Page 31

Twenty-Eight

HARLOW

Shortly after Alec leaves, I do too, refusing to be in the vicinity of anything of his. No matter what he claims, no matter what freaky instincts he has, I don’t share them.

“Fuck this. Fuck fate. Fuck the bloodsucker. Fuck everything.”

After stealing his shirt to dress in—because, turns out, there’s one thing of his I need—I leave his room, realizing I’ve never wandered the castle alone, which means having no idea how to get to the room he’s been putting me in. Walking down the hallway and past a window helps determine I’m on the same floor, so I keep walking until something seems remotely familiar.

The place feels dismal. Lifeless, with such low light streaming past the thick curtains hanging over the windows. To be so far away from nature, so disconnected from Hecate, makes me shiver.

It’s the physical reminder why Alec’s claim makes no sense. This castle is grim and dark, full of hatred and pain, the vampire king no better than a beast ruling within its walls. And apparently I’m his mate? Vampires are Dark creatures, while witches and their energies are Light. We’d never fit.

Eventually I reach the end of the hall, being met with two directions. I choose the right by random guess, hoping it’ll take me to my room.

Finally at the end, I do find it, the door still parted from when Alec was in here and found me gone. The window is a gaping hole with the nighttime breeze blowing inside, adding a chill to the air.

Maybe another room for the night. Surely if I head next door, it’s another spare room.

Halfway turned, my gaze catches on something on the floor. Something that wasn’t there before.

A box. A shoe box, if the logo from a popular company is any indication.

But why is it here? Is it a gift? Finally proper shoes to battle the endless stone in this damn place.

I crouch and lift off the lid, half-expecting a pair of sneakers, but it’s not that at all.

There’s paperwork. Documents. Pictures. Plastic cards upside down.

I lift the top picture, attention drawn to the familiar faces of Mom and Dad.

My heart practically sings in sorrow at seeing them. Since being taken, I’ve forced myself not to think about them or the grief, because I couldn’t handle it plus fighting with a vampire. Focusing on the present for once, rather than the past, in order to survive.

But seeing them…all that pent-up emotion crashes into me, heavy and suffocating, like an intense pressure in my chest, squeezing my heart until there’s no blood left in it for it to beat.

The shadows slither around my neck, reminding me what I’ve been preventing myself from reliving. They’ve stopped bothering me over the past couple days, Alec’s presence keeping them away, as though I’m being given a reprieve to deal with one shitty thing at a time. Or if the shadows are linked to my grief, then being sad again has welcomed them back.

The sensation yanks me back to that night. To reliving the house fire, the final image of Mom’s and Dad’s faces is all I have before everything went dark. Until I woke up on the grass outside my house, human paramedics bent over me, firefighters standing around bewildered by the blaze that died on its own.

The picture is different than any I’ve ever seen, the colour a sepia rather than bright. Mom’s in a wedding dress and ceremonial white cloak and— wait. This is different from the one on the mantle. It’s an older style with more ruffles and lace, long sleeves and a high neck, while Dad’s suit is a light blue instead of black. They look younger, and Mom’s hair isn’t red. She must have dyed away the classic colour.

Were they wed before? They never mentioned the picture in the living room being their second ceremony. I suppose stranger things have happened, such as why this box is here. Alec must have found it in my house and—what, decided to torture me with the memories?

I rest the photo to the side, stroking my finger over Mom’s face before reaching into the box and retrieving the two cards, flipping them over.

Identification cards.

My attention goes to the name on Dad’s card, his picture a much-younger version of the man I knew, and the name…

Arthur Hartman.

What the fuck?

I look at Mom’s card. Violet Hartman.

Those are not my parents’ names. Not even close. Not the first, and especially not the last.

Heart thumping, I rest them to the side and reach deeper into the box, grabbing the next thing. It’s a sheet of paper in Mom’s handwriting. A letter—no, a journal entry I read over and over until the words make sense.

