The Dark Throne

CHAPTER 2

Harlow

AT NINE-THIRTY ON THE DOT, Talia is at my door, and she looks incredible, as always. She's wearing a black strapless dress that shows off the butterfly tattoo right below her collarbone, and a pair of high-heels that make her at least two inches taller. She's carrying a sequined clutch that only looks big enough to hold her phone.

She frowns at me. "You're not wearing that."

I glance down at myself and shrug. I'm wearing jeans, my cleanest pair of tennis shoes, and a sweater that's kinda cute. It's not as fancy as her dress, but it's not as casual as my usual outfits, at least.

"There wasn't a dress code on the invitation," I point out.

With a sigh, Talia pushes into my room. "Hi Emily," she says, waving at my roommate, who is sitting on her bed with her laptop, headphones covering her ears. Emily waves, then goes back to whatever she was doing.

Talia goes straight to my tiny closet, tearing through it like a woman on a mission. She pulls several things out, looks at them, then puts them back with a huff—until, finally, she finds something. She holds a short, maroon dress up to me, eyeing it critically. "Are your legs shaved?"

"Yeah. I shaved them yesterday before we went to the beach."

"Good." She pushes the dress into my chest. "Put this on while I find some shoes."

I take the dress. "This dress is two years old. It's way too small for me now."

In the past two years, I've gained about fifteen or twenty pounds. And I don't hate it, honestly. I know you're supposed to want to be skinny, but I've always liked my curves, and the extra weight has never bothered me.

But shoving that twenty extra pounds into this dress is like asking me to stuff a rolled sleeping bag back into its sack. Some things are just impossible.

"Perfect," Talia says. "It'll show off your assets. Now, hurry. We've got to go."

With a sigh, I tug the dress on just to prove how wrong Talia 's vision is. But once the dress settles into place, it actually doesn't look too bad. It's tight, but it props my breasts up nicely, making them look far more perky than they actually are. The only downside is that the dress is really short, so half my ass is hanging out. But whatever. It'll work for a couple of hours.

Talia steps back, and looks me over, head to toe. "Minimal makeup, but you can get away with that. You look gorgeous." She shoves a pair of black strappy kitten heels at me. "Now let's go. It's going to take at least ten minutes to get across campus."

Thankfully, the residence halls here don't have curfews, otherwise, we'd be fucked. We make it across campus in record time, but that's because I'm practically running. The campus is dead at night and darkness seeps into every corner, so the unease I feel is pretty intense.

I'm so anxious, I barely notice the cold wind coming off the ocean. I'm just determined to get to Rush House, clutching my pocket-sized stun gun the entire way. I only shove it into my small purse once we see the spire of the old house jutting up over the student affairs building.

The house is just as dark and mysterious as I remember, and a shiver rolls down my spine as we walk past two gnarled gargoyles that flank the walkway leading up to the porch.

As we get closer, I can see there's someone dressed in a tux standing at the door. He eyes us as we walk up. "This is a private event," he says just as we mount the top step.

I pull out my invite and hand him both pieces. He glances down at them, then looks up at me. "Name?"

I hesitate, and Talia nudges me. "Harlow Anderson and Talia Langley." His gaze shifts to Talia , and there's a second when I think he's going to turn us away. But instead, he holds out a basket that has a pile of cell