Page 7 of Dark Night Golden Dawn
She grabbed her purse and slipped her phone inside, before escaping down the back stairs, sliding into her aubergine coat with a generous shawl collar. She tied the sash hurriedly as she rushed into the chilly spring afternoon.
The crunch of dried leaves, leftover from the winter, made a satisfying noise under her feet on the cobblestone of the courtyard as she hurried into the back alley to the shortcut that would take her to Enzo’s atelier a few streets over.
The thick hedgerows of dawn viburnum gave off a scent of vanilla and lilac that infused the alleyways of the Row, and Harlow couldn’t help but slow her pace to breathe in the scent of renewal. Of life starting again. She rounded the corner, turning onto Mulberry Street, letting the feeling sink in, wondering if with all that was going wrong it was wise to feel this way. Just as she was beginning to feel foolish for letting hope kindle in her, a text came through from Selene.
Money’s in your account. Have Enzo secure enough attire to get you to the Solstice Gala. Spare no expense.
She responded,Thank you so much, feeling grateful, but also frustrated at the amount of money a season would cost their family. Five girls, all needing dozens of garments and accessories, though her sisters were likely more equipped to weather the social season than she was. Her time navigating the upper echelons of human society with Mark had been less demanding on her wardrobe.
The Orders were extravagant when it came to clothes, but rigid about what was appropriate. There were dozens of rules to remember about color, motif, and fabric, whereas humans mostly cared about what they thought looked good and the newest trends. Thea once called the human obsession with “meaningless disposability” disgraceful, and it was one of her observations about them that Harlow completely agreed with.
Harlow sent another text to Selene to remind her that she would need her share of the family jewelry brought out of the safeguarded vault for the season and they were having a lively exchange about Harlow’s propensity to lose things when Harlow stumbled into a wall of muscle.
“Careful there,” the wall rumbled in a voice so deep she felt it in her toes.
Harlow looked up from her phone and was transported to the past. She was seventeen, and her entire body flooded with heat when she met the long-lashed eyes staring into hers. Finn McKay’s hands steadied her, kept her from falling. His face was stony, serious as ever as he gazed down at her, but she saw the corner of his mouth twitch, as though he suppressed a smile.
The square jaw, the sensual lips, the broad shoulders and muscled chest were all enough to make her knees weak, but his eyes did her in. Eyes the color of a stormy sea, and so expressive she saw their history flash through them as they stared into hers. Then they went carefully blank, and his expression reformed into something cultivated and smooth, aloof, but alluring, and Harlow hated the way her breath caught looking at him.
He’d once described himself as “everyone’s type,” which was infuriatingly accurate. Their entire lives, people had been obsessed with everything he said, wore or did. He was the son of the richest, if not most powerful, Illuminated family in Nuva Troi, after all. But it wasn’t just that, it was the aura of danger that always clung to him.
Unlike Alaric Velarius, whose mother was the arch-chancellor of the Illuminated Order and whose family was widely respected, the McKays were known for their vicious business practices and dealings in the hidden underworld of Nytra. Of course the fact that his family were some of the most terrifying Illuminated on Okairos only increased his allure for most people. She ripped herself out of the swoon her body had involuntarily dragged her into to glare at Finn as she pushed away from him.
“Watch where you’re going, McKay,” she muttered above the sound of her pounding heart. She prayed futilely to Akatei that he couldn’t hear it, though she knew well enough that he could.
He laughed, dry and arrogant as ever, only compounding the fact that she knew he knew the effect he was having on her. “You’re the one who ran into me, Krane. What are you doing here? Thought you ran around with humans these days.”
The sneer in his voice grated on her nerves, flustering her. “Mark and I broke up.”
“Right.” He drew the word out to several dry syllables, and she couldn’t tell if he was being snide or thoughtful. Probably snide, she decided when he kept talking. “I read something this morning about his level-up.”
Harlow pushed past him, cheeks burning with humiliation, especially as his eyes drifted over her decidedlyfrumpyensemble. Something like concern flared in those silvery-blue eyes, as though he regretted his comment. He grabbed her arm to stop her, then dropped it when she flinched. “Hey, I’m sorry.”
Harlow looked up, infuriated by the way she had to tilt her head to look at him, his stupid floppy hair and the way his broad chest filled out the white t-shirt he wore under the leather jacket she knew he bought at a flea market when they were fifteen. She hated that she remembered that day perfectly.
“Sorry about what?” she bit out. He had plenty to be sorry for, that was certain.
He hesitated, gauging how angry she was. “About you and Mark. I was sorry to hear you broke up. He seemed nice.”
Harlow’s heart stopped beating for half a second, she was sure of it. It was a lie. No one thought Mark seemed nice. Mark wasn’t nice. He was smart and charismatic, yes. But no one thought he was nice. Certainly not the Illuminated, who tended to despise humans who’d managed to carve out a bit of power and prestige for themselves in a world where they were meant to remain little more than well-cared-for livestock. The Eastons were just the kind of humans people like the McKays hated.
Some horrible part of her thought hedidsound genuinely sorry, like the Finn she used to know. The one who listened when something was wrong and never judged her. The one who she’d spent hours talking to as a kid. But she knew better than to be suckered into thinkingthatFinn was here in this moment. That Finn was gone for good, washed away like flotsam at high tide. He’d been lost to her since she was seventeen years old, and he wasn’t ever coming back.
“Whatever.” It was an ineffective comeback, but Harlow couldn’t think of anything better to say. She pushed past him and as she started to open the door to Enzo’s atelier, she thought she saw his shoulders slump slightly. He turned and all the arrogance she knew and hated was plain on his face.
“See you at the Grove tomorrow.” He strode away and she didn’t like it one bit that her traitorous body paused to watch him go.
ChapterFour
“He’s a dick, but that ass is worth watching,” purred a voice in her ear.
She turned to find Enzo in the doorway of his shop, and threw herself into his arms for a hug. He smelled expensive, like vetiver and sun-kissed citrus, and he looked like a fever dream, dressed in a magenta suit, his eyes lined with gold. His silky black hair was tied back in a bun, and his rich brown skin was radiant, even in the vernal gloom that had descended over the afternoon.
“Come in, come in. The remodel is finally done and I want you to see what I’ve done with the place.”
Harlow didn’t miss the way Enzo’s eyes carefully slid over her clothes, his face the bland neutral mask of a true professional. Her thoughts threatened to take her back to the sidewalk and Finn McKay, but she shoved them down. She was here to have Enzo help her find her way back to herself, after all, and if they could find their way back to one another in the process, so much the better. It was time to begin a new phase, one where she was a credit to her Order, her family, and her friends, instead of the perpetual mess she’d been for the past few years.
She took Enzo’s hands in hers, trying to project all the feelings she’d been shoving down about losing her best friend to the surface, hoping that Enzo’s talent as an empath would help him understand her sincerity. “I should have come before.”
