The Deal

*Blanca*

Vomit rises up my throat as I wait as patiently as possible for Kieran to leave the tent. I can’t allow myself to think about what happened last night–what we did. If I do, I’m likely to throw up everywhere.

Tears sting my eyes for so many reasons, I couldn’t possibly name them all. Here I was thinking the Haze would be my ticket out of this hellhole, that I’d meet my mate, and he’d sweep me away.

Instead, the Moon Goddess made me the butt of Her own sick, twisted joke. What the hell will our parents do to us if they find out about this? They’ll kill me. Like Kieran, they’ll assume I’ve learned some sort of magic that would make this possible.

I truly don’t think there’s any magic in the world that would make this happen, but nothing makes sense at the moment. I need to do some research.

I turn around to look at the unzipped tent, wondering if Kieran is gone. I see his legs through the flap and then hear another voice.

“Oh, Goddess no!” I whisper. I never would’ve thought that this day could get any worse. When I hear Nessa’s voice, I know I am doomed. “Why does the Moon Goddess hate me?” Did I wrong Her in another life?

I move over to the tent opening so I can hear better, but I don’t dare show my face. Kieran would kill me.

“You can come out, little whore,” Nessa says to me. “I already know it’s you, Blanca. Goddess, what a fucking sicko.”

I don’t move. I’m not getting out of here, not unless my bro–Kieran tells me to.

“Come on, Blanca.” His voice is so full of defeat, I hardly recognize it. I’ve never heard him sound so depressed before, not that I blame him.

Slowly, I crawl out of the tent and stand a few feet away from them. A quick glimpse around makes me think there’s no one else nearby. I hear birds singing cheerfully, which seems like a mockery to me at the moment. I sniff the air, but no other wolf or human scents hit me. Just me and Kieran and Nessa–and sex.

“Here’s my proposition.” She folds her arms under her boobs, pressing her chest up. “If you don’t want anyone to know what the fuck you two weirdos just did, Kieran, you’re going to tell everyone that I’m your mate. We’ll get married. I’ll be queen. And you, little bitch, will tell everyone you didn’t find your mate, and when we are in charge, you’ll just go away.”

I stare at her for a long moment trying to figure out how this is a problem for me. Two things come to mind. “What about the pain? We marked one another.” My hand goes up to the spot above my right breast that is already throbbing a bit from all of the rejection Kieran spewed at me earlier.

“You’ll learn to live with it, bitch,” Nessa tells me. It’s like she thinks bitch is my name. “Kieran is strong enough to get through it.”

I shift to look at him. His icy blue eyes are fixed on the forest floor, unblinking.

“And what about your mate?” I ask. Nessa is our age. She should have found her mate last night, too. But she’s not from Dun’s Crossing, and it’s possible her mate isn’t here.

I get my answer when she scowls. “I don’t have one, I guess.”

Rather than argue with her that she may meet him one day, I take a deep breath and swallow hard. “It’s not really my decision,” I remind them both. “I don’t want to tell anyone what happened. My mark isn’t where you can see it.”

Kieran’s is. I can see part of it peeking out of his collar. “Fine.” Again, he doesn’t even look up. He is choosing the lesser of two evils, and as much as I can imagine no one would ever want to marry Nessa, I sure as hell know no one would ever want to marry me.

Especially not Kieran.

My twin brother.

It’s not even legal, for obvious reasons. In fact, I’m pretty sure there’s a law that says we can both be put to death for what we did.

Not that we had a choice or any control over it.

“I won’t tell anyone.” I barely recognize my own voice. I start to walk between them toward the castle when Kieran’s fingers grip my wrist, pulling me back toward him.

“See that you don’t,” he seethes, lifting his eyes to look into mine. “If you tell anyone what happened, for any reason, I swear to the Goddess I will cut your heart out. Do you hear me? I don’t know how you did this or what your motivation was, but do not ever mention it to anyone.”

His eyes cut right through me, squeezing my heart even harder than his fingers bite into my wrist.

I don’t bother to try to wrench my arm away from him. “I told you I won’t,” I whisper. “I didn’t do this.”

He tosses my wrist out of his grasp and wipes his hand off on his shirt like it’s covered in garbage. I try not to let the tears fall again, not because of his cruelty; I’m used to that. But in the back of my mind, I keep thinking that my mate will save me.

Jokes on me.

I turn and begin my trek toward the castle. I’m not even sure where I’m at, honestly. I never leave the castle grounds, so I could be anywhere in the dense woods that spread out across the rolling hills around the castle.

Birds chirp in the trees as if nothing horrific has happened recently. They are probably just happy that the Haze is over, and they can see during the day again.

“It’s too bad you can’t show me the way,” I murmur to a particularly beautiful bluebird perched on a tree branch above my head.

Whistling a cheerful song, the bird flutters in front of me to a tree a few yards away and lands again, continuing with his tune.

My forehead furrows as I look at him. Is he… waiting for me? When I catch up with him, he does the same thing again, jumping to another tree. I follow. For the next half hour or so, we play this game where I walk and he flutters away and I catch up to him until I see the top of the castle in the distance.

Surprised, I lift a hand, and he flies over to me and lands on my finger. “Ca-can you understand me?”

In response, he sings his little song, and I gasp. It’s like he really does know what I’m saying. I don’t understand what’s happening. From the bird in the dungeon, to the cat, to the mice that helped me escape my room, to this little friend, it seems like the animals can understand me.

None of it matters as I hear the guards at the gate shouting and know that they are alerting my parents that I’ve returned.

My feet drag beneath me as I close the distance, walking through the gate and up the stone path to the castle. The bird has long since left me, and I don’t blame him. No one needs to witness what is going to happen. I have no idea what’s going on with the animals or how I could possibly be mated to Kieran, but I have worked out in my mind that my mother and father have to be the ones who locked me in my room last night.

When I reach the front door, my father’s main advisor, a white-haired older man named Leo, growls, “Blanca, you are wanted in your father’s office.”

“Yes, sir,” I say, despite the fact that I am royalty and not him. I tip my head and make my way to the office, wondering what would happen if I turned around and ran back out of the castle. How long could I live in the forest on my own? Would they send troops to find me? Surely, they would.

Bears. I could ask the bears for help….

“Blanca!” My father’s voice roars out of his office, causing a shiver to go down my spine. “Get in here.”

With no other choice, I walk into his office. My mother stands behind him, her hands folded in front of her. “Where the hell have you been?” she demands.

“I went out for the Haze,” I whisper.

“But how did you–”

My father lifts a hand and stops my mother from talking. I already know what she was going to ask–how did I get out of my room. Apparently, Father doesn’t want her to confirm that the door was supposed to be locked.

Rather than try to explain how I got out of a room she probably locked herself, I am tasked with a different question from my father. “Blanca, did you find your mate?”

I open my mouth to answer.

Visions of the man I had so hoped to find flood my mind. Where is he? Why didn’t he come for me? Why didn’t he rescue me?

I think of Kieran and get hazy flashes of his body moving in the dark. The feel of him. His scent.

I lift my head and look my father in the eyes, knowing what my answer must be.