SEBASTIAN
Groaning as I leaned over the sink, I splashed water on my face, hoping it might help wake me up. Last night, the ball stretched until the early hours of dawn. The entire ordeal was exhausting. Social gatherings like that always pushed me to my limits, even without the added stress of the Tether.
My shadows hated being in such close quarters with so many others, and the wards Mother insisted on putting over the ball had been like an itch that I couldn’t scratch. I’d been uncomfortable the entire night until finally we fulfilled our social duty and returned to our room. Luna had collapsed on the bed as soon as we got back, and this evening when I woke, she was still slumbering.
I couldn’t get the image of her brown hair fanned out on the pillow behind her out of my head. It wasn’t that I had intentionally watched her sleep… I just couldn’t pull my eyes off her. Luna’s sleeping form was so peaceful and provided such a contrast to the mouthy female who had spoken back to Mother.
Shortly after Luna woke, Julieta arrived with breakfast. Wanting to give the two females some space, I slipped into the bathing room to take care of my needs. As I prepared for the night ahead, one thought kept reappearing in my mind.
Maybe being Tethered to Luna wasn’t the worst thing in the world. Allies, she called us the night we learned about the Tether that lay between us. I liked that.
Maybe I wanted us to be more than allies. Nothing about the past two weeks had been normal, but my life hadn’t been normal since the night of my Making.
Murmured conversations filtered through the air, and the door clicked shut as Julieta left, promising to come back later. Brushing a comb through my hair, I took a deep breath before stepping through the shadows into the main room. Luna’s scent washed over me, and my stomach twisted.
My hunger was growing more pronounced by the hour. Thank the gods, Mother did not force me to feed at the ball. Even so, I couldn’t go on like this forever. The queen knew it. I knew it.
Still, I wouldn’t force Luna to let me bite her. If Mother insisted, I would do everything in my power to resist her order for as long as I could.
Fabric rustled, and I turned, finding Luna standing at the largest window as she clutched the frame. Her back was to me, the obsidian dress she wore hugging her waist before flaring out around her. Her hair fell in soft ringlets down her back, her softness a stark contrast to the stone castle all around us. An empty coffee mug sat on the windowsill next to her hand, and my stomach twisted.
The caffeinated beverage did little to temper my hunger, but at least it tasted better than the damned deer’s blood. I was drinking as much of the substance as I could handle, and yet, it did next to nothing. Tonight, I woke up with a pang of ravenous hunger. There was no other recourse for me. Even thinking about drinking from a human who wasn’t my Bound Partner made me want to throw up. There was no way I would do that.
Going hungry was my only course of action. A lesser male might have forced his wife to let him drink from her the moment they wed, but I was not that.
My wife.
That still felt strange. I thought I would resent Luna after I realized we were Tethered, but I didn’t. If anything, I found a strange solace in being in this situation with someone else. For the first time in centuries, I wasn’t alone.
Stepping through the shadows in such a small room was as easy as drawing breath. I materialized behind Luna, placing my hands on either side of her as I peered over her shoulder out the frosted glass.
Keeping a few inches between us, I asked, “What are you looking at?”
She stiffened, and her back straightened so fast that she almost bumped into me.
“Oh, I didn’t hear you.” Luna’s breath left an imprint on the window and she placed her palm on the frosted glass. “It’s just… there are so many mountains here.”
Staring out the window, I tried to see things from Luna’s perspective. Mother gave me this room shortly after I was Made, and the view had barely changed since then.
I supposed it was picturesque, in a glacial sort of way. Snow-covered mountains stretched as far as the eye could see, their frosted peaks illuminated by the brilliant moonlight that shone down on this rare, clear night.
Heavy layers of snow dusted the thick evergreen forests that surrounded Castle Sanguis and various shifters guarded the structure, their bodies standing out against the white powder. Two to three times the sizes of their animal counterparts, shifters were easy to distinguish from the rest of the natural wildlife in Eleyta.
Some were perched on high trees, their watchful eyes taking note of everything that happened in the forest, while others were stationed on the castle itself. Still more were hidden from sight, their locations unknown to most. My mother had guards—visible and invisible—in every single city, town, and village under her jurisdiction.
An owl shifter swooped in front of the window, and Luna gasped. “Did you see that? The owl was enormous!”
Her wonder at the small things in my world that I had long since stopped noticing was amazing. Being alive for such a long time had made me forget about the beauty that could be found in the world around me.
I chuckled. “I did.”
Luna traced a pattern on the glass. “Growing up, we didn’t have mountains or snow. I read about them, of course. But to see them so close is different. I thought…” She shook her head. “When I came here, I didn’t think beauty could exist in a place like this.”
“What do you think now?” I whispered.
She turned, her eyes sweeping over me before the corner of her lip twitched. “I think I was wrong.”
My muscles tightened at Luna’s words as warmth spread through me. Was she still talking about the landscape? Or was she saying something else?