Chapter 6 Six

Oberon’s POV

The morning dawned cold and gray on the palace grounds. I was standing at the front gate with Yamal waiting to see a road from witch world. My breath steamed in the frozen air, yet I hardly registered the cold. I was too distracted in my head for that to actually be possible.

Eudora, specifically. The way she’d watched me last night, half-hating and something else. Something that made my wolf twitchy and hungry. The mate bond had been steadily increasing since I’d marked her, and fucking fighting it felt harder and harder by the way.

“You seem to be worried about something,” Yamal remarked softly.

I shot him a sharp look. "I am concentrating on that which counts. The witches will soon be here.”

"That is not what I meant." He still wouldn't look at me, but I heard the worry in his voice. "This plan of yours. Using the princess. Are you so sure it is only strategy?”

"What else would it be?" I snapped, rage flaring hot inside my chest.

"You tell me." Now he stared right at me, his dark eyes piercing. “I have known you since childhood, Obéron. I have never seem you this tight,You can relax. This conflicted."

"I am not conflicted." The lie tasted bitter. "She is a means to an end. Nothing more."

Yamal didn’t say anything, but his silence was deafening. He was a little too good at knowing me, could read through my walls better than anyone. It was why he was my Beta, the closest person to me. And why his skepticism rankled me more than it should have.

I imagined my mother’s expression as she died. My father's broken body. My younger twelve-year-old sister Mira screaming as the fire swallowed her up. Eudora’s father had arranged all of it, leveraged his relationship with my family to win their trust and then betrayed them in the most egregious fashion.

Eudora ought to suffer for that. Her whole bloodline did.

But she had not known. It was as if the thought snuck into her mind unbidden, which it had been doing more often. She’d been shielded and protected from pack business, naïve. She’d been genuinely shocked when I told her about what her father had done.

No. I could not think like that. I couldn't let pity get in the way of my determination.

“They’re coming,” Yamal said indicating the road with a nod.

I straightened, willing all thoughts of Eudora from my mind. Emotions couldn’t be allowed to get in the way of this meeting.

The coven procession first shimmered into view as a haze in the air, similar to heat waves on a summer afternoon. Then they solidified, the parade of unearthly figures illuminating from the inside. They paddled through the water with an ethereal sort of grace, their legs scarcely even touching the ground.

The High Witch Seraphina rode at their front.

And even though she was centuries old, she was quite stunning in an unsettling sort of way. Her hair, a liquid moonlight that grew down her back in a spill. Her eyes had not shifted color — old and knowing. Intimidating waves of power emanated from her, and my wolf practiced caution.

She leaped off in one smooth motion, white robes flaring around her. The other witches fanned out in a half-circle behind her, silent and watching.

"Lycan King," Seraphina greeted, her voice musical yet iced. "Once again we meet under sad happenings.

I made a little bow, as is graceful and polite among equals. "High Witch. Thank you for coming."

"Did I have a choice?" She leaned in close and scrutinized me with those creepy eyes. "Your speech mentioned preserving the treaty. Of carrying on the bloodline that ties our peoples.”

"Yes." I gestured toward the palace. “Maybe we should continue this inside.”

“Maybe you should run through the massacre — explain that, Moll.” She turned her eyes upon the grounds themselves: scorched earth where there had been none before, hasty graves in the dewy grass and a lingering smell of death. “Me and the former king, we were not friendly or closer to each other but this is a destruction type of overkill kind of thing.”

Careful, I thought. Seraphina was not fooled easily.

'The Old King joined intrigue with the Ruminants,” I replied calmly. "It was his intention to betray us both, to extinguish the race of werewolves and keep his line alone. But I had to put a stop to him.”

"By killing everyone?" Anger began creeping into her voice. "Children included?"

"I spared his daughter." I met her gaze steadily. "Eudora lives. And I shall marry her, as the treaty calls for.”

Seraphina's eyes narrowed. ‘“Our peoples must wed in order to bear children who would inherit’ — he mimed hiccupping. It was designed to be a guarantor of peace — not an instrument of vengeance.”

So she suspected. Of course she did.

