Gaven pulls out his handkerchief, lifts it into the air with a flourish, and then yanks it down to signal the start. I take off, sprinting a few paces behind her on purpose. I’ll lull her into a false sense of security for the first few miles and take her on the uphill through town.

I shouldn’t be surprised how quickly she navigates the same trails as before. This is the reminder I needed that she’s not just a pretty girl to play my wife. She’s a calculating spy sent to get information out of me.

On the hill through the center of town, I pull ahead. It’s not until we enter the fifth level, when she charges ahead, that I realize she was holding back. Now I’m spent and she is fully sprinting. The sound of her footsteps triggers something animal inside me.

Not now. I don’t want to fuck my wife.

Except I really do.

The manor comes into sight, and I want to immediately drag her inside, up to my bed, yank down those tight pants so they trap her legs together, and fuck her like my life depends on it.

Instead, I watch as she races up to Gaven and taps his shoulder. I trot to a stop when I see Carter standing off to the side, whispering with Bryce. I know by their faces and their presence this early that something is off.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

Carter glances at Harlow and then back at me. “We received a dove.”

Harlow’s head whips around. She lifts her sweaty ponytail off of her neck and walks toward my friends.

Until now, we have made a point to intercept every communication from her family without informing her. I try to puzzle out why Carter would volunteer this information.

He hands me the note, and I have to read it twice to understand the full gravity of the words.

I look up and meet Harlow’s expectant gaze.

“Well?” she asks.

I look at my friends and clear my throat. “There was a breach.”

Harlow stills. “Which gate?”

I shake my head. “They said everything is fine. There were a few deaths and a few injuries and a couple of women missing, but⁠—”

“Which gate?” Her voice is so calm, but there’s a lethal edge to it.

I look helplessly at Carter and Bryce. I know when I tell her, this rare lightness in her will be gone.

“Henry,” she says softly. “Which gate?”

“North Hold.”

She’s so still, I’m not sure she’s even breathing. Finally, she tilts her chin up to the sky and blows out a slow breath. “The brightest part of the day is in an hour. If we leave soon, then we can arrive in Lunameade a before sunset and⁠—”

I hold up a hand. “Harlow, we just got married. You’re embroiled in a scandal. We can’t go right now.”

“Why? What will happen? People will talk about me?” Her voice is edged with sarcasm. “I don’t care.”

I lean in close. “Harlow.”

“Henry.” She looks up at me, her eyes pleading. “That’s my sister’s house. I need to see that she’s okay.”

The tinge of desperation and fear in her voice unsettles me.

“Please, Henry?” Her face is soft, her eyes wild, like she’s waiting for me to back her into a corner by saying she can’t leave.

“So you do have manners,” I say, hoping the teasing will bring back the levity we’ve lost.

This version of Harlow doesn’t feel like a performance. If she’s playing me, she’s just about the best actress I’ve ever seen and her parents sending her here is truly diabolical. But if she’s not pretending, she’s just like me—someone who would do anything to protect her sister.

The only difference is that her sister is still alive. Much as I want to even the score between us, it’s useful to grant her something she wants if it will win her favor in the long term.

“Fine.”

Relief relaxes all the tension from her face.

Before she can speak, I press a finger to her lips. “But there are rules, Harlow. You will do exactly as you’re told when we’re in the woods, and when I say it’s time to come back, you don’t argue with me. I’m doing this at great personal risk.”

She nods and bites the tip of my finger hard. The sharp sting of her teeth sends a jolt right to my cock.

“Yes, sir,” she says, drawing away with a wicked grin on her face.

I wait until she’s disappeared inside the manor with Gaven close behind her before I turn to face my friends.

“What possessed you to do that? Our people will think you’re totally under her finger now,” Bryce says.

“If I try to stop her, she’ll find her own way, and if she gets hurt doing it alone, I promise it will be much worse for all of us,” I say.

Carter sighs and rubs the bridge of his nose. “Another journey through the Drained Wood for this girl. Naima is going to kill me.”

Bryce runs a hand through his dark copper hair. “Why can’t you just tie her to your bed and fuck her like a normal newlywed?”

“Because normal newlyweds don’t have a familial blood feud,” I counter. “Look, this is a huge risk, and you don’t have to take it with me, but this will be very telling. Her parents don’t protect the sister, but we could. If I can show her that, I won’t need to wrangle her. She’ll want to help us because it would mean getting her sister back.”

“Are you so sure, my friend?” Carter squeezes my shoulder. “Carrenwell family ties run deep.”

“Only one way to know for certain.”

I pat Carter on the back and enter the manor, happy at last to have something Harlow wants.

OceanofPDF.com

36HARLOW

We emerge from the Drained Wood to a crowd of fifty hunters. They’re cloaked in the late afternoon shadow of Lunameade’s city walls, but they have weapons drawn for a fight. They lower them as soon as they see that we’re human.

Behind the hunters, a group of engineers and nearly one hundred men are working on the North Hold Gate. A series of pulleys and ropes is constructed around the massive doors. One door is being pushed onto an extra-long carriage flatbed. The other door still stands, but barely.

Seeing the North Hold Gate riddled with claw marks turns my blood cold.

There are always some marks. The doors get replaced every few months. All the gates in the city are a standard size so the smiths in town can remove the damaged ones, melt and reform them, and be ready to replace the next damaged door. The Drained hit the north and south entrances much more frequently, so those gates get replaced almost twice as often as the others.

Personally, I’ve never seen so much damage on one set of gates.

Henry tightens his arm around my waist, as if he senses my tension.

“State your names,” the man at the front of the group of hunters says.

“Harlow Carrenwell, Gaven Pomeroy, Henry Havenwood, Carter Peliet, and Bryce Kennison,” I call.

We already had the full attention of the contingent of hunters, but at the sound of my name, several of the engineers turn to look as well. It would be wise of them to work faster, considering how little daylight is left and the fact that they still have to remove one door and get both new doors installed.

“Make way,” the lead hunter says.

His men form two lines on either side of the gateway. We ride through the half-replaced gates, ignoring the looks from the men around the wall.

The ride through the Drained Wood was uneventful, but now my heart is racing and my palms are clammy as we ride around the side of North Hold Gatehouse. The manor’s dark stone walls cast clawed shadows over the road in front of us.

Aidia. Aidia. Aidia. Her name pounds through my head in time with my pulse. I just need to see her.

One of Henry’s hands comes off the reins and presses to my chest.

I want to squirm away. I don’t want his comfort. I loathe that he even knows I’m anxious, but the ride took most of the day and I spent the entire time tense, not nearly as worried about the Drained in the woods as I am about the ones that shredded the gates.