Silver Eyes

Blood Moon

"Is he... is he good to you? Whoever he is?"

Tears burned my eyes again. Goddess, I was crying so much these days. I used to never cry.

"He... he saved my life," I whispered, the first true thing I had told Kael in a week. "And I think... I think he might be the only person who has ever seen my eyes and not looked away."

Kael was quiet for a long time.

"Then he can't be all bad," he said finally. "Even if he is a bloodsucker."

I stared at him. "You knew?"

"I didn't know what, but I knew it wasn't a wolf. Your scent... that cold, winter scent on you that first morning... that's not wolf. That's vampire. And that necklace... moonstone is the only thing that can hide a vampire claim. I read it in the old books."

He knew. He had known all along.

"Are you going to tell Alpha?" I whispered, terrified.

Kael looked at me, and smiled, sad and fond.

"No. Because you are my best friend. And because if you are stupid enough to fall for a vampire, you are going to need someone to watch your back when we walk into that palace full of them. So... can I be your date to this ball? To make your vampire boy jealous?"

I laughed, wet and loud, and threw my arms around his neck, hugging him tight. He smelled like home, like pack, like safety. Not like mate. But like family.

"Yes," I said into his shoulder. "Be my fake date. Make him jealous."

"Oh, I will," Kael said, hugging me back. "I will be so charming that King Bloodsucker will want to rip my head off. It will be fun."

We sat in the hay for a while, drinking cold hot chocolate, not talking about the fact that in twenty-four hours we would be walking into the enemy's palace, where one wrong move could start a war.

The night before the Blood Moon Ball, I couldn't sleep again. But this time it wasn't from heartbreak. It was from terror.

I took the red gown out of its box and hung it on my closet door. In the moonlight coming through my window, it glowed like fresh blood. Like a warning.

I took a bath, scrubbed my skin until it was pink, oiled my white hair until it shone like moonlight. I put on the moonstone necklace. I stared at my reflection.

Tomorrow, I would walk into Brixhes palace. I would see Lady Seraphine, the witch who thinks she is his mate. I would see his court, his generals, his elders who want me dead. And I would see him.

King Sandro.

My mate.

Who would look at me in this red gown, in front of everyone, and have to choose. Would he claim me and risk war? Or would he reject me to keep his throne?

The pull in my chest throbbed, and for the first time, I felt something coming back through it that wasn't just his power. It was emotion. His emotion. Anxious. Restless. Possessive. And underneath it all... longing. So much longing it made my knees weak.

He was awake too. Thinking about tomorrow. Thinking about me.

I pressed my hand to the moonstone.

I'm coming, I thought, not knowing if he could hear me through the bond. Tomorrow, I'm coming. Try not to look too shocked when you see me.

Far away, in Brixhes palace, in the Queen's chambers that had been empty for three hundred years until a witch had moved herself in, Lady Seraphine stood in front of her mirror, brushing her long black hair. She was beautiful in a sharp, cruel way, her eyes violet, her lips red as blood.

On her vanity lay a list. Names of all the female wolves in Aigupta's delegation. At the bottom, circled in red ink: Veronica Althea - Alpha's daughter - Silver Eyes - UNMATED.

She smiled at her reflection, and her violet eyes glowed.

"Silver Eyes," she whispered to herself, tasting the words. "The last one. My King has been so secretive. Let's see if you are stupid enough to come to my ball, little wolf. Let's see if you are stupid enough to wear red to a place where the Queen wears red."

She picked up a small vial of black liquid and poured a single drop onto the red dress hanging in her own closet - an identical shade to mine.

The drop sizzled and vanished.

"Let's party," she whispered, echoing the note she had forged herself five days ago, and laughed.

In his black tower, King Sandro jolted awake from a dream where a girl in a red gown was dancing, her white hair flowing, her silver eyes glowing, and then suddenly she was on fire, screaming his name, while his entire court watched and did nothing.

His palm was bleeding again, badly.

"Rhys!" he roared, his voice cracking the stone walls. "Double the guards! No one touches the Aigupta delegation tomorrow! No one!"

But it was too late. The trap was already set. And tomorrow, under the Blood Moon, his little wolf would walk straight into it, wearing a dress that marked her as his.

And he would have to decide whether to save his mate, or save his kingdom.

-

The carriage ride to hell takes exactly two hours.

That's what the old wolves call the road to Brixhes. The Hell Road. A straight, black stone road that cuts through the dead part of the forest where nothing grows, where even rogues won't hunt. At the end of it, Brixhes palace rises like a blade made of night.

I have seen it from the riverbank. From a distance, it looks beautiful. Up close, it looks hungry.

Our delegation was small by Aigupta standards. Two carriages. In the first, Alpha Magnus, Luna Selene, Beta Yidramo. In the second, me, Kael, and two of our best female warriors, Freya and Astrid, who had been ordered to act as my ladies-in-waiting even though Freya once punched a hole through a wall because someone took her sweet roll.

I was not supposed to be in a carriage. I was supposed to be running beside it in wolf form as guard. But Luna had insisted.

"A Queen does not arrive sweaty and covered in road dust," she had said that morning while lacing me into the red gown.

The red gown.

Goddess.

I had put it on an hour ago in my room, with Luna's help, and I had not been able to breathe since.

It was worse than I remembered. The fabric was liquid fire, clinging to every curve I didn't know I had, the V in the front plunging so low the moonstone necklace was the only thing keeping it decent, the back completely open all the way down to the base of my spine. Every time I moved, the slit up my leg opened to my thigh. The thin straps were held together in the back by nothing but tiny, delicate silver chains.

I had looked in the mirror and didn't recognize myself. My white hair, which Luna had left loose and curled to fall down my back like a river of moonlight, my silver eyes lined with kohl making them glow even brighter, my lips painted the same red as the dress. I looked... not like Veronica the warrior. Not like the Alpha's daughter who punches boys in training.

I looked like someone a King would start a war for.

"Stop fidgeting," Luna whispered now, sitting across from me in the carriage, resplendent in her own moonlight silver gown that made her look like the Goddess herself. "You look perfect."

"I look naked," I hissed, trying to pull the slit closed. Kael, sitting next to me in his formal black suit, choked on air and stared very pointedly out the window.

"You look like a Luna," Luna said firmly. "Remember what I taught you. Head high. Shoulders back. You are not a scout sneaking in. You are Princess Veronica Althea of Aigupta. You have every right to be here. Let them stare."

The carriage stopped. The door opened. Cold air rushed in, scented with night flowers and blood and old stone.

"We have arrived," Yidramo said from outside, his voice tight.