Page 3 of Dark Night Golden Dawn
Aurelia’s jaw clenched, noticeably, as though she was suppressing all the things she wanted to say, and for that Harlow was eternally grateful. Selene had tried time and time again for the past few months to get Harlow to care about how she looked, but Harlow had resisted, getting pricklier each time Selene mentioned it. It wasn’t just about keeping up appearances for Selene, who was the spitting image of Raia, goddess of fertility and sex. Mama was genuinely worried about her mental health, she knew that. Everyone was worried about her.
Harlow swallowed, and the act of doing so was difficult. Shewasfrumpy these days. Dull really, on all counts. And who could compete with vampires? They were genetically predisposed to be attractive to humans, just like the Illuminated; everything about their biological makeup drew humans in. Not that she wanted to compete with Olivia Sanvier, or have Mark back, she didn’t. But the socials drawing comparisons between them made it impossible for hernotto.
Harlow frowned as she scratched at a tiny stain on her pants—where had that come from? She took a shaky breath, trying to push back the wave of insecurities threatening to wash over her. She wasn’t an insecure person, but Section Seven could make anyone feel terrible about themselves, and Harlow was already in a bad place.
Aurelia smoothed her hair and kissed her forehead. “Humans. You know they glorify the Order of Night.”
“I suppose.” Harlow’s feelings swirled with confusion.
She never understood the human need to identify with the Orders as though they were fan clubs they might join. Their love for the Order of Night was even more perplexing, since they were the Order of immortal creatures that threatened their safety the most directly. It didn’t matter how many laws the Consortium of Immortals passed against non-consensual recreational bloodletting, the Order of Night was as dangerous to humans now as they were a thousand years ago, despite the monthly donations all humans were required to make to the Night’s Own Blood Banks.
The comments about her on the write-up of Mark and Olivia’s date were brutal, many referring to Harlow in derogatory ways that made her stomach turn. Her cheeks reddened and she bit her bottom lip hard enough to draw blood. Her mother’s cool fingers stroked her cheek, turning her face away from her phone. “That’s enough, darling. Time to leave it be.”
ChapterTwo
Harlow blinked back tears, feeling embarrassed. She took her mother’s hand and kissed it. “I’m sorry.”
Selene Krane descended the staircase, just as she apologized. Unlike Aurelia, who never failed to dress for work in a three-piece suit, Selene Krane was clad in one of her hundreds of dresses. This morning it was an orchid-colored velvet wrap dress, paired with knee-high heeled boots. Her dark blonde hair floated away from her face, and if she were human she wouldn’t look a day over forty-five, even though she and Aurelia both were nearer to six hundred.
Harlow was always impressed by her mothers’ style, but this morning, they were quintessential Selene and Aurelia, mistresses of the esoteric rare book trade, paragons of the Order of Mysteries, and her own dear parents.
“No apologizing, Harlow,” Selene commanded, imperious as a goddess. “The human was a fool, and we are lucky to be rid of him.”
This was as close as Selene would come to saying “I told you so,” and for that much Harlow was grateful. Mama could hold a grudge, and she was glad to be so quickly on the other side of her temper.
Selene touched her daughter’s honey-colored hair, so like her own, and kissed the top of her head. Harlow smelled her mother’s familiar scent of violet, musk, and mysterious ancient woods. “The only thing to do now, dearest, is to meet someone else.”
Harlow bristled at the suggestion. She wasn’t ready to meet anyone new. It’s why she hadn’t moved back in with her parents when Mark kicked her out. She knew Selene would start trying to make matches for her and she wasn’t ready to be paired yet. Fixing herself had been her top priority for the past six months and the project wasn’t going as well as she’d hoped it would.
Aurelia sniffed softly and rose from the chesterfield to kiss her wife. “Perhaps we should let Harlow be.”
Selene kissed Aurelia, a bit more passionately than Harlow was comfortable with witnessing, but that was the way of it with her parents. Five hundred years of marriage hadn’t cooled their flame a bit.
“If we let Harlow be, she will turn into a dried up old hag. Is that what you want?”
Aurelia chuckled at Selene’s forecast. “Now, now, my love. She’s just seen the photos from last night. Let’s not pronounce her a dried up old hag just yet. Let her adjust.”
Harlow hated the way everyone in her family spoke about her like she wasn’t sitting right there. It was the way of big families, and she dearly loved hers, but it was eternally annoying to have them discuss her as though she had no mind of her own.
“I amfine,” she insisted. It was the wrong thing to say, if she’d wanted to be left alone.
“Wonderful!” Selene said with a warm but calculating smile. “Then you’ll have no problem with joining us for the season.” She said “the season” as though it were a proper noun, which of course it was in many ways.
“No!” Harlow moaned. “Please. It’s so archaic. How can we be the most powerful creatures on the planet and still besellingourselves to one another? The humans moved past this centuries ago.”
Selene and Aurelia sighed in unison. They’d borne Harlow’s rants about this subject thousands of times. They were paired in their own season, long, long ago. They’d courted at a series of events specially designed to match children of the Illuminated and the lower Orders with socially compatible partners.
Harlow began to say something else, but Selene held up a finger. “Harlow, my love. Please. We’ve been over this many times and we stayed out of it while you dallied, but now it is time to do your duty to our family.”
Dallied. As if she and Mark had been playing house, instead of in a deeply committed relationship. Harlow struggled not to grimace.
“It isn’t as if marriages are forced upon anyone,” Aurelia added. “We fell in love at our own season, as did our parents and siblings before us.”
Harlow rolled her eyes. “But of course, you were pushed toward each other at every turn, weren’t you? Your match was advantageous, with Mother’s money and Mama’s family properties. It was a business arrangement as much as love, wasn’t it?”
Selene’s passionate fury flashed in her large green eyes, the twins to her own, and Harlow was surprised she didn’t pull the same kind of stunt Aurelia had earlier. “The fact that it was an advantageous pairing takes nothing away from how much I love your mother. Don’t cheapen our love, or our traditions.”
Guilt nipped at Harlow’s poison tongue as she watched Selene fall dramatically into Aurelia’s arms. It was true that by human standards the season was archaic and ridiculous, but nearly all the pairings resulted in long, loving romantic relationships, and those that didn’t worked for other reasons. Polyamory was not uncommon amongst the Orders, and divorce was rare amongst those that paired during the season.
