Silver Eyes

Zenilda

"Tell them what you told us last night, Veronica. Exactly what happened."

This was the test. I knew it.

I lifted my chin. Pride has always been my armor.

"One vampire attacked me near the south river during my patrol, Alpha. I killed him. He turned to ash. A second one ambushed me from behind with an enchanted dagger. I was stabbed, but I shifted. The shift cauterized the wound. He ran when he heard Luna howl."

A perfect lie. Almost perfect. Werewolves can close small wounds by shifting. It was believable.

My father's eyes narrowed. He has known me for eighteen years. He knows every tell I have. When I lie, I press my thumbnail into my palm. I stopped myself just in time.

"An enchanted dagger," Yidramo repeated, frowning. He is old, wise, his beard grey. "Princess, enchanted daggers don't leave ash. They leave a body. Only royal vampire fire leaves ash that fine. The kind of fire that comes from King Sandro himself, or his Blood Generals. Are you sure it was just a grunt?"

My heart stopped. I could feel it stop beating.

Luna stepped in, her voice smooth as silk.

"Perhaps it was one of his generals, Yidramo. That would explain the coordinated attacks. Let us focus on that, not interrogate my daughter who was nearly killed."

My father stared at me for one more long second. I held his gaze. I am the Alpha's daughter. I do not flinch.

Finally, he nodded. "Luna is right. Veronica, you will not patrol alone anymore. And you will not train today. That is an order."

"I can train!" The words burst out of me before I could stop them. My pride. My stupid, stubborn pride. "I am fine, Alpha! I am not weak!"

"I did not say you were weak," my father said, his voice dangerously soft. "I said you will rest. Do not make me repeat myself, Veronica Althea."

I bit my tongue so hard I tasted blood. My own blood, not his. I bowed. "Yes, Alpha."

I turned and walked out, feeling their eyes on my back. Feeling the crimson veins under my skin start to pulse again with my anger.

Kael was waiting in the hallway. Kael, Beta Yidramo's son, my best friend since we were pups, my sparring partner. He has sandy brown hair and kind amber eyes and he has been in love with me since we were twelve. I have always pretended not to notice.

"Hey," he said, catching my arm as I stormed past. "Are you okay? I heard about last night."

His touch, which had always felt warm and safe, like home, felt wrong. Like static electricity. My wolf inside me snarled and recoiled.

I yanked my arm away too hard. He stumbled.

"Don't touch me," I snapped.

Kael's face fell. "Whoa. What's wrong with you? You almost died last night."

"Nothing is wrong with me!"

"Your scent is weird," he said, frowning, leaning in the way wolves do to sniff each other's necks. It's not intimate for us, it's how we check if pack is sick.

Panic shot through me. If he smells the vampire blood...

"Don't you dare sniff me without permission!" I shouted, my eyes flashing silver so bright the hallway light flickered.

Kael stared, hurt. "You have never cared before. We have known each other since we were pups. Veronica... have you found your mate? Is that why you are acting like this?"

The question hung in the air.

I could have told him. I wanted to tell someone. The secret was too big for my chest.

But if I tell Kael, Kael tells Yidramo. Yidramo tells my father. And my father will take every warrior in Aigupta and march on Brixhes. And Sandro... Sandro would kill them all. Or they would kill him. And either way, I would feel him die through this cursed bond.

"I have not found my mate," I whispered. My third lie today.

Kael looked at me for a long time. Then he nodded, but his eyes were sad. "Okay. If you want to talk... you know where I am."

When he left, I slid down the cold stone wall and buried my face in my hands.

The pull in my chest twisted again, harder this time, so sharp I gasped.

I need to see him. I need to see him now.

There was only one person in this territory who could help me and who wouldn't immediately run to my father.

Zenilda.

I ran. I didn't bother changing out of my leathers. I just ran, using my wolf speed, past the training grounds, past the border patrols, into the deep woods where the trees grow so thick even sunlight struggles.

Her hut appeared between two ancient oaks, smoke curling from its chimney. It smells like dried rosemary and rain.

"Zenilda! Open the door!" I pounded on the wooden door.

The door creaked open by itself.

Inside, the hut was dark except for the glow of a dozen candles and a black cauldron bubbling in the center. Zenilda stood over it, stirring. She is maybe twenty-five in human years, but witches age differently. Long black hair, brown skin, and eyes covered in a thin white film. She is blind. She has been blind since birth. But she sees more than anyone I know.

"Well, well," she said without turning around. Her voice is calm, always calm, which always makes me feel even more impulsive. "The little Princess who drank a King. I was wondering when you would come. I felt the ripple last night. The whole Veil shook."

I froze in the doorway.

"You... you know?"

"That your mate is King Sandro of Brixhes, the monster who killed your grandfather?" She finally turned, her blind eyes fixing right on me, right on the spot over my heart where the bond pulls. "Yes, Veronica. I knew the moment his royal blood entered your system. Royal blood screams, dear. Especially his. Old. So, so old."

