Page 73 of Dark Night Golden Dawn
Harlow nodded. “I do. I’m not in that place anymore, and it’s because of you. Because of that summer. I’ll never forget that.”
They rested against the windows, huddled together, wrapped in each other’s arms, holding one another’s hands.
After a long, calm pause, Thea said, “It doesn’t matter what happens next, who we pair with, any of it. You’ll always be the most important person in my life. You and the sillies and Enzo and the maters. You know that, right?”
Harlow smiled, letting go of one of Thea’s hands to wipe a stray tear from her sister’s cheek. “It’s okay to let Alaric in. He can be a part of our family too. And then someday, you’ll have babies of your own, and they’ll be just as important. We can expand. Love is an infinite well.”
“Love is an infinite well,” Thea repeated. “I like that.”
“There’s enough room for all of us in this family.”
“Even Finn?”
“Yes. And I expect Cian Herrington, and Riley Quinn as well.”
A few more tears slipped down Thea’s cheeks as she nodded. “Alaric and I are going to need a really big dining room table in our new house.”
“Yeah,” Harlow replied as she leaned against her sister’s shoulder. “You are.”
ChapterTwenty-Nine
The next few weeks flew by in a blur of trying to balance the events of the season with trying to sort out what the House of Remiel had been up to when they took Harlow. Finn and Harlow went to the season’s annual brunch at The Palace hotel, and made an effort to be seen everywhere from the most popular coffee shops and lunch spots to the grocery store. When she was with Finn, everything felt normal, but anytime she went somewhere alone she had the same chilling sense of surveillance as she had at the Solon Mai ball and in the bar.
Finn and Thea talked her out of calling Mark and giving him a piece of her mind. Furthermore, and perhaps more telling, Mark didn’t call her either, which felt odd because he loved to gloat when he punished her. And though Harlow scraped the internet for information about him, she couldn’t find mention of him having been out anywhere, with Olivia or anyone else either. Both his and Olivia’s socials were silent, which was unusual. Athan, on the other hand, was busily updating the world on his rugby team’s prowess.
A few of the gossips speculated that Olivia and Mark were probably holed up in a love nest somewhere, subtly implying that Mark’s humanity might be getting an upgrade soon. The thought of Mark living an eternity as a vampire turned Harlow’s stomach, but it was a plausible theory, and it would explain why the whole House of Remiel was going about their business as normal.
There had been no mention of the vampires’ attack, and the ensuing altercation outside Haven, in the news or gossips. Harlow was equally impressed and horrified with the way that Alaric had handled things. His securities firm had reached out to everyone involved and “made it more attractive to stay quiet.”
The resources it must have taken to make something like that possible were vast, and when Harlow had discussed it with him, Thea and Finn, she began to understand that there were many things that happened in Nytra, and Okairos as a whole, that no one knew about, because the Illuminated simply erased events with money and threats. Because as rich and resourced as Alaric and Finn both were, their parents and the rest of the Illuminated had more. More power, more money,moreof everything. So much more that it was dizzying to think of even trying to resist them when she began to truly comprehend the scale of things.
Harlow stayed at Finn’s most nights, enough so that he’d gotten a litter box and a store of cat food and they’d introduced Axel to the house. The feline loved the many windows, and he and Finn seemed to enjoy one another’s company. They went walking the perimeter of the property together twice a day every day, the only time Axel went outside. Harlow got a kick out of watching the two of them walking together and sent her sisters and Enzo videos and photos of them goofing off nearly every day.
The house began to fill slowly with furniture she and her shadows built. Just a chair here and there for comfort. She wanted to buy most of their things the normal way, and besides, she wasn’t sure she was ready to officially move in. It was a little soon for that, but being here felt safe and good.
By contrast, her apartment, which had once been her refuge, did not. She trusted the wards on her building, but the few times she and Axel had been home to get more clothes or to simply be alone for the afternoon, she got the now-familiar feeling of being watched. That sinister pressure appeared and her shadows went wild, trying to ferret out where it was coming from, to no avail. She never felt it at Finn’s and they’d agreed it was better not to risk things.
So she’d come to stay, “for a nice, long visit,” they’d said, but it was all over the gossips that they were “playing house.” She didn’t care. They could say whatever they wanted now. The hours she and Finn spent just talking both reminded her of their childhood, and were something new altogether. It seemed they never ran out of things to talk about, their interests were so different and varied. His deeply analytical mind was always two steps ahead of things, and her big picture thinking let them look at any topic from dozens of angles. It felt good to talk to someone who listened intently when she spoke, and who she wanted to listen to in return.
Harlow hadn’t been home in over a week, and hadn’t checked her socials in days. Things had been blessedly quiet, near-perfect domestic bliss. She knew it wouldn’t last, but she reveled in it all the same. Especially the part where when Finn did a load of laundry he’d put away her clothes in the empty half of his enormous walk-in closet and they’d started to take up a respectable amount of space. She was standing, marveling at the neat piles he’d made, when he brought her phone to her.
“You arereallygood at folding things,” she mused with a grin.
He smiled, but the expression didn’t reach his eyes as he passed her phone into her hands. “Alain Easton has called you seven times in the last five minutes. I didn’t mean to pry, but your phone was vibrating non-stop. I was worried it might be your family.”
“It’s okay. Thank you.” She kissed his cheek and as she did so, the phone began to vibrate again. It was Mark’s father.
“Do you want some privacy?” Finn asked.
Harlow shook her head. “No.”
She answered as she walked out of the closet and settled into one of the chairs in the bedroom. Rain fell in a steady sheet outside the windows, giving the bedroom a gloomy green glow. “Hello, Mr. Easton. What can I do for you?”
“Harlow?”
“Yes, Mr. Easton.”
His voice was shaky. “Have you heard from Mark? Is he with you?”
