I shift, searching for a way to defend myself. “I kept it a secret because I needed you to go through with the marriage so that we can get the resources your family promised. I didn’t bring you here to use you for your blood.”
She glares at me in the mirror. “Whatever you need to tell yourself. I’m not surprised you used me. Truthfully, I’m shocked that I still have the capacity to believe someone would want anythingbutto use me. Everyone is out for blood. You just happen to be more literal about it.”
I expected her reaction to sting, but I did not imagine that her apathy—that likening me to everyone else in her life—would cut so deep.
I want to argue—to tell her I’m different—that I’m not like her family.
Except I am. Iamusing her. Ididtrick her, and I’ll continue to do it as long as I need to. I’m even counting on her sister’s well-being as motivation for her to follow through.
From the first moment my parents hatched this plan, I was fine with any collateral damage to a woman I had never met. I projected my judgment of her family onto her, and I didn’t once consider that a family thatwould sacrifice the people of the fort wouldn’t hesitate to do the same to their daughters.
For ten years, I have been so singularly focused on my own grief and anger, I didn’t once think about the fact that following through on this plan wouldn’t get rid of it. It would simply pass it on to someone else.
“I thought you would rage more,” I say.
“At you? Why? You’re doing what anyone would do in your situation.” She shakes her head and begins pinning her hair into a twist. “No. I’m not angry with you. I’m angry with myself for not seeing what was right in front of my face.”
She meets my eye in the vanity mirror. “Are you the one taking women from Lunameade? Or, I suppose—were you and the others like you doing it?” She’s not afraid when she asks, and that’s more unnerving than her lack of anger.
I shake my head. “No. We don’t need to do that. Women here volunteer because it feels?—”
She gives me a look that says she knows how it feels. She spreads a dark color over her full lips. I know even without being told that it’s red. It’s always red.
She stands, removes the dress from the hanger beside the vanity, and slips it over her head. I don’t bother to offer to tie it for her. She makes quick work of the string anyway.
The dark silk is so delicate and thin, it may as well not be there at all. The draped neckline dips between her breasts and the thin straps crisscross in the back several times, showing off the delicate muscles of her upper back. It stops just above her scar. For a moment, all I can think about is untying that bow, watching the dress slip away from her pale skin, and spreading her legs wide so I can taste her.
The dress is a punishment, and I have never liked a scolding so much.
She runs her fingers over her collarbone and up her neck, pausing right over the place where I first bit her last night. I’ve healed all of the marks I left on her delicate skin, but I know she’s trying to remind me what I can’t have.
“My intention wasn’t to hurt you.”
She bristles. “I’m not hurt. You had some score to settle, and I will go along with whatever I must, but let me be clear about how this is goingto work. I won’t tell my family what you are. When we go back to Lunameade in three days for Dark Star Festival, I’ll ask you to do something, and you won’t question it?—”
“I can’t promise that if I don’t know what it is,” I argue.
Harlow holds up a hand. “The entirety of my cooperation is dependent on you helping me get my sister back. If you become yet another thing standing between me and her, I will be forced to manage you the way I’m managing everyone else.”
This is a trap that I have to step into. If I don’t give her something now, she will ruin everything—and she’ll enjoy making me suffer.
“Fine. I agree.”
She holds out her hand, and I shake it.
“Good. Now, is there anything you’d like to tell me?” she asks.
My mind churns through all the things I’d like to say.I killed Gaven. I’m using you to help overthrow your parents as leaders of Lunameade. I can’t stop thinking about the way you sigh after you come.
But this is not a time for confessions. I can’t say any of these things.
“Can I ask you something and you’ll answer honestly?” I ask.
She puts her hands on her hips. “I’ll certainly consider it.”
“Why have you put up with all that your parents have done when you clearly don’t agree with their methods?”
She tips her head back and sighs heavily. “What other option is there, Henry? This isn’t about some destructive affection I have for them. The city needs my father to hold the line. There is no one else in all of Lunameade with holy fire. Who else will light the wall? It’s already almost too much for him and Able to maintain together.”
