With that, I turn and head upstairs with hard, angry strides. When I reach my room, I breathe through my anger and panic. I will meet the man I am to marry tonight—what if I hate him as well? What if he’s a stuffy noble? Can I really live the rest of my life biting my tongue?
Swallowing, I slip from my cloak just as the door opens behind me and two ladies’ maids hustle in. I nod at them as they rush to run the bath. Turning to my dressing table, I remove my jewellery and delicately place them in my silver box, my finger catching on the only piece I wish I could wear…
The heart charm is on a delicate silver chain, it’s simple…and from my best friend—the prince. I haven’t worn it since his death rites, since the queen saw it and knew his handiwork and grew angry.
Narrowing my eyes, I grab it and thread it around my neck and lock the clasp, holding it in my hand. It’s an act of defiance, right in the face of the queen. If I am to lose my freedom and very life tonight, I will do so as me.
Damn the consequences. It is time I figure out who I want to be.
Slate
The bullet eats into my leg, making me limp worse until I barely get back to my den in a pain-filled haze. I gnaw at my leg, but it’s useless, so I dig my claws in, but the angle isn’t good and I can’t reach it.
I release a useless howl as I attempt to push the change to become human so I can remove the bullet. I feel the tingling as it tries, but the same thing that has been suppressing it for nearly a hundred years makes it impossible.
Instead, it cripples me.
Pain surges through me, and my legs collapse beneath me as I curl on my side, whimpering as it flows through my body. The agony cuts off the noises in my throat, and I am unable to speak, see, or hear. I’m weak to attack.
I push through it, grabbing at my human half buried deep within, but like smoke, it escapes my grasp time and time again. Grinding my fangs, I gnash at the ground as I recoil from the pain.
My roar of anger echoes both in my mind and in real life, and outside, the wildlife around is quieting in fear of the monster in their midst.
The great black wolf.
The Mortgo.
Death Eater.
And. I. Cannot. Save. Myself.
I slump back to the ground, my belly heaving with my struggling breaths, as the pain from trying to change retreats now that I’ve stopped pushing it.
One day, I want to walk as a human again, to hold my brothers, to smile and laugh…but that will never happen. I thought I had accepted it, but this just shows me that I have not. My wolf wraps around me protectively.
As the first of my kind, we have always been together. I was born with him. Once, he even had a separate name. He was always a bit wild, feral almost, running around and biting people—that’s how we got shifters, after all—but I could always change back.
Now, after the injections, we are more like one, yet still so very different, two brains blending together. His name is no longer whispered, we are both Slate. Even if I could change back to human, I do not think I would be the same.
I would be an animal.
Is this my life from now on? The years passing in a blur of hunting, sleeping, and exploring the forest? Never to be free, never to see my family, never to love?
I have walked alone for so long, it has become my nature, but in that loneliness was my hope that I would one day find someone to walk with.
Now I never will.
The area around the bullet starts to go numb as it heals, my leg becoming useless. Before long, it will spread across my entire body until each movement is difficult, and soon it will try to kill me, to stop my heart and freeze my lungs. But I will heal. It’s an endless cycle.
Until the agony gets to be too much and I end it myself.
Alejandra
I slip into the drawn bath, the flowers and milky colour fused with soothing magic to rejuvenate my skin and hair. The maids bustle around, getting everything ready, and when a knock comes at the door, I know it’s tonight’s dress.
I hear them whispering, wondering about the ball and what sort of gossip they can charm from the guards.
Ignoring them, I submerge myself under the milky water until I hear nothing, my eyes open as my magic curls through me like a warm hug. It’s trying to comfort me, but also wanting to be let out. It has been too long since I released it all, to do so is dangerous. If someone sees…
When my lungs scream for air, I break through the surface of the water and push my wet hair back as I lean against the tub, letting the warm liquid wash away my tense muscles, but it cannot touch my worries for what this evening holds.
The queen is unpredictable, has been since her son’s death, so it should make for a terrifying evening—not to mention meeting my future husband.
One of my maids peeks her head around the door, and when she sees me, she moves closer and starts washing my hair. I don’t speak, even though I want to. I know the punishment if my mother ever heard. I trust Cook to never rat me out, but the maids are known gossips, even if they are lovely people.
“I hear that you were down near the fields today, miss,” she murmurs, as she washes my hair. Her name is Benfor, and she has glamour magic and a small dose of healing. I know her mother and father died when she was younger. I even know she had her heart broken recently. She turned up one day with red eyes and a stuffy nose despite her magic. She cried on my shoulder when I asked.
But my speaking puts her in danger.
She leans in closer and drops her voice. “Thank you. I have many friends down there who you have helped. I just wanted to let you know, we see you.”
I blink and look over at her as she smiles softly and sits back as the other maid enters. “Your dress is ready, miss.”
I swallow and force a smile. “Thank you,” I tell both of them, showing them what she just said made me feel better on a day when I thought nothing could.
Once my hair is washed, I rise from the bath, uncaring about my nude body in front of them, since it’s nothing they haven’t seen before. They respectfully drop their eyes, and I stand as they blast me with their magic, instantly drying my hair and body. I grab a robe and slip into it, tying it loosely as I wander into my room and sit for them to prepare me.
The one who spoke starts on my face—using makeup, not glamour—while the other begins to wind and curl my hair with her magic. She pushes it into a tight topknot coil with tendrils of my silver locks framing my face.
I sit through it all, straight and silent. My mind screams at me for what is to come, but no one would ever notice that my heart is breaking inside.
For the love I will never have and the life I will never live.
When they are done, I let them adorn me with jewellery and a large, dangling headpiece filled with glittering gems to match my tinted silver lips and eyes. They add ornate ear cuffs and dangling jewels, but when they go to drape a necklace around my neck, I stop them. They hesitate, but I assure them it’s okay as I rise and drop the robe.
They dress me swiftly, putting on an underskirt and corset before slipping me into the gown. It truly is a masterpiece. The silver fabric looks like a glittering jewel, catching the light of the room and sparkling. The sweetheart bodice pushes up my breasts until they almost tumble free, and the waistline cinches in before the material flares out into a large, sheer skirt with many layers. Across the bodice and flowing onto the skirt are real, sweet-smelling flowers cascading like a waterfall, and as I move, they almost come alive.