Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
Harlowe
Christmas morning was bright and happy, the large tree illuminating the entire great room with a warm white light. Everybody laughed and chatted as we opened the gifts we’d given, smiles and squeals and giggles filling the entire cabin with its own warmth.
None of it touched me. None of it reached me in my cocoon of heartsick malaise.
It hadn’t been enough for him to reject me, to decide I wasn’t the Fated he wanted.
No, yesterday he’d been gone most of the day along with most of the single vampires.
When the group of them had returned, they were rumpled and relaxed, their clothes carrying the distinct smells of human blood and sex.
My stomach twisted at the thought even now, and I swallowed down the nausea that burned the back of my throat. Tessa wrapped her arm around me as her dad opened the last of the secret santa gifts, sensing the worsening of my mood. Rhiannon eased closer, too, lacing her fingers with mine.
Tessa’s dad tilted his head back and laughed as he pulled the gift from the nondescript box, pulling my attention toward him.
I didn’t want to look. He and Tessa’s mom were perched beside my own parents…
and Landon. I didn’t want to see his face, didn’t want to see him smile and laugh like everyone else this morning.
Like nothing had changed in his world over the last several days.
Well, I guess it hadn’t. It wasn’t like he’d claimed me.
“I will get you back, Mark,” Tessa’s dad said. “I swear to God, I will get you back.”
“Looking forward to it,” Mark said, holding up his spiked eggnog in salute. “Better hope you draw my name next year.”
Tessa’s dad turned the sweater around so the rest of the room could see it, and then everyone else was laughing, too, at the cartoon-style drawing someone knitted into the front of the sweater.
It was of a traditional Dracula, blood dripping down one side of his mouth as he held a bill of some kind. Underneath, it said “Bah Humbug”.
It was easily the ugliest sweater I’d ever seen. It had Mark written all over it. Any other year, I would laugh with the rest of the room. This year, it slid past me, unable to lessen the pall that hung over me.
“That’s everything, then!” Mom said, smiling brightly. “Who’s ready for some lunch?”
“There’s actually one more,” Landon said.
I didn’t want to look at him, didn’t want to see who was getting something from him when I could have nothing at all.
It was petulant and immature and at that moment I didn’t even care.
I dropped my gaze and started picking up some of the forgotten wrapping paper at my feet, reaching behind Rhiannon for one of the trash bags stashed around the room for easier clean up.
“Harlowe.” His voice was rich and smooth and washed over me like the last two days hadn’t even happened. “I have a gift for you.”
Everything stopped. The laughter, the chatter, the indescribable humming that was so many preternaturals all sharing something joyous together.
I could feel my parents’ gazes, my father’s hefty concern.
Rhiannon and Tessa both froze beside me, shocked and wary.
The attention of the room was overbearing.
It took every ounce of willpower to look up at him.
I couldn’t bear to see his face right now, much less feel the heat of his body.
Tessa squeezed my hand in silent support.
It was enough that I focused on the vampire standing in front of me.
He held a small package wrapped in blue and green tartan, long and rectangular and almost flat.
His eyes flashed to red for a heartbeat, but his hand didn’t falter.
The gift didn’t so much a shake where it was held in suspension between us.
My throat dried out, and I swallowed around the sudden lump crowding my mouth.
“Oh.”
I inwardly cringed.
Really? That was the best I could do?
My own hand shook as I took the small gift. Nerves settled in my stomach like a stone around a bird’s neck keeping it from flying away.
What could he have possibly gotten me?
Rejecting a Fated didn’t have any formal ceremony.
They were too rare for something like that to even become standard practice.
There was nothing he could have gotten me.
We barely talked, barely interacted before the snowstorm.
He hadn’t had my name for the secret santa exchange.
Without thinking, I palmed the thick history book Dylan had given me.
“This is yours,” he said in that same steady voice. It sent a shiver down my spine despite my best intentions.
Everything moved in slow motion, every heartbeat ringing in my ears and drowning out my own breathing, as I slowly took the package, untied the ribbon and eased the plaid wrapping paper from the nondescript box.
“Oh, was she who you drew this year, Landon?” Miles asked, entirely oblivious to the strange dynamic of the room like always.
“I was,” my brother offered.
Confusion filled the room, so thick a knife could cut through it.
Or maybe it was just Miles still not understanding I wasn’t interested.
Tessa leaned closer, trying to see over my shoulder.
Rhiannon thrummed on my other side, both of them still convinced something between Landon and me would be possible.
The box opened easily, the top unfolding to reveal red tissue paper. And, nestled in the very center, was a thin jewelry box. The shape was familiar in a passing way, the same way the etched symbol was. It was something I’d seen other people hold, something I’d seen in my mom’s jewelry collection.
It was something I never expected to be given. Certainly not after Landon had left me panting on the kitchen counter as everyone arrived at the cabin.
Rhiannon grabbed my wrist right over the nearly-healed bite Landon gave me when I’d offered my vein. I couldn’t help the flash of grimace.
