Chapter 7 — Silver Eyes
1912 Words
Mara POV
The voice came again.
“Mara.”
Darius moved before I did.
One second he stood beside me. The next, he was between me and the desk as another impact struck the floor.
Wood cracked.
The silver in his eyes brightened.
Not reflected light.
Something alive.
“Back up.”
I did.
Not because he ordered me.
Because the floor moved.
A jagged line split through the boards beneath the desk. Cold air rushed through the opening, carrying the smell of wet stone, earth—
and old blood.
Darius’s hands curled at his sides.
His nails lengthened into dark claws. The bones beneath his skin shifted with a sound I felt more than heard.
I stared.
He turned sharply.
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Look at me.”
“You’re serious?”
“Yes.”
“I watched something with too many joints try to kill me in the archive.”
“That wasn’t a Lycan.”
“I know.”
“That’s why I don’t want you confusing what you saw with this.”
The distinction caught me.
“What was that thing?”
“I don’t know exactly. But its body wasn’t holding one coherent shape.”
“And yours is.”
“For now.”
I looked at his claws.
“Is this normal?”
“For a partial shift.”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“I’m not.”
Another impact struck.
The split widened, exposing stone beneath the floorboards.
Not foundation.
Steps.
A staircase descending into darkness.
“You knew there were stairs.”
“I suspected there might be a passage.”
“The plans?”
“Incomplete.”
A scrape rose from below.
Something moving over stone.
Darius’s breathing changed.
Slow.
Measured.
He was counting.
“You’re trying not to shift.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t need to.”
“That isn’t the reason.”
His gaze hardened.
A growl answered from below.
Closer.
Darius stepped toward the opening.
“Stay behind me.”
I almost argued.
Then I noticed his hands trembling.
Not fear.
Restraint.
So I stayed.
The floor cracked again.
A section collapsed.
Dust exploded upward as the desk tilted toward the opening. Darius caught it and shoved it aside with one hand.
Cold air poured up the exposed staircase.
Then two eyes opened below.
Gold.
Too far apart to belong to a wolf.
My pulse stopped.
The creature didn’t climb.
It watched.
Darius stepped between us, and a growl rolled from his chest.
The gold eyes narrowed.
“She doesn’t know.”
My skin went cold.
Darius went rigid.
“He hasn’t told you.”
“Told me what?”
“Mara.” Darius’s voice cut through the darkness. “Don’t answer it.”
The thing laughed.
The sound came out broken.
“What your mother did.”
Every thought in my head stopped.
“What did she do?”
The gold eyes shifted toward me.
“Opened.”
A pause.
“The door.”
Something inside my head split open.
Smoke.
My mother’s hand crushing mine.
Stone beneath my shoes.
A black metal door.
Three intersecting lines cut across its surface.
And someone on the other side.
Young.
Black hair.
Gray eyes.
Darius.
The memory vanished.
I staggered.
“Mara.”
“I saw you.”
His expression changed.
The gold eyes disappeared.
A roar shook the passage.
Stone fractured.
Darius caught me around the waist and dragged me back as part of the staircase collapsed.
Dust swallowed us.
I hit his chest.
His arm locked around me.
Too tight.
“Darius.”
He released me instantly.
Then stepped away as if I had burned him.
His face had changed.
Cheekbones sharper.
Canines longer.
Eyes completely silver.
I stared.
He turned away.
“Don’t.”
“You keep saying that.”
“I’m trying to regain control.”
The anger drained out of me.
“Is being near me making it harder?”
Silence.
I stepped closer.
He backed away.
“Why?”
“Because I don’t know what happens if I stop fighting the shift.”
“You think you’ll hurt me.”
“No.”
Too fast.
I raised an eyebrow.
His jaw tightened.
“I’m afraid I won’t know where the line is.”
That was different.
“You held yourself together when that thing spoke.”
“Yes.”
“But when you grabbed me, it got worse.”
“Mara.”
“That matters.”
“I know.”
“Why?”
He looked away.
“I have a theory.”
After our argument upstairs, the words mattered.
“Tell me.”
“My wolf reacts to threats.”
“I gathered that.”
“It reacts differently to you.”
My pulse jumped.
“How?”
“I know what the reaction feels like. I don’t know what causes it.”
“What does it feel like?”
His gaze met mine.
“Like every instinct I have is pulling in the same direction.”
“Toward me?”
“Yes.”
Warmth moved beneath my ribs.
I ignored it.
“What happened when my mother opened that door?”
His expression hardened.
“I saw part of it.”
“Tell me what you know.”
“I was nineteen.”
“You were there that night.”
“Yes.”
“On Vale land?”
“Yes.”
The coordinates hidden in the treaty.
The private repository.
“You knew about it then.”
“No. I knew there was a structure. I didn’t know what it was.”
“Why were you there?”
