The bath was more for relaxation, I realized, because it took like three showers to get all the blood out of my hair.
My poor hair. I'd really been neglecting it. This was not the way my Nana taught me to take care of it.
She's probably sighing from heaven.
Heaven... was that the place I visited before?
I'd have to ask Harlan about that as well. That voice that female and sweet voice... I wondered what that was as I got dressed with the clothes Harlan left for me.
Even if they did smell like detergent, they also smelled like him. Like rain, is how I'd always described it.
He did, inherently, smell like rain.
I put on his clothes, trying to ignore that I had no bra on, and tried to sort out the mess my hair was in. It looked like a lion's mane.
Sometimes I wished I had gotten my mother's hair. It was pin straight and so easy to handle.
I headed downstairs and saw Harlan.
I couldn't help but smile, he looked so focused on cooking whatever he was cooking, he didn't notice when I snuck up behind him and hugged him from the back.
It was strange. We had not known each other for long, but doing this sort of thing with him just felt so natural… and at the same time, so exciting and new.
"Hey."
I could hear the smile in his voice as he lifted his arm and moved me to hug me from the side.
He was still not wearing a shirt, but his hair was wet and he smelled like soap.
"You smell nice," I said, happy to see my blood no longer staining his pants. I wondered what he would do with those clothes.
He looked at me.
"You look crazy," he smiled, and I faked outrage.
"Hey! I did the best I could," I said, a smile forming on my lips, and he laughed.
"I'm kidding. You look great," he said, and it felt sincere, which led me to believe he really loved me.
Because my usually well-defined curls were now puffed up to three times their size.
"Thank you," I said, jumping up on the counter as he suddenly let me go and walked over to the stove.
The swiftness of the motion was sort of strange, but I saved my concern for later.
He took a pot off the stove and placed what looked to be instant ramen in a bowl.
"I hope you don't mind eating this. I didn't really have anything else," he said, putting it on the kitchen island.
I jumped down, suddenly realizing I was really hungry.
"You're not going to eat?" I asked, and he shook his head, so I dug in.
He sat by my side, looking at me eat, and I suddenly remembered my questions.
"Can I ask you something?"
"Always."
I moved the noodles around with my fork for a while and then I took a deep breath, unsure of how to breach the subject.
"Do you remember when I saw Damien and Selene marking each other?"
He looked slightly startled, but he nodded.
"Yeah," he said, looking down. "I was a jerk to you then. I'm sorry... I have so much to apologize for."
"You were kind of a jerk," I said with a smile.
"But I forgive you. I was rude to you as well."
I cleared my throat.
"What I saw..."
Harlan looked away.
"Selene told me to ask my mate about it."
Harlan took a deep breath for some reason and he nodded.
"Sure. What do you want to know?"
"Well, now that you marked me... what does that mean? Do I have to bite you back? Do we have to do it several times?"
I sighed.
"And I have one more, but it can wait."
The last question I had was the most uncomfortable one. It involved Selene.
It involved him being in love with Selene, to be more specific.
I hadn't thought about it in a while, mostly because he didn't spend as much time with her anymore — so much so that I had almost forgotten.
Harlan simply nodded. The discomfort seemed to be whisked away.
"Well, now that I marked you, we are considered officially mated — which means you are basically my equal in every way.
"You don't have to mark me back if you don't want to, though it is considered more progressive."
He stretched his arms above his head and yawned.
"The mark used to mean something different before. It used to be a claim a male makes on a female so that no other male can have at her during mating season.
"This obviously limited the female's reproductive rights, having her chained to a man that was as free as a bird."
He rolled his eyes.
"A man could mark more than one woman in my father's times. It was basically an insult to the sanctity of the mating bond, and it was used as a power move to subdue those females that were born with a stronger will," he explained.