Page 16 of Dark Night Golden Dawn
“Nowyou’re ready,” Enzo declared as he turned her toward the mirrored windows of Alaric’s apartment. She looked good. Everything in the outfit strategically hugged her curves, fitting and flaring so her legs looked a mile long and her chest was tastefully exposed.
“Okay,” she said quietly. “I look kind of…”
“Hot,” Thea finished for her. “You look hot, Harlow. Not frumpy, miserable, or any of the other things all the socials have been saying. You look likeyou.”
Harlow’s lips curled slightly, but she felt every muscle in her contract at the thought of the party beyond the cover of the tree. Out there, music was playing and she heard people talking and she knew as soon as they walked in, they’d be talking about her, pitying her.
“Let’s go,” Enzo said as he took her hand. “Rip the bandage right off, okay?”
She nodded and followed them down the pea gravel path that was littered with petals from the dozens of blooming cherry trees that dotted the rooftop garden. A bar was set up near the doors to Alaric’s place. This was nothing like her penthouse, which was tiny in comparison. It was, like most things the Illuminated coveted, both old and new at the same time. Everything was beautiful, nothing showed a hint of age, even though much of Alaric’s furniture and decor were likely vintage, mixed with precious antiquities.
Just as she’d expected, heads turned as they walked through the group of familiar faces, but most eyes lingered on her sister and Enzo. And just like at the Grove, the rest slid over her as though she were invisible. For that, she supposed she ought to be grateful. Only one gaze rested on her. She shook her head; Finn McKay was glowering at her from under a tree.
He wasn’t alone. A slender, blonde vampire was flirting with him. He nodded absently as she talked, his eyes never leaving Harlow. The vampire followed his gaze and then she was glaring at Harlow as well.
“Excuse me,” Harlow said to Thea and Enzo as the vampire stalked off in a fiery huff. Finn didn’t seem to notice that his companion had disappeared. Similarly, if Thea and Enzo said anything to her as she left them, she didn’t hear them. She tried to convince herself that it was because she and Finn McKay needed to have a word, not because they were drawn to one another like opposing ends of a magnet.
“You noticed something was off at the Grove, didn’t you?” she asked before she’d even reached him. She knew he could hear her as she neared. He stood so still, it was unnatural.
The intensity of his eyes drifting over her set her heart to pounding as he leaned harder against the tree. “No pleasantries then. I like it.”
She rolled her eyes. “What did you see?”
He shrugged, looking bored. Too bored. He was putting on an attitude, wearing it like a coat. She could feel the eyes at her back and he could probably hear everything people were whispering, but she was grateful she could not. His face stayed carefully aloof, but his voice lowered significantly. “It isn’t what I saw. It’s what I heard.”
He took out his phone and fiddled with something. The music changed to a popular club song and got significantly louder. “I’m in charge of the noise this evening,” he said. “Better that we’re not overheard.”
She nodded once, but didn’t turn. She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. “A scream. Did you hear a scream?”
She saw the look of real worry in his eyes as he nodded, though the rest of his face didn’t move from that insufferable expression of bored annoyance. Everything about him said he couldn’t care less about social conventions, and yet he still managed to look perfectly put together. His slouchy vintage band t-shirt draped across his muscular chest, and he’d had the audacity to wear low-slung grey sweatpants and sneakers. Everyone else was dressed to the nines in their “casualwear”—and Finbar McKay was dressed in sweats. Only he could get away with something like that.
“You’ve made quite the sartorial shift,” he remarked, his eyes running over her body again. Something about it felt appraising, rather than lewd, like he was checking her over for wounds after a battle. She didn’t like the way her heart grasped onto the idea that he might care how she was faring.
The tone he used confused the way he looked at her. Harlow couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not—if he was insulting her, or simply making an observation. She wasn’t sure how to react, so she glared. “None of your business, McKay.”
He laughed, his eyes crinkling at the corners in a way that nearly melted her resolve to keep hating him. “Right. Got it, Krane. But if you don’t want it to be my business, you might try buttoning another button.” She turned her glare into a glower and he threw his hands up. “I’m just saying. That’s a very eye-catching shirt.”
He said the words, but his eyes were locked on hers. In fact, though he’d clearly appraised her, his focus hadn’t lingered anywhere but her eyes since she’d noticed him watching her. It was far too intimate.
As he shoved his hands back into his pockets she caught a clearer view of the tattoo around his left arm. As she’d walked up, it had looked like a beautifully rendered sleeve of black line art; now she saw the details of the image on the inside of his forearm more clearly. A snake wound around a sword and a horns up moon in the background. Lilacs bloomed behind the sword, encircling his forearm. The sight of the flowers stopped her breath.
It had been a spring night, in early Mai; the windows had been down in the car and the scent of lilacs drifted in, her favorite flower. The memory of him above her, pushing her hair away from her face as he’d whispered that he… No. No.No. This wasnotallowed. She had forbidden herself to think about that night and she would stick to it. The lilacs on his arm meant nothing. It was a coincidence, nothing more. Plenty of people liked lilacs.
She broke the connection between them by stepping away. He cleared his throat and shifted his stance against the tree. A bloom flushed his cheeks that matched her own.
“What do you think it was?” she asked, changing the subject. “The scream?”
He shrugged, conspicuously turning his arm so the inside of his muscular forearm didn’t show again. “I really don’t know. Nothing good. Did your sense of magic just… disappear?”
She nodded. “Yes, and then everything kind of contracted and then it all came back.”
“Until the ceremony. Something happened when the effigies combusted. I know you felt it too.”
Harlow started to answer, but the change in his expression caught her attention. The interest that lit in his eyes when she was talking died and he was no longer affecting boredom; now his expression was something else entirely, though she couldn’t tell what. She turned slowly to find Petra Velarius standing behind her with a bottle of sparkling wine and two glasses. Her sleek ebony hair was pulled into a ponytail so tight it looked like it would give her a headache, and the black sweater dress she was wearing was so fitted Harlow could count her ribs.
Finn pushed off the tree and walked past her without a second glance. “Later, Harls,” he said quietly as he passed her.
Petra heard, her head snapping over her shoulder, her dark eyes narrowed into a glare. Petra Velarius was stunning no matter what, but Harlow suspected she glared so much because she knew it made her look even more beautiful.