Harlow had a dream last night about being handcuffed to a wall. She woke up crying, saying her magick would no longer work. I calmed her down, explaining it was a bad dream, but I think her memories are returning. Arthur will wipe her mind again later tonight, and hopefully the memories remain trapped for longer. Feels less and less time passes between each wipe, and I’m growing worried one day, erasing her mind won’t be possible.

The paper flutters from my hand, my gaze dropping to the scars on my wrists. Handcuffs—exactly what Alec guessed. Exactly what my mind was trying to recall this whole time in those little flashes.

The feeling of aloneness, fear, of the walls caving in while my arms are chained to the wall behind me, and I’m unable to get free. No matter how many times I yell for Mommy and Daddy, no one’s coming. The days are endless, the nights forever.

“Oh my Goddess…”

This whole time, Mom and Dad were wiping my memories. I glance towards the other IDs—the other names, the fact oh so obvious but unsaid within my mind. Unaccepted beneath my grief and horror.

I reach into the box for the next item, pulling out a set of birth certificates, both with the same names as the IDs, only Violet’s has a different surname; her maiden name, presumably.

No Sinclair to be found.

The next thing is another note, again in Mom’s handwriting, this one dated months prior from the last.

We fucked up. It was never supposed to go this far. And now, Harlow will be raised as ours for the time being. My mistakes are ones I need to live with. The coven’s hunting for Arthur and me, but I think my plan will get them to stop trailing us. We’ll disappear and raise Harlow as our own. It’ll be fine. Sloane is angry, but instructed us to do what we must.

Sloane? Who the hell is that?

Another note, this one dated between the two others.

Harlow’s magick is manifesting as strong as we always guessed it’d be. She’s untrained and unpredictable. She needs her coven, but we can’t take her back. Arthur has an idea to help control her, and I hope it works.

On and on they go, small flashes of my life, of memories returning only to be stolen by Mom and Dad.

No— not Mom and Dad.

Strangers. A Violet and Arthur who’ve been parading as my parents .

It’s the last note that breaks me for good, this one dated earlier than all the others. Found at the very bottom of the box, the first written in this miniseries of my life’s tormenting past.

Emily and John Sinclair are dead. We had to.

My breaths are heavy, mingled with disbelief. Shock. Anger. Fear. Confusion. Every feeling blends into a turbulent storm until my hands are shaking, my body quivering, heat shifting into a pain that’s quickly eased as well. Heat that burns but warms. That destroys and protects.

But it’s more than heat.

It’s a chill. It slithers alongside that very warmth, coating me. It’s a pleasant sting that wakes me in ways I’ve never felt before. It constricts around my arms, my chest, my thighs, tightening and loosening over and over like a hug. Black tendrils are in the same places, gliding over my skin like silk. My old, familiar shadows hover above me, bathing the room in night until they move abruptly, joining the wisps around my body.

And then a voice, one new, not Alec’s from all those months ago: We’ve been waiting.

Beneath me, the castle vibrates. I barely register the sensation as everything settles into place. Truths that were right in front of me this entire time, locked behind memory-wiping charms and an evil I’ve never known to exist.

The people who raised me were not my parents. In another case, that might have been fine—adoption and foster homes—but this wasn’t the same. I wasn’t given up by my birth parents. They were murdered , and I was taken from them, trapped within my own body. My memories, my magick, all for whatever sick games these people were playing.

They killed my real parents, then lied to me for a decade. I grieved them—grieved people who never deserved my love, my affection, my fucking anything . I wept in the home I shared with them—another lie—after my powers accidentally took them out, when I should have been killing them this entire time. As a kid, I was horrified by the thought our coven didn’t want us, when they kept me from my real home. Friends, family, all of whom I have zero recollection of.

My entire life shouldn’t have happened like this.

I was lied to. Deceived. Mocked. Forced to play dress-up into whatever they designed me as.

Everything pours out of me then.

