*Ryatt*
I watch my mate run her fingers through her maid’s tight blonde curls. Hannah is asleep, her cheek resting on her pillow as Ella kneels at her bedside.
“She’s doing better with treatment,” says a cloaked healer, a man, who stands beside me. “Queen Ravenna has her on a tonic of wormroot, silver bane, arrowroot, and moonspring oil every two hours to keep her strength, but she struggles to leave the bed.”
“She needs to be allowed to go outside and breathe fresh air,” I reply quietly.
“Her strength continues to diminish, Your Highness.” The healer turns to me, and we turn away from Ella and Hannah and walk toward the door. “I’ve conferred with the other healers, and the mystics, and we’ve all come to the conclusion that she should remain here for treatment until her mate, if possible, is able to come here.”
“What could he possibly do to help? Did crossing the veil not tear her to shreds like I was made to believe?”
The healer tilts his head, his face shadowed by his hood. “This is a first for us, Your Highness. The injuries caused by crossing the veil can be healed, and have been healed, but she’s… broken, in some way. It’s been decided by the mystics that her mate must come and reestablish their bond.”
“Was it broken?”
“It was never confirmed, Your Highness. She doesn’t bare his mark, and we believe none of this would be happening if she had. We’ve found no scar on her skin to make us believe otherwise. They never confirmed their bond, and now she’s mateless, which–according to the mystics–goes against fate itself. This is more of a curse than anything, I’m afraid.”
“Ah, the mystics and their almighty powers of sight,” I say sarcastically as I glance over my shoulder at Ella. “And if they’re wrong?”
“We haven’t known them to be wrong yet. You must find a way to bring her mate here, to our realm, and he must mark her.”
I nod, but in my gut, I know that’s easier said than done. Her mate would have to survive passing through the veil first.
My nostrils flare as I turn from the healer. Ella rises and turns to me, her expression grave as she pulls her crimson cloak around her body and nods to me to tell me she’s ready to leave.
None of the healers say anything to us as we leave the gilded crystal room. The shining palace is practically empty as we walk through its halls and out into the fading sunset.
The entire coven is at the lake, and as we descend the steps into the city, I can see the bonfires being lit along the shore. Beyond the shore, the lake stretches far into the distance between two towering mountains before funneling into a river that leads directly to the sea.
The shimmering water is golden in the sunset, and through the haze of light I see the outline of the moon beginning to fade into view–a darkened shadow of itself, rimmed with crimson.
Ella speaks for the first time in hours, “How long until the eclipse?”
“Not long. Once it gets dark, I’ll be able to give you a better estimate.”
“And Granger and Amanda are really…” She winces, tapering off.
My nostrils flare as her question seeps into my mind.
I’d spent the better part of the afternoon seated across from her at the dining room table while she ate a day’s worth of food and asked me ceaseless questions about the Rite, the coven, and the mystics.
The Mystics–elder witches who had been blessed with the power of sight–are the eyes of the Coven. They see and interpret fate, and while I have my doubts, they haven't been wrong about me so far.
When I arrived in the coven at the age of five, they’d seen that I’d grow to be an Alpha, a leader of the oppressed and abused mountainous packs that had been at war with my father for decades. They saw that my mate would be born on the other side of the veil. They saw that, one day, fate willing, we’d find each other and usher in a new era of peace.
And bring back a race of witches long thought extinct to restore balance to our worlds and eventually lift the veil between our kingdoms.
Now, the Mystics have announced who will be participating in the Rite–the most sacred event in the Coven.
“What happened?” I ask Thorne. Ella and I stand in the foyer of the inn my men have been settled in while we stay in Moonrise, and Thorne looks as horror stricken as I feel as he shifts his weight from foot to foot and shrugs.
“A group of witches in those creepy white cloaks and masks came here before the sun rose and got Amanda. Granger tried to stop them, and then he just… went with them.” Thorne shrugs helplessly. “We’ve been combing through the city all day, and there’s no sign of them anywhere.”
“They’re not in the castle either,” I reply hotly, rapping my knuckles on the counter of the empty inn. Even the innkeeper is down at the lake for the celebration about to take place in the coming hours. I’m more than disappointed this happened right under my nose. Ravenna had no right to skirt my authority and pull two of my own for her precious Rite, regardless of what the Mystics saw, and especially not without conferring with me about it first.
“They’re not really going to do this, are they?” Ella asks.
I glance at her over my shoulder and notice how rosy her cheeks have gone. She meets my eyes and coughs, the blush growing darker as she looks down at her shoes. Things have been so easy after last night. It feels like some piece has fallen into place, and we can actually move on now and stop tiptoeing around each other and arguing. We have work to do when we reach my lands, and I need her by my side.
