Chapter 1
Chapter One
Aster
“The alpha requested your presence in the throne room.” Aiden’s errand boy, Sam, a fifteen-year-old wolf shifter molded into a super-servant, looms on gangly legs in the doorway to my chambers.
I stand to follow as ordered.
The throne room. Eye roll.
Because that’s not pretentious.
Aiden uses all the drama and theater of the best cult leaders, following in his father’s footsteps. He rarely subjects me to a big show. I’ve lived in this mansion since I was ten. I am mostly ignored or treated like furniture, which is the way I prefer it.
I drape myself in a white outer robe and go to the mansion’s largest room, where Aiden holds court when he wants to invoke the majesty of the alpha.
I can almost hear Oma scoffing, foolish pup.
At times like this, I’m reminded that I’m the only one who knows that Aiden killed his own father. Not only that, I know something he doesn’t—that he’s not truly the firstborn. If I wanted, I could use this knowledge to challenge Aiden’s rule.
These are dangerous thoughts, but being pack seeress is a dangerous job.
Secrets are power. Aiden knows this.
That’s why he hates me. He doesn’t like anyone having power but him.
With its stone floors and arching beams, the throne room is almost medieval. It stinks like blood. As I walk in, my gut twists. Odin used to deal out his worst punishments here, in full view of the top wolves of the pack.
Today, it’s only me and Aiden. And the Warden. I walk in just as Aiden’s dismissing him. I try not to breathe too deeply, but I still sense his oily gray aura, a putrid fog that stinks like rotting bones. Of all the Adalwulf wolves, his aura is the most tainted. And that’s saying something.
Behind him is another wolf, a thin white woman dressed in the robes of an acolyte.
I recognize her narrow face and long brown hair from my childhood days in Moonhollow.
Vera, I think her name was. She scurries to follow the Warden out a side door, and when I glimpse her aura, it seems just as tainted as his. Who knows how he’s used and abused her.
As he’s leaving, the Warden pauses to shoot me a disdainful look, and I ignore him. He’s not a threat to me right now. I know enough of his secrets to destroy him.
Aiden is another story. He’s a very real and present danger.
There was a time when I hoped a new alpha would make our pack better, kinder.
But it didn’t take long for my childish fantasy to fall away.
Aiden is worse than his father. Aiden isn’t needlessly cruel; he’s strategic about it.
He’s the sort who would patiently explain why your life must be forfeit for the good of the pack, then slit your throat and walk away.
He has no conscience, no empathy. While I feel the full weight of what must be done. My pack has been at war with the Blackthroats since before my birth, and in that war, I am the Adalwulf’s most powerful weapon.
I’m caught between honoring my gift and my calling–listening to the Grandmothers–and trying to survive. It’s like walking a tightrope, blindfolded, over a pool of hungry piranhas.
“Alpha.” I clasp my hands and bow my head before Aiden. His aura is a roiling black with red streaks. Heavy, oppressive, weighing down my shoulders.
“Aster.” He doesn’t call me Seeress, which throws me off, since we’re clearly doing formality at the moment. “The Warden has called to my attention the fact that you haven’t given a credible vision for the pack since the last seeress died.”
A tight fist closes in my solar plexus. I’d feared this day would come, but I hoped I’d given him enough to keep him from demanding more.
“I see visions all the time. Not all come to pass.”
How do I explain that I have bright dreams every night of a gorgeous young man–packed with muscle and fierce with drive–somehow related to the Blackthroat pack. Not a Blackthroat but near them.
Close to our enemy. The visions feel raw and intimate, not like other foretellings. They wake me in the middle of the night. Several times, it felt like the enemy wolf had also been awakened in dreamtime. Sometimes, he looked right at me.
Who is he? Why am I Seeing him? What does he have to do with me?
There’s something inside me that longs to find him, but that’s delusional. Especially if he’s a Blackthroat.
He’s the enemy. And I’m the Seeress. My power lies in my bloodline as a veilwalker, maintaining my virginity–and therefore my second sight–and being bound to the alpha of the Adalwulf pack.
Those tenets have been drilled into me since I was seven years old and selected to be Oma's acolyte. They said my magic was strongest. That I’d be able to hold the binding. And they wanted me to be trained early, so I knew nothing else but this destiny.
