Chapter Seventeen
Harlow
Locked Away Again
He refuses me.He refusesto see me fordays.
In the hours after the attack, I am escorted not too gently back up to the Consort Suite by a haggard, blood-splattered Aziel who offers no apology or explanation beyond “for your own good.”And for two cycles of the sun, I am trapped in that room, only visited by one of the other females when she brings me food.
An hour after moonrise on the third night, I finally lost my temper with the undeserved treatment and put some old skills to good use.It doesn’t thrill me that I have to use them, least of all when I thought I had helped several of the men here survive that fight, but I don’t let the upset stop me.I use it as fuel.
Just like I use the pain in my chest every time I think of Mateo.
I don’t know if he’s all right.Lily and Scarlet have been irritatingly vague, dropping only snippets of information I’ve been forced to piece together.I gather that I was hauled away because a houseful of hungry vampires is not the safest place for a living, bleeding human.Somehow, this doesn’t apply to the other two women, but all they say on that is that the bond protects them.
Fabulous.Yet here I am, a consort with a scraped-together comprehension of her importance, and a vampire supposedly destined for me who refuses to bond with me.Even when I offer myself to him, if my heart ever stops breaking over that, I imagine my pride will shatter next.
But Mateo hasn’t spoken to me.In truth, I’m blind to everything that may have gone on in the house while I was locked in the proverbial tower.I don’t see how they aren’t packing to move after all the devastation, and the mere notion of Mateo up and disappearing on me adds another crack in my heart.
I finally get the damn door to pop open, catch the excited exhale in the back of my throat, and wait for a count of ten to see if anyone rushes up to scold me.I half expect alarms to blare.
When none of that happens, I drop the once-nicely laminated card I’d found in a drawer and slip out into the hall.No Elfde, either.
Please tell me they didn’t already move.
The thought paralyzes me for a beat before bleeding into fresh rage.If they did, Mateo better hope he moved far, far away, because I have nothing better to do than be angry.I want Mateo to be recovering well, but I want him to be recovering wellwith me.I want to yell at him for abandoning me over the past few days.I want to cry and scream from the fear he’s put me through.
Mostly, I want to see that he’s okay.I want to feel his arms around me again, or at least the touch of his hand on mine.
I want him to have a good excuse.Ineedhim to have a good excuse.
That’s why I don’t rush straight for the nearest exit, but instead let my feet carry me to Mateo’s room.It means giving him another chance to hurt me.I know this.But it also means giving myself one more chance to achieve something I haven’t always believed in.If Mateo refuses me again, if he has no good excuse for leaving me neglected and locked away, then I’ll know.I’ll know I’m an idiot who can’t trust her fragile, naive heart.And I’ll know I need to leave this place for good.
Bullet holes riddle the walls.Plaster has been torn away in chunks, but I’m impressed by the lack of blood.It’s gone from looking like an active warzone to a recent ruin.And considering that mostly vampires live here, that feels eerily apropos.Though I still can’t imagine leaving the more serious damage unaddressed is a long-term plan.
I ignore that curiosity when I reach Mateo’s room.His door is closed, but no one’s around that I can see.I press my ear to the door, but of course, I hear nothing.My heart beats harder as the fear of abandonment chokes me.
He’s in there.He has to be in there, or I might be the one who kills him.
Still, my hand shakes as I grip the knob, and when I hear the soft click as it turns, I almost frighten myself into leaping away.I shouldn’t be so on edge.But I no longer know where I stand, and it’s been a long time since I’ve felt so torn up inside.If I ever have.
It’s dark in the room, but most of the house is dark, so this doesn’t surprise me.I do let out a small, startled noise when a tabletop lamp clicks on as soon as my foot crosses the threshold.The yellow light barely illuminates half the bed, but it reveals enough.
His name chokes me.The urge to run to him rushes over me, and it’s all I can do to ease the door shut and keep it at my back instead.
Mateo hasn’t left.He’s still in the house and still alive—in whatever way vampires live—and as I watch, he pushes himself up to sit on his bed.I think his color might be paler than before, but the quilt falls to his lap, and there’s no red staining his shirt.
“They promised they’d let me let you out,” he says, and I don’t know why, but I swear I can taste his frustration and his disappointment on the back of my tongue.
I don’t let the confusion from that stall me.“I let myself out.”The widening of his eyes isn’t as satisfactory as I’d hoped, and I’m sure that’s because I’m so emotional over the situation.I can’t even hold on to my anger before the guilt and worry and sadness start clamoring for space.But I try.“You promised,” I hiss at him, my voice choking.“You promised I wasn’t a prisoner here, and then you let them lock me in a cage.No one would even talk to me!”
Mateo swings his legs over the side of the bed, then pushes to his feet, and his movements are just the wrong side of careful.Enough to assure me he hasn’t fully healed.
My anger deflates a bit, and the sense that I have no right to be angry actually makes me mad all over again.