And then her eyes were wide, too, shock stilling her normally restless body. “Harlowe.”
“Don’t say anything!” I begged just as Tessa covered her mouth. Rhiannon easily pulled it away, a shit-eating grin curling her lips.
“Was it good?” Rhiannon asked. “Please tell me it was good. That man looks like he knows how to fuck.”
“Rhiannon!” I grabbed my phone and turned down the volume, looking over my shoulder. “We didn’t have sex.”
Tessa raised an eyebrow. “Really? But you don’t ever host unless you get an orgasm out of it. The itchiness isn’t worth it.”
My cheeks flushed like I was a damn virgin, but I rolled my eyes and focused on finishing my hair. “Orgasms are not the same thing as sex, thank you very much.”
“Semantics,” Rhiannon said, some of her normal excitement creeping back in. She tapped her fingers to an unheard beat. “Was it good?”
My chest flushed, too, as I nodded. “Oh, yeah, it was definitely amazing.”
Both of them squealed. I couldn’t help but grin.
“You have to tell us everything when we get up there!” Rhiannon ordered.
Before I could say anything else, Tessa turned the conversation to the blizzard, her tone conveying everything I needed to know.
Someone else was in the room who definitely didn’t need to know I’d finally gotten to feel Landon’s fangs and tongue last night.
I twisted my hair into a messy bun as she spoke, adjusting a few of the pieces until they framed my face, trying to make it seem like this was one of our typical calls.
Then I put on my normal makeup: mascara, eyeliner, and a lip gloss.
“It’s looking like we’ll get to head up early tomorrow morning,” Tessa said. “Snow should be settling overnight finally. Mom’s bringing enough popcorn for garland to drown in, just a warning.”
There was a guy’s laugh in the background. Rhiannon’s eyes narrowed, but she didn’t say anything as a third person came into the screen.
“Hey, H. How are you handling being locked in that cabin?”
Miles Brown, one of my brother’s friends, was one of those dumbass vampires that had gotten in a ton of trouble shortly after Landon had moved and joined our local vampire clan last year.
His eyes were a brown so dark they often looked black, and his brown hair was cut a little too long to look anything more than disheveled most of the time.
He’d been Changed just over five years ago when he was a freshman in college. He gave me the fucking creeps.
I gave a bland smile.
“Fine so far. It’s nice and quiet without you up here.”
He grinned like the dig was meant to be a joke.
It wasn’t.
Tessa pushed him out of the frame.
“Get lost, Brown. This is girl talk time.”
Miles threw an arm around Tessa’s shoulders, grinning.
“Wish I could, T, but I was sent to grab you. We’re all going to get a host so we don’t have to go out tomorrow until we’re over the pass.”
Tessa scrunched her nose and then shoved him away from her. “All right, all right. I’ll be done in another couple minutes. Now get out.”
Rhiannon glared where he had disappeared, her hand clenching and unclenching like she wanted to punch him. Didn’t we all?
A door closed downstairs, and my body lit with an electric anticipation. I cleared my throat.
“Perfect. I’ll text you guys later, all right?”
Both girls raised an eyebrow, a knowing glint in their eyes, but they didn’t dare say anything with Miles still within earshot.
“All right. We’ll chat later.” Tessa hung up.
Once the screen cleared, I set about taking care of the bites.
While the original set in my neck looked leagues better, there was still that underlying itch.
It would probably be like that for another few days.
Right now, it looked like I might luck out and not have any scarring, so I really didn’t want to risk ripping open the new skin.
I grabbed the anti-itch cream stashed in the bathroom, under the sink tucked behind the extra hand towels.
The clear cream sank into my skin, alleviating the itch almost instantly, like it was its own version of nova wine for my skin. I washed my hands and then put the cream away, ready to see if Landon needed to host again today. My thighs clenched in anticipation.
Landon. Right.
I twisted my wrist to look at his bite.
His bite didn’t itch. It didn’t burn. It didn’t ignite that desire to try and claw the entire thing out of my skin. He’d put the initial aftercare cream on it the night before, but I hadn’t done anything to it this morning. And it still didn’t itch.
The realization came slowly, like the slow-rising sun in the east every morning, the changes to the sky subtle and then, all at once, it crests the horizon and lights the world anew.
His bite didn’t itch. Which meant…
I swallowed and looked at myself in the mirror, trying to remember how to breathe. There was too much excitement surging through my chest, crashing underneath my sternum. My hands shook with it.
I was Landon Rhodes’s Fated. His blood mate.