Silver Eyes

The Fitting

Six days.

I had six days to learn how to be a Queen in a palace that wanted me dead, while pretending to my father that I didn't even want to go.

The morning after General Rhys left Zenilda's hut, I woke up and the moonstone was still in my palm, warm, pulsing faintly in time with the crimson veins on my back.

I put it on. The silver chain was cold at first, then it warmed. The moment the moonstone touched my skin, right over my heart, the glowing veins on my back dimmed, as if someone had thrown a veil over them. The constant, low buzzing pull in my chest quieted to a dull thrum. Not gone. Muted.

It was the first quiet I had felt in four days. I could finally hear my own thoughts again.

"Veronica, you are staring at your breakfast like it insulted your mother."

Luna's voice pulled me back. We were in the small family dining room, just the three of us. Alpha Magnus at the head of the table, Luna to his right, me to his left. A rare, almost human moment. Outside, the pack was already training, howls echoing.

I looked down. My porridge was untouched, a skin forming on top.

"Sorry, Luna," I mumbled, forcing a spoonful into my mouth. It tasted like ash. Everything tasted like ash since I drank his blood.

My father didn't look up from the report he was reading, but his amber eyes flicked to me.

"You didn't sleep again," he said. Not a question.

"I slept fine, Alpha."

"You are lying," he said calmly, turning a page. "Your scent has been wrong for days. Your eyes are dim. You nearly broke Kael's ribs yesterday and then you cried in your mother's room. Now you are wearing a strange necklace I have never seen before."

My hand flew instinctively to the moonstone hidden under my high-collared training shirt. The chain was thin, but he had seen it.

Luna smoothly intervened, as always.

"Magnus, it's a gift from me. For her birthday. Moonstone for clarity. You know how girls are before their first big ball."

My father finally looked up, his gaze moving from Luna to me, slow and heavy. Alpha Magnus misses nothing.

"What ball?" he asked.

"The Blood Moon Ball," Luna said, as if she was discussing the weather, sipping her tea. "King Sandro's invitation. I have decided to accept it. On behalf of Aigupta."

The report in my father's hand tore in half.

The dining room went silent. Even the birds outside stopped chirping. Alpha power, even unconsciously released, makes the air heavy.

"Absolutely not," he said, his voice low, dangerous.

"Magnus -"

"No, Selene. I already said no. It is a trap. I will not let my Luna and my daughter walk into Brixhes palace and be slaughtered for entertainment."

"It is not a trap," Luna said, her own ruby eyes beginning to glow, her Luna power rising to meet his. The plates on the table rattled. "It is a truce talk. The first one in fifty years. If we do not go, we look weak. We look afraid. Is that what you want the other packs to think? That the Alpha King of Aigupta is afraid of a three-hundred-year-old boy in a cape?"

"He is not a boy, Selene. He is a monster who killed my father. Your father-in-law. He ripped his heart out while it was still beating."

"I know who he is, Magnus! I was there! I watched him do it! But I also watched you spend the last twenty years trying to keep our people safe from endless border skirmishes that kill our pups! If there is even a one percent chance that this ball could lead to a real truce, we have to take it!"

They stared at each other across the table, amber fire against ruby fire. Mate against mate. Alpha against Luna. This was a fight that had been brewing for years.

I sat frozen between them, holding my breath. This was my opening.

"Luna is right, Alpha," I said quietly, using every ounce of diplomacy Yidramo had ever taught me. "If we don't go, the other packs will think we are weak. And... and if it is a trap, wouldn't it be better to walk in knowing it's a trap, with our best warriors, than to wait for him to attack us here?"

My father turned his burning amber gaze on me.

"You want to go?" he asked, surprised. "You? The girl who has hated vampires since she could speak? You want to walk into Brixhes palace?"

My heart hammered. This was it. Lie number... I had lost count.

"I want to see what we are up against," I said, lifting my chin. "I want to see this King everyone is so afraid of. I want to see his court. His witch mate. I want to know our enemy. Isn't that what you taught me, Alpha? Know your enemy better than you know yourself?"

That was his own lesson. Thrown back at him.

My father stared at me for a long, long time. Then he looked at Luna, who was staring at him with her arms crossed, her silver gown making her look like a war goddess.