It helps that we are, at least, highly compatible in bed. She fit me like a glove. Like she’d been forged for me and me for her.
Now I’m the one turning crimson. I clear my throat and level a look at Thorne and the two men standing on either side of him. “If they’ve gone with the witches willingly, then yes. They’re doing this. They’re both probably drunk out of their minds on witch wine by now and… feeling those effects.” I close my eyes and curse.
But Ella’s sharp laugh behind me pulls me back to my senses. “There’s no way Amanda would have agreed to this! And Granger? Are you joking? He hates her! They hate each other!”
One of the men standing beside Thorne steps forward and bows his head to Ella in permission to speak. Ella doesn’t catch the motion, seeing as she’s still unaccustomed to some of our mannerisms.
“You may address your Luna, Artyom,” I say to the man, who raises his head and lets the fading daylight wash over his face, which is shadowed by his hood.
Artyom’s unearthly bright blue-silver eyes meet mine, startling against his deep brown skin, before his gaze meets Ella’s. “The act of the Rite is considered sacred, and those that perform the ritual are said to be blessed by the Goddess. It’s an honor on her pack to have been chosen, and rare, given that the honor is normally reserved for a female of witch blood.”
Ella says nothing but watches Artyom keenly as he continues, “Shifters like Granger are sought if fate dictates they are to perform the Rite. It, again, is an honor to their pack and their Alpha.” Artyom’s voice is low and gravelly. He looks to me for permission to continue, to tell his story in hopes it’ll clear up the significance of this event to Ella, and why we have no choice but to let it happen. “I am a child of the Rite, conceived during an eclipse that took place twenty-eight years ago. My mother is of this coven, and my father–”
“Is one of my commanders,” I finish for him, turning to face my mate. “A shifter.”
Ella looks between us, confused as ever. “So, they get a shiny medal and bragging rights for sleeping together and possibly having a baby? Or what?”
“That depends on what the Mystic’s saw,” Artyom replies with unfathomable patience.
“What did the Mystic’s see when they decided it would be your mother and father performing the Rite?” Ella asks, taking a step toward the men gathered before us.
“They saw the mate bond between them and what would be produced by it. They saw me.”
* * *
“Who is he, exactly?” Ella asks as we walk down to the lake, my men walking a good distance in front of us. “What is he?”
“Artyom? He’s a hybrid like me, with powers somewhat similar to mine,” I explain. “If you haven’t noticed, that’s rare.”
“Why?”
I purse my lips. It’s been nothing but questions from her for the last hour. “Because witches don’t breed outside of their kind unless something like this happens, or if they’re–” My throat closes around the words.
“If they’re captured and forced to be a breeder,” Ella whispers. Her hand brushes against mine in silent recognition of the painful memory of my mother.
I let my fingers drift over hers in the shadow of her cloak before curling my hand into a fist and shoving it into my jacket pocket. “His parents being mates is nearly impossible but true in their case. Offspring between the two species is even more impossible. It shouldn’t happen, which is why you’re so damn unbelievable.”
“I’m unbelievable?” She chokes with laughter. “What the hell do you mean by that?”
“I mean,” I breathe, “that the fact that you, a full shifter by all accounts, has enough Firestone blood to possess your powers is unheard of. I wouldn’t be surprised if your father’s family knew and kept it a secret over the course of many generations, selectively breeding to make it stronger.”
She wrinkles her nose. “That’s awful… And my mom was a breeder, she was given to him to pay off a debt from a village Alpha. My dad obviously didn’t know about it.”
“Fate decides everything, Ella. Do you not have Mystic’s in your Kingdom?”
“Crackpots who tell fortunes and read tea leaves? We have those. We have seers too, but they’re far and few between.”
“What about people who can read the stars? That’s what our Mystics are here.”
“My brother,” she says, her voice dropping an octave. “He can do that.”
Confusion snakes through me, and my brow furrows as I look down at her. I want to press her further about this new slice of knowledge that makes absolutely no sense, but Ella gets distracted by one of the food and wine carts that line the gravel road we’ve been traveling down.
She accepts a pewter mug of wine with a grateful smile to the seller, but I snatch it out of her hand and drink it down to the last drop.
“Hey!” she snaps, but I set the empty mug down on the cart and ignore her, motioning to my men.
“If any of you get so piss drunk I have to peel you from the ground in the morning, you will be staying here and at the mercy of Ravenna instead of returning with us to the Veiled Valley,” I growl. The men nod, including Thorne, who I eye intensely. He’s young and doesn’t have the best judgment, but the same could have been said of me at his age and level of experience.
Ella reaches for another mug of wine but I take her by the wrist and pull her away from the cart while my men take our place. “What’s your problem?”
“You’re not drinking tonight.”
“Why not?”
“You’ll see.”