Page 102 of Dark Flame

Alec steps to the side to allow me to go in first, but I can’t move. My knees are locked, body not cooperating no matter how much my mind is telling me to take a step.

So simple. Move a foot, then the other. A fucking baby can do this.

But a baby wouldn’t be aware of the weight of these steps.

“You’re safe.” His voice, gentle as the wind, cuts through my anxiety. “We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to.”

“I do.”

I do, I remind myself, lifting one foot over the threshold while the other drags behind. Alec follows, tightening his hold on me as he reaches over to flick on a switch.

The entrance opens to a small area, a double-door closet to our left and a mirror hung on the wall to our right. In front of us is a small Y—stairs that go upstairs or the doorway into the rest of the main floor.

I lead the way past the hall closet and towards the attached door, walking by a small built-in office with a U-shaped desk, an old computer dating the kind of tech this place saw.

I continue through the house, inspecting the décor. The paintings, the mirrors, the lights. Every wall is covered in something, giving an insight into the kind of home my parents liked.

It’s the far wall in the living room, across from what was probably a large TV for the time, that numerous portraits are hung. Even from a distance, the three people—two tall and one short—are clear.

I should approach, see the details of the faces.Seemy parents for the first time.

But I’m stuck. Just like outside, except then IknewI wanted to enter…I don’t know about this.

Harlow?A hand squeeze.

“I, I…I thought I was ready. Tonight, later, I might see them. I can see them now…but it feels like a lot.”

Alec makes the decision I can’t and tugs me the opposite way, returning the way we came and back towards the entrance.

Thirty-Nine

ALEC

As an immortal,emotions have become easy to ignore. The finicky things that mortals trouble themselves with no longer hold the same meaning, whether it be feelings, laws, or beliefs.

As a human, I was forbidden from feeling things like empathy towards my sister’s cause to be with Cedric or anything beyond my father’s approved list of behaviours. “You are a prince, act like it,” he’d often recite. As an immortal, I’d forgotten what it is like to feel at all.

As a human, prince or not, laws were followed. The laws of men, of life. Laws limiting how we should act, where was right to go or not. While the world was different, and being a man gave me a sense of immortality, in truth, I was far away from where I am now. I was still governed by my own morals, what’s perceived as right and wrong. As an immortal, human laws no longer direct me. I can steal whatever I want, break into anywhere, murder anyone without fault.

As a human in the old world, Christianity was the prominent belief system in my part of the world. God ruled us, decided which laws were to be followed and how we should serve Him. God was the purpose behind the wars my father initiated to conquer land, though we all knew that was bullshit. God gave a “reason” behind people’s actions, an excuse. Now, being an immortal, I’m aware Celestials—God and the devil, angels and demons—are real, but it doesn’t mean I follow any particular deity. Or that they give two fucks what we all do.

Which is why I can’t understand Harlow’s feelings on the level I wish I could. An empathetic level, in which walking through her childhood home where parents she has no memory of were murdered would mean more than nothing to me.

Correction: It means a lot, because it means something to her, but I don’t understand the emotions pouring from her to me through the bond.

It’s a stomach-clenching discomfort caught between need and denial. A feeling of intense sorrow and contentment. It’s confusing, reminding me how difficult it was to be human and saddled with such emotions.

It’s the same feeling she sometimes gets ever since the night of discovering she is my Bride.

My hand is wrapped around hers in a hold more intimate than I’ve ever given another being, but there’s a sense of rightness to it. As I lead her away from the wall of pictures—that intensified the ache so harshly, it felt like bile was coming upmythroat—I keep looking at our hands twined together. The bond doesn’t instantly strike feelings or even make uslikeone another, and I haven’t quite decided what to feel about Miss Sinclair. What I do know is how her emotions, tonight in particular, strike a deeply rooted pain in me.

I enjoy the feeling of her touching me so innocently. Her hold is strengthened by her growing trust, the support she’s allowing me to provide. Even that I don’t mind.

I pause by the staircase, inspecting her blank, desolate expression, wondering how much more she’ll be able to take before making the decision for her and tugging her towards the stairs.

She nearly trips on the bottom one when realizing where we’re headed. It’s the second when her grip turns cold.

“I, I don’t know about this.”