Page 117 of Heir of Broken Souls

“I’m sure Knox never told you of how I came to be in his court.” I shake my head, and surprisingly, she rolls her eyes. “Such a gentlemen.”

I snort. “You sound disappointed.”

She shrugs. “It would save me from having to say it out loud.”

“You don’t have to?—”

“Yes, I do, because although everyone here has suffered pain, no one besides you and me knows what it’s like to have been ripped away from your parents. Axel and Ace had a terrible childhood, don’t get me wrong, and I know you can relate to them—Axel.” She clears her throat at her misstep. “But we are unfortunate enough to know we could have had an entirely different life if it weren’t for someone and their awful choices.” She turns to me. “How much do you know about the witches?”

“Just the hate they have for the Fae race.”

She clicks her tongue. “Hate is too kind a word. Despise, loath, disgust—those are more accurate.” She sighs deeply. “My mother was not like most witches. Yes, she possessed the same cunning mind of the coven, the same features, and the same desire for magic, but her heart was different. It wasn’t as cold or malicious. If anything, it was…warm.” Harlow’s eyes remain on the darkness surrounding the ship as she says, “All my mother was guilty of was falling in love with a Fae.”

My heart plummets.

“They were smart about it, hiding it from each other’s kind for years…until they were not.”

“She fell pregnant,” I presume.

She dips her chin with a melancholy smile.

“It didn’t take long for the witches in her coven to smell it on her. The nose of a witch isn’t as powerful as a Fae’s, but we can smell the difference in blood. The moment my heart began to pump they knew.” Her body tenses. “It wasn’t until I was born that rumors of my half-breed blood spread, but by then we were long gone. We were on the run until I was six. And sometimes,” she admits quietly, “I wish they had killed her sooner.”

I suck in a sharp breath before I can stop myself.

“I know I sound cruel but if they killed her the day I was born, they would have just thrown me into a fire. I wouldn’t have had to bear witness to the leader of the coven swinging that axe down upon her neck. I would have never seen her head roll, and I would have never been tortured.” She picks at imaginary lint on her pants, then gives me a tight, sad smile.

“So yes, I may sound cruel, but I also think it was cruel for them to make her daughter watch her death, not because of my feelings but hers. I was her entire world, me and her lover. They butchered him first only to push me in her line of sight afterwards. She knew her end was coming, but to this day, I believe the fear in her eyes was because of what they would do to me, not her.”

“Oh, Harlow.”

No words come forth, because there are none to say in this moment as silence descends.

After a short while, of me debating on whether to give her a hug or not—which I decided against to keep my body intact—Harlow finally speaks, a waver in her voice.

“I understand your pain, Delilah. My mother and father were ripped from my hands—literally—and killed before my very eyes. My life, my future—it was taken without my consent so brutally it changed the essence of my soul. I was soft before. I had my father’s kind heart after all, but when that axe swung through his neck and then my mother’s, my heart became as cold as a full-blooded witch’s. As callous, cunning, and detached as the coven.” She clears her throat. “What they did to me after, that’s where the hatred truly lies, but I won’t bore you with the details. I don’t wish to see the contents of your stomach.”

It’s the first time she’s called him her father. All the other times he was just her mother’s lover in the story. Something tells me not to question her on it, though. Her truth that she’s laying bare is enough pain.

“I’m so sorry,” I say genuinely.

She flaps away my words. “I didn’t tell you for pity, I told you so you know you aren’t alone. I know you have Knox, and bless him he is a sweetheart, but the anger that builds after what we’ve gone through is more than hideous.” She finally turns to me and for the first time tonight, I realize tears are snaking down her cheeks. “I just want you to know that the anger does not make you a bad person, and that you are not alone in this.”

Rising to her feet, she gazes down at me. “The hatred is power, Delilah. Use it.”

Without another word, as if sensing I was about to comfort her, Harlow turns, her hips swaying as she descends below deck.

As much as hearing Harlow’s story brings immense pain to my heart for all she has suffered, she’s right. Knowing that someone else has the same ugly hatred burning in their veins as I do brings a lightness to my chest that I haven’t felt since the moment everything was revealed.

It also makes me look at Harlow differently.

And brings immense guilt, that she poured her heart out to someone hiding a secret from her.

* * *

Peering over my shoulder to check the door is shut behind me, I quickly turn and push open the window, not at all surprised to find Naia waiting for me.

What does surprise me, though, is that she’s alone.