The lies found inside the box.

The deaths of my real parents.

The lies fed by my fake parents.

The grief I had over them.

The ignorance about my life.

The horror of being kidnapped by a vampire.

The distaste of becoming his mate.

Every feeling ever had won’t be contained, not any longer.

Every tear shed.

Every plea to the Goddess.

Every spell I know.

Every scream ever yelled.

Every time I said “I love you” to my parents.

Every good memory shared with them.

Every banter, good and bad, with Alec.

Every.

Thing.

Do it, the voice whispers in my ear. The tendrils coil around my arms, nudging my palms open. Feel what you must. Embrace it.

Everything emerges, bundled into a deafening scream that’s almost immediately drowned out by the roar of fire exploding from me. The tendrils remain where they are, nudging me to my feet as flames create a wall around me, but not before burning the box to ash, taking with it every document detailing two people’s treachery.

The castle shakes again as I step over the flames, welcoming the pressure in my palms. The heat that says welcome back , except it feels stronger. Almost like it’s welcoming me from time well before months ago when I lost them. Power like I’ve never felt courses through my body. The tendrils slowly fade, slipping beneath my skin, becoming friends with my fire.

My magick is back.

I wave my hand, testing my control. The flames sweep in an arc, singeing the carpet and blood stains. Smiling, I close my palm to extinguish the fire before practicing a few other wordless spells: sliding the curtain over the broken window, turning on the bathroom taps, lifting the bed a few feet off the floor. Little things to ensure I’m truly as I should be.

I’m free, and this time, Alec will be unable to stop me.

Staring at the ashes left from the items he obviously placed there, I send a silent thank-you to them. If not for the truth, then my magick would still be lost within grief.

“Harlow.” From the doorway, my name is breathed like a prayer. A whisper barely audible over the roar of fire burning beside me.

I face Alec, my mind and heart confused. Despite everything, I don’t want to hurt him, not really. I hate him, though. Maybe. Something bright lingers within me, but it’s masked beneath rage and heartbreak. Beneath feelings without labels.

Attack. He trapped you. A chill runs over my neck and down my arm, urging my palms open. Not for my fire, but for the tendrils that slip from me and dart towards Alec, catching him off guard.

His body lands with a thud across the hallway, and by the time I step from the bedroom, he’s getting to his feet, reaching for me like I’m the problem.

My heart thumps. I don’t want to hurt him—not really—but I can’t care about him either, and have to do what I must.

I walk away.

“Harlow!”

“Don’t stop me, Alec. I’m leaving.”

Fight him.

No , I tell the voice. No, I won’t hurt him. I don’t want to hurt him.

I make it to the staircase before a streak of colour blocks me. Before hands descend on my shoulders and my magick prickles, urging me to throw him off me.

“You knew,” I murmur instead. “You knew they weren’t my family. I suppose I should thank you for placing the box in my room.”

He curses, his gaze darting towards the bedroom. “That’s how—You can’t go.”

“Watch me.” I step around him, making it all the way down the staircase before he’s a blur in front of me again.

His hands latch onto my upper arms and I’m swung around, my back pressed to the nearest wall. He feels like everything both right and wrong. Everything I could have but everything I shouldn’t. A monster who kidnapped me but one who’s also taken care of me.

“Let me go,” I demand. “Don’t make me hurt you.”

Do it, the voice urges, the slither an unwelcome chill down my spine. I want my fire— only my flames. The tendrils are new and worrisome.

They’re not. They’re your potential.

“You can’t hurt me,” he says, his voice pulling me from the imaginary argument I seem to be having. Exactly like all those months of hearing his voice, I’m momentarily backed off the edge. “You’re my Bride. The bond between us won’t allow you to harm me.”

“Witches don’t have mates. I might be yours, but you’re not mine.”

My words smother the tiny ember that’s been slowly igniting since the moment we met.

They’re necessary words because, for once, I’m the victor.