But they can’t control my dreams.
Nor can they stop Fate. But I don’t know what Fate wants for me. I don’t know why she is sending me the images of this man. I have enough to deal with in the aftermath of Oma and Odin’s deaths and Aiden’s ascent to power.
Aiden assaults me with his cold blue gaze. “We will complete the Blood Bonding ritual during the upcoming lunar eclipse.”
I reel, suddenly dizzy. The decree punches me in the solar plexus, and I have to struggle to breathe. Outwardly, I show nothing but acquiescence. I know better than to anger my alpha. Aiden’s never struck me in the face the way Odin did, but I watched him kill his father in cold blood.
The Blood Bonding. Dammit. I had hoped Aiden would shun the old ways.
The ritual is the magical binding of alpha to seeress.
Aiden resisted it until now because he knows the binding will siphon some of his life force and alpha power to me.
He needed his strength after murdering his father and taking the helm of a pack that just suffered serious losses in the war with the Blackthroats.
Now, it seems, I’ve made it necessary.
I should have tried harder to receive a message for the pack, but the Grandmothers just weren’t giving me anything I could say. Not without terrible repercussions.
But the lunar eclipse is less than a month from now.
My stomach churns.
Even though I have been groomed my entire life for this binding, the thought of completing it makes me sick.
But I have to. It is part of my role.
There’s no other life for me.
“During the eclipse, you’ll bind your magic, and your fate with mine. Then you will produce the guidance I require.”
Still struggling to breathe around a constricted throat, I bow my head. “Yes, Alpha.”
“You will give your visions to us.”
“Yes, Alpha.”
“If after the binding, you still fail to see beyond the veil, there’s an alternative.”
My head jerks up. An alternative? I thought there was only this one path paved for me. Without meaning to, I raise my gaze and meet Aiden’s stare. His eyes flash silver, a sign that his wolf is ascendant.
There’s a touch of an evil smile on his face when he utters. “You will be made into a sacrifice.”
White-hot lightning strikes my body, burrowing a hole in my skull. My hands begin to twitch with the energy running through me. Still, I force myself to appear calm–not that Aiden can’t smell my fear.
Still, I’m proud of how soft my voice is when I speak. “So you’re saying I must give you credible visions, or you’ll kill me?”
Aiden pins me with his alpha stare, a cruel smile curving his lips. He enjoys my discomfort. Knowing he holds the balance of my life in his hands. He could tell me to drop to my knees right now to beg for it, and I would have no choice.
“No,” he answers finally. “The Warden will breed you, so your children will become veilwalkers. But I don’t want to wait for the next generation to find our true seeress, Aster.”
I blink at him, looking at his throat to avoid the searing alpha gaze. My heart pounds faster than a rabbit’s. Under my seeress's robe, my skin is cold and clammy.
“Don’t disappoint me.”
I shake my head. “I don’t intend to, Alpha.”
He lets that settle between us. I’m trembling, head bowed, hands clasped, legs shaking before him, and he simply makes me wait.
“Good. The Tiara of Ix-Chel is coming to the Gem and Mineral Museum in the city on Thursday. I will arrange a special viewing for you to see it up close.”
It takes me a moment to refocus on the task he’s giving me, my mind still spinning on the Blood Bonding.
“The Tiara of Ix-Chel?” I repeat to buy time.
“It’s a headdress fashioned for the Mayan goddess of the moon, made with a giant moonstone. I want you to hold the headdress in your hands and evaluate it for its power. If you sense any, I will purchase it for the ritual.”
I fold my arms in front of me, keeping my expression calm even though I’m freaking out. “Understood.”
“We need all the power we can get. We live in perilous times. We’re pressed from all sides by our enemies–” He means the Blackthroats.
“And the humans are also becoming more of a threat.” Aiden gazes off into the distance for a moment, while I try to figure out what he means.
I never heard him acknowledge humans as equals, much less a threat.
What is he plotting?
Whatever it is, he doesn’t see fit to share it with me, the seeress he treats like a servant.
“I need your visions, Aster. I need a true veilwalker who can guide us to victory, or we’re all fucked. Understand?”
I don’t, not at all, but I nod anyway. “I live to serve.”
“You do.” His voice is flat. He makes me wait for another interminable minute before he flicks his hand. “You’re dismissed.”