“I'm not sure my reasons really affect what happens,” I said warily. "Eudora and I are mates. The bond is real. Any kids we have will meet the treaty obligations."

"Mates." Seraphina said the word again with great deliberation, as though she were sipping it. "How convenient."

The other witches murmured behind her. I overheard snippets of their conversation, worry about the bloodshed, questions whether the treaty held.

“I would like to visit the girl,” said Seraphina. "Immediately."

"Of course." I had expected this. "Yamal, fetch the princess."

My Beta nodded and went away into the palace. She still studied me, her face unreadable. The other witches spread out, searching the palace grounds in greater detail. One brushed a bloodstain on the stoop and stepped back in revulsion.

“You certainly do know how to make an entrance, young king,” Seraphina murmured. “But words also have consequences that you can’t expect.”

"I'm ready for whatever happens.

"Are you?" She cocked her head, and looked at me as if I were a mystery she could not quite comprehend. "Vengeance is a hungry beast. It consumes everything, even the ones who feed it.”

Before I had a chance to answer, the palace doors swung open. Yamal appeared, flanked by two guards and Eudora.

My breath caught despite myself.

She was dressed in a plain, light blue dress that accentuated her purple eyes. Her silver hair was loose and fell in waves down her back. But it was the face she made that really commanded attention. Unrepentant, unapologetic, left with zero fucks to give about anything.

Beautiful. The word surfaced unbidden.

Seraphina's reaction was immediate. Her eyes, silverflecked, grew wide and veiled as though in recognition of something. Then brief but unmistakable pity, which she quickly concealed.

"Child," she gasped, taking a step towards Eudora. "Oh, child."

Eudora’s façade of resistance faltered a grating measure, confusion peeking through. "You know me?"

"I knew your grandmother." Seraphina cupped Eudora's face softly, stroking her cheek. "You have her eyes. Her spirit, too, I think."

The words hung in the air. I had never even met Eudora's grandmother; I hadn't thought to inquire about the mother's side of her family. But obviously there was a history here I didn’t grasp.

Seraphina's face sharpened and she looked back at me. "Does she know? About her heritage?"

“She knows what it is worth,” I said, not sure, in whatever it was the High Witch was implying.

"That is not an answer." Then Seraphina’s magic sputtered with warning, and the air took on tangible weight. “Does she understand why her line of blood is so important to the treaty? I wonder if she knows what she really is?”

Silence. Eudora peered from me to Kennet, her frown shading darker.

"I see," Seraphina said coldly. “You’re going to use her and not even give her the truth. How noble."

"What truth?" Eudora demanded, finding her voice. "What is she talking about?"

I gritted my teeth, feeling rage well up. This was not how this meeting was meant to unfold. "That can be discussed later."

"It will be discussed now." The tone of Seraphina's voice left no room for debate. “But first, Eudora, I have a question for you. And I want an honest response.”

Eudora straightened, lifting her chin. "Ask."

‘Do you agree to this marriage? Not as a prisoner or political pawn, but as you. Do you choose this willingly?"

The question stayed in the air like a sword. It all came to this, everything I had arranged, the careful planning — riding on Eudora's reply. If she denied my help, if ever revealed the truth of what I had done and was doing to her hand, Seraphina would retract support of the witches. The treaty would crumble. War would follow.

I studied Eudora’s face, attempting to understand what she was thinking. The mate bond thrummed between us, but it was of no use to me. Except that she was conflicted, torn between options I could not see.

Our eyes locked in from across the room. Purple locked with blue. I witnessed the hatred there, burning as strongly ever. The threat of retribution, of pain she would cause if the opportunity ever presented itself.

Then, impossibly, she smiled.

I held my breath as Eudora’s purple eyes met mine, so much hatred simmering within their depths. Seraphina remained and the very air was holding its breath. My princess was capable of undoing everything with a single utterance. Then, to my surprise, Eudora grinned at the High Witch -except she wasn’t smiling with her eyes.

"I consent," she said softly. But as Seraphina walked off with a smug smile, Eudora's eyes locked with mine once more and the gleam of murder in her countenance could NOT have been clearer. What was she planning?