Page 94 of Dark Night Golden Dawn
Kate laughed, loud and hearty. “Yeah. I don’t see that changing anytime soon. Why?”
Harlow shook her head. “I just had the strangest worry that you and Finn might have something going on…”
The concern deepened in Kate’s eyes. “That’s not like you. You’ve always trusted peopletoomuch, in my opinion.”
Enzo’s words echoed in her mind:This was something else… A remnant of rage, but it wasn’t like anything else in you. Of course. Whatever was happening now was the same as it had been in the park with Petra. A tiny seed of her real feelings had magnified, amplified to an irrational level she didn’t actually feel. Except that she did. The emotions coursing through herfeltreal.
Something stirred deep within her memory, as though beyond the comprehension of her conscious mind, things were beginning to come loose and pull together to make a larger picture. Enzo’s words played over and over in her mind, and suddenly she thought of the book she’d been cataloging the day she’d first visited Enzo’s atelier. What had it been?Lore of the Lilu.Panic broke loose in her and though she tried to stay calm, Kate obviously knew she was distressed.
Before Kate could ask questions, she asked one of her own. “What immortal creature can change the emotions of other immortals?” she said softly, knowing all too well that Kate would know the answer immediately. Empaths could smooth emotions, or impart some of their own feelings in those they were close with, but they couldn’t actually change anything anyone felt, or make their feelings more intense. This was something different, something menacing and wrong.
“No…” Kate breathed. “It’s forbidden. Not even the House of Remiel could make an incubus. It’s impossible… The Illuminated made sure of it—they screen for Gene-I in the mandatory screenings at the monthly donations. Whole human families have been wiped out because one member carried Gene-I.”
Harlow resisted the urge to ask Kate how she knew that. For obvious reasons, vampires always knew more about how the screenings at the Night’s Own Blood Banks worked, and what was done with that information. They didn’t have time for that conversation now. “How long would it take for a human to make the full transformation?”
Kate spun Harlow in time with the music, and Harlow couldn’t help but be impressed with the calm exterior she presented. “About six months. Maybe nine for the incubus to grow to full strength, and until the last few weeks of the transformation they’d appear as a human would. But Harlow, even if they could make one, why would they? The incubi were uncontrollable, nearly unstoppable at full strength, even for the Illuminated.”
Harlow nodded, then pulled Kate off the dance floor. “We have to find Finn. Now. He isn’t by the bar.”
Kate grabbed her arm. “Tell me what is going on here.”
“Athan Sanvier and the House of Remiel tried to kidnap me a few weeks ago. He implied that he could do something terrible to me.Changeme.”
Harlow searched the room for Finn, or Alaric, or anyone in her family, but they were nowhere to be seen. Kate’s brow furrowed, watching her. “Okay, but we’d know if Athan were an incubus. He’s the worst kind of vampire, but Harlow… That’s not something he could hide. Not for hundreds of years. And besides what would he do to you—No.”
She glanced back, shaking her head as Kate realized what she had. “Only an incubus can turn a sorcière into a succubus. I thought he was being cruel, using our biggest fears against me, but maybe he was telling the truth…”
It had been foolish to dismiss his threats so quickly, impossible as they’d seemed at the time. Harlow began to move through the edges of the crowd. If none of her family or the Knights were inside, maybe they were outside. She tried to appear casual, but she was tugging on Kate’s arm rather hard as she walked outside, onto the lawn that dropped off in a steep hill towards the lake.
Behind her Kate murmured, “And only a witch can become a succubus. Fuck, why didn’t I see this coming?”
Harlow looked back, confused. “Why would you?”
Something flickered across Kate’s face in the moonlight that Harlow couldn’t identify, and she didn’t have time to worry about it. Sounds of a struggle came from the lake. Harlow started towards the noise, but Kate gripped her arm. “Don’t go down there without backup. Just wait here and I’ll get help, okay?”
Harlow nodded as Kate pushed her gently behind an enormous oak. Her face was stern as she tapped Harlow’s nose. “You promise you’ll wait?”
She nodded again and Kate used her vampiric speed, disappearing back into the conservatory in the blink of an eye. As soon as Harlow knew she was out of range to keep tabs on her, she started towards the lake. There was no way in seventeen hells she was leaving her family in trouble. If that’s what was going on here, she would find a way to help them.
Her heels sunk into the soft ground, so she slipped out of them, hiding them under a blooming lilac. She snuck towards the lake, pausing every so often to duck behind a bush and listen. She was sure she heard Mama’s voice, as she got closer, though she couldn’t make out what she was saying.
As she rounded a corner in the hedgerow, she got her first sight of them, a group of hooded figures, holding on to a handful of the people she loved most in the world. Her sisters and Enzo were nowhere to be seen, nor was Alaric, she noted with relief, but they had the maters—and Finn.
How in Akatei’s name were they holding him? Why didn’t he portal out?
She squinted, trying to see better. It took two of the figures to hold Finn, but he wasn’t struggling. One of them had what could only be a white ash stake positioned above his heart. Her chest clenched. It couldn’t kill him, but if they staked him, it was hard to say what might happen. No Illuminated had suffered that fate for so long, it was impossible to say exactly how it might affect him.
Harlow took a few steps backward, thinking to go back to the conservatory to find Alaric, and perhaps Kate, though she wasn’t sure exactly how Kate could help. She backed into something—no, someone.
“Dollface. So glad you could join us.”
Mark. Fingers dug viciously into her arms and all went dark.
ChapterThirty-Six
When Harlow came to, she was woozy. An acrid smell of burned wood filled her nose. Her head ached as though she’d been drinking for hours. She struggled to open her eyes, move, anything, and found her arms were restrained. Voices were arguing nearby, only slightly muffled.
A feminine voice complained, “You were supposed to get themall, not just her and Finn.”Was that Olivia Sanvier?