“Your mother sent for me.”
My heartbeat stumbled.
“What did she want?”
“Help.”
“With what?”
“I can’t prove what she believed she’d found.”
“Then give me the theory.”
He was quiet for a moment.
“She believed the Veyrs had inherited something older than our family name.”
“The symbol?”
“Possibly.”
“The tunnels?”
“Possibly.”
“The door?”
“Yes.”
That answer came immediately.
“What was behind it?”
“I never saw.”
“Why?”
“Your mother opened it. Something happened. Then everything went wrong.”
“What happened?”
“Fire.”
My mother screaming.
Smoke.
Run, Mara.
“And me?”
“You were there.”
“I know.”
“You shouldn’t have been.”
“I was thirteen.”
His face changed.
“I know.”
The words held no mystery.
Only guilt.
He remembered a child trapped somewhere she never should have been.
“What happened after the door opened?”
“I lost sight of your mother.”
“And me?”
“I tried to reach you.”
The memory flashed.
Darius beyond the door.
His hand stretching through smoke.
“I couldn’t reach you,” he said.
He had told me that before.
Back then, it had sounded like another piece of a story he refused to finish.
Now I could see the distance between us.
The door.
The smoke.
His hand reaching for a thirteen-year-old girl he had failed to save.
For the first time, I understood what those words had cost him.
A crack sounded below.
We both turned.
Nothing emerged.
I looked back at Darius.
His claws remained extended.
His eyes were still silver.
“You’re not changing back.”
“I’m aware.”
“Does that happen often?”
“No.”
“Because of what’s down there?”
“Partly.”
“What’s the other part?”
His gaze found mine.
“You.”
The answer should have frightened me.
Instead, warmth spread across my palm.
The mark appeared.
Three silver lines.
Darius saw them.
His body locked.
I stepped closer.
“Mara.”
This time, I understood the warning.
He wasn’t commanding me.
He was afraid.
I lifted my hand.
He could have stopped me.
He didn’t.
My fingertips touched his cheek.
Heat snapped through me.
Darius closed his eyes.
The reaction wasn’t violent.
It was relief.
His shoulders lowered.
The claws began to shorten.
I froze.
“Darius.”
“I know.”
I kept my hand against his face.
Silver slowly receded from his eyes until gray appeared around the edges.
“I’m calming you.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
I gave him a look.
Despite everything, something almost like amusement touched his mouth.
“I genuinely don’t know.”
That nearly made me smile.
Nearly.
I started to lower my hand.
His rose toward my wrist.
Then stopped before touching me.
A question.
Permission.
The realization did something strange to my chest.
I left my hand where it was.
For one suspended second, the broken floor disappeared.
So did the creature.
The treaty.
My mother.
There was only the heat of Darius’s skin beneath my fingers and the deliberate restraint of a man strong enough to take almost anything who had chosen not to take this.
Then the floor groaned.
I dropped my hand.
Darius stepped back.
His claws had disappeared.
His eyes remained faintly silver.
“We’re leaving this room.”
“Because it’s dangerous?”
“Yes.”
“Or because I just did something impossible?”
“Both.”
I looked toward the collapsed passage.
“What was that thing?”
“I don’t know what it is.”
He paused.
“But I know what it isn’t.”
“What?”
“Random.”
The word settled cold inside me.
“It knew my name.”
“Yes.”
“My mother.”
“Yes.”
“And the door.”
“Yes.”
I looked at my fading mark.
Three intersecting lines.
The same basic symbol hidden in the treaty.
The same one beneath the Veyr crescent.
The same one I had seen on the door in my memory.
Whatever my mother had opened fifteen years ago was connected to the history someone had rewritten.
And whatever lived beneath this estate recognized that connection.
Darius looked toward the broken floor.
“Your mother believed that door was part of something older than the Veyrs.”
“And now it’s under your house.”
“Something connected to it is.”
That distinction mattered.
“Then we find out what.”
His gaze shifted to me.
“Not tonight.”
I opened my mouth.
“The passage is collapsing,” he added. “There is an unidentified creature beneath us, and half the security system just failed. Those are facts, not an order.”
I closed my mouth.
Annoying man really was adapting.
“Fine.”
His eyebrow rose.
“Don’t look so surprised.”
“I’m trying not to.”
Another distant impact rolled through the foundation.
Darius moved toward the door.
I followed.
Before we crossed the threshold, I looked back once.
Darkness filled the broken floor.
Nothing moved.
Nothing spoke.
But the mark in my palm remained warm.
The thing beneath the estate knew who I was.
It knew what my mother had done.
And somehow, whatever had awakened below had pulled Darius’s wolf closer to the surface.
I looked at him.
His eyes were still silver.
Not because he had lost control.
Because something about me made control harder.
And when I touched him—
the wolf listened.
- Writer
- chap_listContents
- likeADD