My knees went weak and I had to grab the doorframe.

"Then help me. You have to help me."

"Do you have any idea what you are asking?" She walked closer, her bare feet silent on the wooden floor. "If Magnus finds out you are mated to Sandro, he will disown you. If Sandro's court finds out he is mated to a werewolf, his elders will try to execute you to break the bond. This bond should be impossible, Veronica. The Moon Goddess herself forbade it a thousand years ago. Werewolves and vampires cannot be mates."

"But she DID it!" I shouted, and tears finally spilled over, hot and angry. "She chose him for me! Why? Of all the wolves in this world, of all the creatures, why him? I hate vampires! I have hated them my whole life!"

"Do you?" Zenilda asked, very softly. "Hate him?"

I opened my mouth to say yes. Yes, I hate him. I hate his red eyes and his cold voice and his beautiful, cruel face.

But what came out was a sob.

"I don't know," I whispered. "When he kissed me... I felt safe. For the first time in my life, I felt... seen. Not as the Alpha's daughter. Not as the girl with the freak silver eyes. Just... me. And now this pull is killing me and I can still taste him and I can't sleep and I can't breathe and his blood is glowing under my skin and -"

"Show me," Zenilda said, suddenly sharp.

I turned around and pulled down the back of my leather top just enough to show her the spot where the dagger had gone in.

I heard her inhale sharply.

"Goddess," she whispered, and for the first time ever, she sounded scared. "Veronica... his blood didn't just heal you. It's claiming you. Those veins... that's a blood claim. Only vampire royalty can do that. He has marked you as his Queen, even if he didn't mean to."

"A... a claim?" I pulled my top back up, my hands shaking.

"Royal blood is possessive. Now that it's inside you, he will be able to sense you. Feel you. When you are near, his whole body will know. If you are scared, if you are in danger, if you are heartbroken... he will feel it as his own. And he will come. Gods help anyone who is standing in his way."

She walked to a cabinet filled with hundreds of glass bottles, each glowing faintly.

"I cannot break the bond. No one can. Not even the Moon Goddess once she has made it. But I can hide you. For a little while."

She took out a small, clear bottle filled with liquid that looked like water.

"This will hide your wolf scent. Your strawberry and pine, your Alpha blood. To a vampire, you will smell like a low-level hedge witch. Or a human. They will not know you are a wolf. But listen to me, Veronica Althea, listen well because I will only say this once."

She grabbed my wrist. Her grip was ice cold and iron strong.

"The potion lasts five hours. Not a minute more. If you are still in Brixhes when it wears off, they will smell you and they will tear you apart before Sandro can even reach you. Second... the potion hides your scent, child. It cannot hide your soul. And a King... a King always knows when his Queen has entered his castle. Especially a King who has already tasted her soul."

She pressed the bottle into my palm.

I stared at it. My way to him.

"Five hours," I repeated.

"Go," she said. "Before I change my mind. And Veronica... whatever you hear in Brixhes, whatever you see... remember that vampires lie better than any creature alive. Even to their mates."

I didn't wait. I ran out of the hut, the bottle clutched so tight my knuckles turned white.

The border is not a wall. It's a river. The Styx. Black water, cursed, said to swallow wolves whole.

On our side, Aigupta, the forest is alive, breathing. On the other side, across the black water...

Brixhes.

I stood on our riverbank, hidden in the shadows of the trees. I took off my leathers and hid them in the grass, changing into a simple, plain black dress I had stolen from the laundry line. My white hair, my biggest giveaway, I tucked under a black hood.

I uncorked the bottle and drank it in one gulp. It tasted like nothing. Like cold air.

For a second, nothing happened.

Then a strange tingling spread across my scalp. I pulled a strand of hair from under my hood.

It was black. Pitch black.

I sniffed my wrist. My scent, my wild, strong wolf scent that every wolf could smell from a mile away, was gone. I smelled like... dust. Like nothing.

It worked.

I stepped into the Styx. The water was freezing, biting at my ankles, trying to pull me down. My wolf whimpered inside me, hating it. But the pull in my chest was stronger than fear. It was a compass, pointing straight across the river, straight into the heart of enemy territory.

I waded across.

The air changed the second my foot touched the other side. It became colder, thinner, perfumed with night flowers that only bloom for vampires and the metallic tang of old blood. Brixhes rose in front of me.

Goddess.

Aigupta is wild and warm. Brixhes is beautiful and dead. Towers of black stone so tall they pierced the grey clouds. Red lanterns floating in the air with no string, glowing with captured blood-light. Music, dark and classical, playing from somewhere high up. Vampires everywhere, moving like liquid shadows in their elegant black and red clothes, so fast they blurred.

The night market was in full swing. Stalls selling bottled blood, enchanted jewelry, dark potions. Laughter, but cold laughter.