Page 67 of Clash of Kingdoms
Bam! She didn’t slap me like she had before. No, this was a punch right to my face. A good punch too, just like her father taught her.
I hadn’t anticipated it, so it was a shock to my system, a painful one.
She was so angry, she could barely put words together, seething in blind rage. “Don’t you fucking touch me.”
“Harlow—”
“I swear to the fucking gods, I will kill you.”
“Please, just listen to me?—”
“No, you listen to me.” She shoved me hard in the chest, exerting more force than I expected her to. “You lied to me. You told me you fed on animal blood, but every night that you’ve slipped out of my bed, you’ve been down here…with her.”
“Harlow—”
She ignored me. “I asked you. No, I begged you to feed from me, and you’re the one who stormed out in a rage. Stormed out like I was the problem, when you were down here with her. Is she better than me? Is she prettier than me?—”
“Fuck no.”
“But you still prefer her to me.”
“It’s not that I prefer her?—”
“Oh, you clearly do.”
“Harlow, I can’t feed from you.”
“Why?” she demanded. “What possible justification would you have to cheat on me with someone else?”
“Whoa. I didn’t cheat on you.”
“According to Larisa, feeding on someone else is like fucking them.”
“That’s not how it is?—”
“I watched her come for you.”
“That was her doing. I didn’t touch her?—”
“But you made her come. You snuck down to her cottage in the middle of the night, bit her while she played with herself, after you told me you were with your brother. Aurelias, you fucking betrayed me.”
“Harlow, I can’t feed on you!” I yelled. “You expect me to protect you when I’m weak on animal blood? Protect your father in battle when I’ve had deer blood for lunch? I can’t possibly face these enemies if I’m not at my fullest potential.”
“I’ve offered how many times?—”
“And how many times have I told you no?” I snapped.
“Why?” Her voice rose, our shouts audible to anyone nearby. “Tell me why, for fuck’s sake. What possible justification do you have to do what you did? To lie to me? To feed on someone else instead of me?”
I stared at her, breathing so hard my lungs were about to pop.
“Go on, asshole,” she snapped. “Say it.”
It all flashed before my eyes, my uncontrollable bite, the blood that got everywhere, the moment I realized she didn’t have a pulse but I continued to feed anyway. The unstoppable tears. Her dead, open eyes. The look that would haunt me for the rest of my life, the terror that reared its head any time I had a slight moment of happiness.
When Harlow realized I had nothing to say, the moisture in her eyes reappeared. She clearly hoped I’d have a justification for what had just happened, that I would make it all better with a simple explanation, but I didn’t have one.
My voice came out weak, broken. “I just can’t…” The self-loathing was insufferable. I hadn’t thought I could hate myself more than I already did, but I managed to top it. I was too much of a coward to admit what I’d done, to look her in the face and tell her the horrible thing I was guilty of. And then I hurt her, could feel just how deeply I’d wounded her, and I still couldn’t bring myself to do it. “I’m sorry?—”