Page 106 of Dark Night Golden Dawn
When they turned to take their seats at the table, the maters beamed with pride. Everyone talked at once, as was the way with her family, and she knew as she made eye contact with each of them that they understood the proposal was real, that she was finally happy.
Cian got up from the table to take a call, clapping a cool hand over her shoulder as they went. “Welcome to the family, Harlow,” they said as they left the table.
“You too,” she replied, smiling at Finn as Cian walked away. “Welcome to my family.”
Epilogue
Rain pelted the sea, thunder crashing as lightning lit the sky. The speedboat bobbed on the waves, as Aislin McKay’s skin turned a sickly shade of grey. “Why in seventeen hells did we have to meet here?”
“You know perfectly well why,” Pasiphae Velarius said, her usually pleasant voice sharp as the boat sped further away from shore. Aislin didn’t answer, but glared at Pasiphae before running to the bathroom. The sounds of her retching echoed through the cabin, punctuating each crash of lighting outside.
“Where is your husband?” Connor asked the Archchancellor, as his wife returned to the table, wiping her lips with a silk hanky.
“None of your godsdamn business,” Pasiphae said, every inch the leader of the Illuminated. “Show me the photos.”
Connor spread six photos on the mahogany table. The cabin of the speedboat was well appointed, like everything he owned, including his wife, who looked positively wretched but was at least outfitted well for the occasion in a dress that hugged her narrow frame.
A tiny whimper in the corner caught his attention. “Quiet,” he commanded, his gaze narrowing at the creature, who shivered in the corner.
Aislin rolled her eyes. “I’ll never understand why you need to bring your pets along at times like these.”
Connor shrugged, tapping one of the photos to redirect Pasiphae’s attention. “This is the one that shows the teeth. The bodies were burned, but you’ll notice these are not the usual formation we see in vampires.”
Pasiphae’s mouth tightened as she looked closer. “No, they are not.”
“We have a problem,” Connor said.
Aislinn rolled her eyes. “Finn took care of it.” Her skin was turning green now as the boat rocked wildly in the storm. “Wehada problem, and now we don’t.”
The back of Connor’s hand met Aislin’s cheek before she could flinch away. “If I tell you we have a problem,we have a fucking problem.”
Aislin’s eyes burned with hatred. Pasiphae sighed, exhausted by the two of them. They’d be fucking in the bedroom before she could get off the boat, of that she had no doubt; the Claimed were all the same. “What exactlyisour problem then, Connor? I agree that it’s not ideal that the vampires have regained the knowledge to create incubi, but as Aislin notes, the creature was destroyed. Your boy destroyed him. You know as well as I do that Gene-I is rare in humans. It’s unlikely they’ll be able to replicate their results.”
Connor pushed a manilla folder across the mahogany table. Pasiphae’s eyes glazed over with boredom. “Why am I looking at an MPU case file?”
“The dead incubus,” Connor said, pointing to the photos of the burned bodies in the House of Remiel basement, “is Mark Easton. That case file is the MPU report on his father, Alain Easton, who is still missing.”
“Oh,” Pasiphae remarked, sipping her whiskey. “That does present a problem.”
“It does,” Connor growled.
“How did they get past us?” Pasiphae mused.
“Money, status… The Eastons have been buying their way out of their blood donations and family planning for generations,” Connor said, his lip curling in disgust.
Pasiphae shook her head. “Our own corruption will be the death of us, Connor.”
He rolled his eyes at her, clearly impatient to get on with things. “What’s more, my people found traces of white ash on the floor of that basement. There’s no way Finn killed the incubus on his own. Harlow Krane was with him.”
There was a pause as the implication marinated, each of the women turning over the possibilities in her mind. “Impossible,” Aislin said with a scowl. “That little cunt couldn’t have helped him out of a cardboard box.”
“Easton’s head was severed,” Connor replied. “Torn clean off his body. Finn couldn’t have done that at full strength, not to an incubus, especially not one that was newly made. Unlike vampires, they’re strongest in the first months of their reborn life.”
“So what did this?” Pasiphae asked.
Connor sat back in his chair, glaring. “Thelittle cuntis a Feriant.”
“You don’t know that,” Aislin replied, getting up and pacing.
