“Hush, you,” she says, bending down to pet him. “Such a baby.”
She rises to her feet and begrudgingly takes my arm. I usher her out of the room. She stutters a step when she notices Gaven’s absence.
“Where’s your shadow?” I ask.
“Wouldn’t you like to know, my wolf?”
Snark is better than suspicion, but I sense the uneasiness in her rigid posture.
It remains that way until we get downstairs. As we approach the feast room, I see a man and a woman standing in front of the double doors. It’snot until the man pats the woman on the shoulder and turns that I realize it’s Stefan.
I hesitate, but Harlow keeps walking, a smile plastered on her face. She nods as we walk by him, ignoring his lascivious smirk.
“I told you that you’d pay in blood. Maybe now you’ll learn to keep your mouth shut,” Stefan taunts. He offers me a mock salute. “Thanks for the show, Havenwood.”
There have been so many times over the past few years when I’ve wanted to kill Stefan, but never more than at this moment.
The point of claiming is to make a public statement, but I hate that he saw her like that.
He breezes by us.
Harlow seems suddenly tense. She glances over her shoulder again, looking for Gaven.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
She glances down the hall at Stefan’s back. “We had an altercation the other night where he threatened me and Gaven almost gutted him on the spot. Stefan threatened him, of course—said he would make him bleed.”
It’s the perfect way out of the mess I’ve made. It was always my plan to blame him, but the fact that she’s already suspicious makes it even more believable.
I squeeze her arm. “I thought you sent him to snoop.”
She straightens and smiles, and I turn to see two servants rushing down the hall with trays of cakes.
“I’m sure it’s nothing,” she says, nudging me forward.
As soon as we walk into the feast room, I regret telling her this was a good idea. All of the female storytellers and the women from the families who secure the fort with their magic are in attendance. The tables are covered in teapots and trays of small sandwiches and cakes, and it very much does not feel like the kind of event where Harlow would be at home.
She smiles brightly as I lead her into the room, to her place of honor beside my mother.
Before I can escape, Harlow grabs my arm and clicks her tongue.
“Running off without giving your wife a kiss?” she says with a faux pout.
She grabs my shirt and tugs me to her.
When she kisses me, all I can taste is sweet poison. My wife is trying to poison me—and I like it. I am fully entranced by her viciousness.
Then she looks at my mother. “Don’t you think he should stay and honor all of us ladies with his presence? I just can’t seem to keep my hands off him this morning.”
I read my mother’s skepticism immediately, but the ladies at the surrounding tables whistle and tap their silverware to their glasses in agreement, urging us to kiss again.
Harlow obliges them. And just like that, I’m trapped at the ladies’ luncheon along with her.
The minutes drag by as I pick at honey cakes and sip tea and try not to fall asleep from the sheer monotony of listening to so many conversations at once.
It’s a relief when Carter appears at the door, even knowing I’m going to have to engage in the best acting of my life. He waves, but I wait for Harlow to notice him.
She leans close. “It looks like Carter needs you.”