Finally, he sighed, and the heavy Alpha pressure in the room lessened.

"You two will be the death of me," he muttered. "Fine. We go. But not just us. Yidramo, Kael, and ten of our best warriors. Full armor. And you two... you will not leave my sight for one second. Not one second. Understood?"

"Yes, Alpha," Luna and I said at the same time.

Under the table, Luna's hand found mine and squeezed. Her palm was sweaty. She was nervous too.

But when I looked up, my father was looking directly at the faint outline of the moonstone chain against my throat, his brow furrowed.

Six days. We had six days.

The next five days were a blur of preparation and torture.

Luna took over my life. If we were going to walk into the vampire palace as the truce delegation of Aigupta, we had to look like royalty, not like border wolves who wrestle in the dirt.

"Posture, Veronica! A Luna never slouches! A Luna could balance a book on her head while killing a man!"

"Why would I have a book on my head while killing a man, Luna?"

"Because you are graceful even when you are lethal! Again!"

We spent hours in her chambers. She taught me how to walk in heels that were taller than my ego. How to sit in a gown without flashing the entire court. How to eat with twelve different forks. How to speak without snarling.

"Smile, but not too much. Show no teeth. Vampires show teeth when they threaten. We show control."

"Control is boring."

"Control keeps you alive when you are surrounded by creatures who want to drink you."

At night, when Luna finally let me go, I would sneak out to the old training barn at the edge of the territory, where Zenilda was waiting.

The witch was furious that I had met Rhys, but she was more furious that I was actually going to the ball.

"You are going to get us all killed," she hissed, throwing a bag of foul-smelling powder at me that made me sneeze silver sparks. "That moonstone will hide the claim, but it will not hide what you are when you lose your temper! And you will lose your temper, Veronica, because Lady Seraphine is going to try to make you!"

"Good," I panted, wiping silver sparks off my arms. My eyes had been doing that lately, sparking when I was emotional. "Let her try."

"You don't understand! Seraphine is not just a witch, she is a blood witch! She can taste lies in blood! If she gets close enough to smell you -"

"Then I won't let her get close," I said.

Zenilda stared at me, her blind white eyes sad.

"You love him, don't you? Even though you barely know him. Even though he is a vampire. You love him already."

The question knocked the air out of me.

Do I love him? Love is such a big word. I have known him for four days. I kissed him once.

But I thought about the way he had looked at me when he thought I was sleeping after healing me. About the way his voice shook when he said "Stay awake." About the way his blood inside me felt like home.

"I... I don't know what it is," I whispered. "But when he is not near me, it hurts. And when I think about that witch in his chambers, I want to rip her head off with my teeth. Is that love?"

Zenilda laughed, a soft, sad laugh.

"No, child. That is a mate bond. Love comes later. And it is much, much more painful."

On the fifth night, Kael found me in the training barn. I was practicing walking in the red heels Luna had forced on me, holding a broomstick like it was a long skirt, trying not to fall.

"You look ridiculous," he said from the doorway.

I yelped and fell flat on my ass, the broomstick clattering away. My white hair was a mess, my face sweaty.

Kael walked in, holding two mugs of hot chocolate, the way he used to when we were pups after training. He handed me one and sat down next to me on the hay, not saying anything for a while.

"I heard you are going to Brixhes," he finally said.

"Yes."

"With Luna and Alpha."

"Yes."

"Wearing a red gown that costs more than my future."

I choked on my hot chocolate. "How did you -"

"Mira talks. A lot. She said Luna had the royal seamstress alter a red vampire silk gown for you. Red, Veronica? You hate red. You say it makes you look like a tomato."

"I do not look like a tomato!" I protested, but I was blushing.

Kael looked at me, his kind amber eyes serious.

"Is it for a boy? The reason you have been so weird? Is there a boy in Brixhes?"

My heart stopped.

"No! Of course not! Don't be stupid!"

"Veronica," he said softly. "I have known you since you were six and you punched me for stealing your sweet roll. I know when you lie. You press your thumb into your palm. You are doing it right now."

I looked down. I was.

Kael sighed and stared at the wooden beams of the barn.

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