“Oh crap, sorry!” she said, dropping her hand to my leg.
I traced the symbol on the jewelry box, trying to remember how to breathe, how to exist in my body. It moved enough of the paper that Tessa could see clearly what it was.
She squealed. “Oh shit, is that a…”
She quickly trailed off as she realized she couldn’t be the one to say it, that if this was truly what the symbol indicated, it would be the faux pas of the century to say it before I did. Her nails dug into my thigh, too.
That lump in my throat grew larger until I practically choked on the mess of emotions.
My gaze flashed to Landon, not daring to trust what I was seeing.
He hadn’t said a word to me since everyone arrived, hadn’t said anything after I confronted him and forced him to confess what he truly felt about being Fated.
He… he left me bent over the kitchen island, my orgasm barely crested.
Not a single flash of jealousy had marred the lines of his face over the last few days.
No, it was Tessa who stepped in and made it clear to Miles that his flirting wasn’t wanted after he ignored my quiet redirections and cold shoulder.
My flame of hope was gone, and I didn’t trust myself to light it again, didn’t want to light it again for it only to get ruined anew.
Landon’s hands were shoved in his slacks, and his shoulders were tight with tension. His eyes were locked on me, flicking between bright red and forest green. He didn’t bother to look at the small box in my lap like everyone else. I supposed he didn’t need to see what was inside.
“Really?” My whisper cut through the room, more effective than a whip’s crack. The small conversations that had restarted stopped, everyone’s attention shifting to… to us.
Landon swallowed heavily, his Adam’s apple bobbing. He nodded once.
“Yes.”
“What is it?” Mom asked.
My gaze flashed to her. She leaned around Dad, her curiosity written across her face. She didn’t know? Had Landon not told my dad?
Not daring to breathe, I pulled out the jewelry box, twisting it so the etching caught the light.
The silence of the group took on a new, charged edge as the rest of the room saw the single drop of blood falling into an infinity symbol—the mark reserved by clans worldwide to designate a vampire’s chosen mate.
Mom’s face paled, her gaze cutting to Dad. Dad, who didn’t seem surprised, but rather only held a wary worry in the set of his jaw and the subtle bit of fang cutting into his lower lip.
“Joshua…” Mom whispered.
Dad squeezed her hand, his knuckles whitening. A muscle ticked in his jaw, but his shoulders relaxed before he said anything. “I know.”
I know.
And suddenly the last twenty-four hours rearranged themselves into a different narrative.
My dad and Landon leaving, my dad coming back alone.
Had he gone all the way back to the city, to the clan’s mansion?
He would have had to run the entire way there and back.
No, there was no way he had gone to the city for this. So how had he gotten a hold of one?
“This was where you went?” I asked, still not opening the box itself.
His jaw clenched, that muscle ticking in his neck.
“Yes,” he said, no louder than a whisper.
“I thought you’d gone for a host,” I admitted, tears suddenly lining my lashes. “You came back with everyone else, smelling like blood.”
“Yeah, well, the werewolf wanker had it coming to him,” he groused, his eyes bright red again. “He was miserably smug over the entire thing. I couldn’t let him leave with that damn smirk intact.”
“I…” I swallowed down the rising tide of emotions. “I thought you didn’t want me.”
Devastation flashed across his face, so strong it felt like a punch to my own sternum. Faster than I could track, he was kneeling before me, carefully pulling his hands into mine, spreading my fingers. I thought he was going to hold them, and hope sprang up without my bidding.
And then he set his palm against mine.
His voice flowed into my head, loud and strong and sure.
I’ve wanted you since I saw you last summer. I spent an entire year miserable with wanting you, knowing I shouldn’t. But knowing you’re my Fated? There’s no possible universe where I could stomach being separated from you.
My breath caught in my throat.
“Unless you don’t want me, which is entirely valid. I was a prick of the highest order.” His voice was gruff. His remorse flowed through my gift.
I’m sorry I left you there. You didn’t deserve that. I promise to never desert you from now until my last breath, Harlowe.
“All right,” I whispered, trying to see his face through my building tears. His eyes were bright green, his beard rougher and longer than when we’d started the week. “Yes, I accept.”
He loosed a breath, an invisible weight falling from his shoulders.
His hand left mine, carefully picking up the box.
The blood red ruby sat in spectacular, lone glory, larger than any pendant I’d ever seen.
I pulled my hair to the side, baring my neck, and he fastened it without misstep.
His eyes blazed as the stone nestled into the hollow of my throat.
The room sucked in a collective breath as they realized what stone he had selected.
Blood rubies were reserved only for Fated, for true blood mates.
I’d never actually seen one in person before.
I didn’t get a chance to look around the room, though, to see my mom’s reaction or Rhiannon’s or Tessa’s.
Because in that moment, Landon cupped my face, tilted my chin up toward him, and then covered my mouth with his.
I sank into him, letting my hands rove over his shoulders, his arms. And when my hands settled on his neck, his thought burned through me, brighter than a meteor
I love you, Harlowe Grant.