“It almost looks like a burnt purple. Most people have auras that float around them and are most concentrated a few inches from their skin. But yours is such a dark, warm purple, and it’s very concentrated in a ball at the center of you.”
As we finally come to the bottom of the fort trail, Harlow slows to let me pass. I turn left and lead the way through the busy cobbled street toward the center route back up through the fort.
The first level is mostly community gardens and farming because it’s the only level that isn’t completely shadowed by the mountain in the afternoon. This is the least populated level of the fort, since it’s most susceptible to breach due to the expanses of agricultural land. Most of the people who work those plots of land are unblessed, but there are a few interspersed magical families who help with growing crops anddistributing sunlight, as well as those who have protection blessings from Vardek to help with our defenses. A healthy smattering of newer guards is stationed in the barracks near the opposite fort wall.
Harlow looks at me expectantly. She’s waiting for me to respond to her comments about my aura.
“What does yours look like?” I ask.
She picks up speed to match my stride. “Like a golden cookie-cutter outline of my body. Like I could be one of the Divine myself.”
I bite my lip to keep from smiling at her casual blasphemy. I’ve been so focused on what she’s saying that I only now notice the eyes on us. And not just some of them. All of them.
Harlow smiles brightly and wishes them a pleasant morning as we pass, but all the warmth and teasing evaporates from her face as she notices just how many people are focused on us. Her eyes return to their usual intense vigilance, rapidly darting from side to side to search for incoming danger.
We continue up through the second, third, and fourth levels, met by a similarly cold reception. The people just continue to gawk at the two of us. Worse are the not-so-quiet murmured slurs. Maybe they aren’t loud enough for Harlow to hear, but it takes a lot of self-control for me to not react.
As we finally pass through the gates to level five, she cocks her head and smiles playfully at me. “I guess I was right about the rumor mill working as hard here in the fort as it does back at home.”
She hurtles up the steepest incline into level six and circles the manor with me on her heels.
Gaven leans against the solarium doors, his arms crossed like he’s on sentry duty. His face relaxes when he sees Harlow and she gives him a mocking salute.
“You were right,” she says. “The caves were exactly where you said.” She turns to me and jerks her thumb toward the trail. “Ready for round two? I’ll race you.”
I don’t know how she’s so unbothered. She had to have heard their words, though it’s possible this is what she anticipated from the start and it’s a relief their behavior finally matches her expectations.
Gaven lifts a hand. “You’re off pace. Is Henry slowing you down?”
I glare at the bodyguard. I can’t believe I didn’t realize he had magic. Isense something else strange about him that I can’t quite put my finger on. I don’t think I have the full picture yet, but I’d really like to before I try to kill him and am met with some unpleasant magical surprise.
“Gaven, start us off,” Harlow calls.
She’s bouncing on her toes beside me, the most energized and perky I’ve ever seen her—and, loath as I am to admit it, it’s actually very cute. If she weren’t such an unbelievable pain in my ass, she would actually fit in here. She has the right competitive spirit underneath all the snark.
Gaven pulls out his handkerchief, lifts it into the air with a flourish, and then yanks it down to signal the start. I take off, sprinting a few paces behind her on purpose. I’ll lull her into a false sense of security for the first few miles and take her on the uphill through town.
I shouldn’t be surprised how quickly she navigates the same trails as before. This is the reminder I needed that she’s not just a pretty girl to play my wife. She’s a calculating spy sent to get information out of me.
On the hill through the center of town, I pull ahead. It’s not until we enter the fifth level, when she charges ahead, that I realize she was holding back. Now I’m spent and she is fully sprinting. The sound of her footsteps triggers something animal inside me.
Not now. I don’t want to fuck my wife.
Except I really do.
The manor comes into sight, and I want to immediately drag her inside, up to my bed, yank down those tight pants so they trap her legs together, and fuck her like my life depends on it.
Instead, I watch as she races up to Gaven and taps his shoulder. I trot to a stop when I see Carter standing off to the side, whispering with Bryce. I know by their faces and their presence this early that something is off.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
Carter glances at Harlow and then back at me. “We received a dove.”
Harlow’s head whips around. She lifts her sweaty ponytail off of her neck and walks toward my friends.
Until now, we have made a point to intercept every communication from her family without informing her. I try to puzzle out why Carter would volunteer this information.
He hands me the note, and I have to read it twice to understand the full gravity of the words.
