House of Sand and Secrets (Books of Oreyn #2)(18)

“True.” I cannot include him in this, not if I want to pretend respectability. Harun’s pride combined with his unconventional marriage – if that’s even what it is, there’s some confusion over whether he actually ever signed any papers – has effectively ostracised him in all social circles. There are ways he could have worked around it, hidden Isidro away, and stayed in the market for a wife. He’s not one given to playing the games. Probably, he thinks he’s above them. “No,” I say. “I think we can safely leave you out.”

“How considerate.” Harun pours himself another drink. His hands are shaking.

I’ve noticed this weakness before. He drinks too much and too fast, but for the first time the tremble concerns me. He is a man in the prime of his life and instead of doing what my brother did; running his family holdings, spawning little heirs, he is drinking himself into a wreck in the middle of the day.

We do not know each other that well, and frankly, whatever ill-health Harun has brought upon himself, it’s not my place to ask after him.

Not my place. My brother might as well still be alive, as it seems I am constrained by him even from beyond the grave. I will never truly escape the shackles of my upbringing unless I break them open myself. The only way to do that is to do the things I have always been told not to do.

I have never seen Harun so obviously ill. It’s more than simply the loss of his servants. If something were to happen to him, and I had done nothing, the guilt would once again lie with me and my indecision. I step closer to Harun, and still his shaking wrist with my fingers. “Are you–”

Shock travels up my arm; a jolt of jealousy and confusion and pain. The tail-end of a nightmare. I pull my hand back, shaking my fingers. I have no idea what just happened, save that I caught some backlash of magic, almost like when I have accidentally touched Jannik. It is nothing to do with scriv.

This close to Harun I can smell sour sweat, sour wine, the sour metal of blood. I can see, just under his collar, the faded bruising around the ragged punctures at his throat. Isidro feeds off him. They are intimately connected.

The glass clatters against the wall as Harun jerks away. It falls to the carpeted floor and rolls over, spilling the last of his whitemint. “What,” he rasps, “do you want, Felicita? Haven’t you and Jannik taken enough from me already?” The outburst seems to come from nowhere – Jannik and I have only seen them occasionally, and certainly taken nothing more than an unpleasant evening.

“I have no idea–”

“Perhaps, after all,” he slurs, “it would do you good to go out and buy a pretty little collar and leather leash for your partner. Then you’d have all that control you so desperately want, and cannot have.”

Nervous and confused, I step back from him. “I wanted to find out if you were well. You seemed to be–” I gesture to the drink soaking into the carpet then give it up with the realization that men never like having their weaknesses pointed out to them. He’s having some fit, and we are nothing more than scapegoats for his anger and inability. Jannik and I should leave now, before he becomes more than simply unreasonable. “Where have Jannik and Isidro gone?”



He kneels to gather his empty glass and replaces it on the drinks butler. Every movement is precise and careful. The glass does not so much as make the tiniest clink of sound as he sets it down. “Looking at etchings,” he says. “How in Gris’s name should I know?”

Does the man think I am a fool – that I know absolutely nothing about how vampires and their partners work? I know what happened with Jannik and Dash. They did more than simply care for each other. Jannik could sense Dash’s moods, could even find him when we needed to. Could feel what he was feeling. Harun and Isidro have been together for so long I cannot believe they are not likewise bound up in all that blood. The stink of it is on them both. “Because you do.”

Harun stares at me, dark blue eyes almost black in the firelight.

“My marriage may be a paper one,” I point out, “but yours isn’t. You had nothing to run from – only heir of House Guyin – you were more privileged, and more free than I could ever dream of being. So you didn’t run from anything.” Harun consummated this relationship because he was not afraid of the consequences. Or because he didn’t care. Or because he cared more about his own wants.

He swallows, and reaches back toward the glass. Then he pauses and looks down at his wayward hand as if it is not part of him at all. He lowers it without taking another drink. Even from where I stand I can see the tremble he is trying to control. “Find them yourself.” He sits down into a well-worn seat; the one Isidro had so recently vacated. Harun drops his head in his hands, and he is no longer facing my questions. “Go on, then. I’m giving you the run of my house. You should feel honoured. Go sniff them out.”

“What are you not telling me?”

“I’m telling you everything I know,” he says, “about your paper marriage.” and I can hear the sneer, though I cannot see it.

I am thoroughly confused. He has never before been a man so open in his emotions. And now he acts like a betrayed lover in a poem – full of rages and despairs. A thread of apprehension darts under my skin, and I feel as if I have been stitched too tightly into my own body. “Harun?”

There is no answer. He’s clamped his hands over his temples, head bowed, and he will not look to me.