Hekate’s Bride

“Just a couple of bruises. She’s already healing. It might take a while since she’s a wolf but she should be fine by tomorrow,” the nurse says to Darian.

She’s nice, which is plenty weird for her race. She shifts her glasses up on the bridge of her nose and squints down at the bruise on my neck.

“Does this hurt?” She asks and I wince when she prods the column of my throat.

“Yeah,” I whisper. My throat still feels sore.

Her warm brown eyes flick swiftly over my form and she pulls a note out of her white coat, turning away from me as she scribbles something on it.

Darian shoots me an apologetic look, and I avoid his gaze, looking out the window instead. He is leaning lazily against the wall, watching my every move. He has been doing that for the past hour, scanning me as the nurse treated me, offering me water and speaking softly like… like I’m something to him.

I’m not sure how lycans woo their women, but that isn’t how it is done in Wolvendom.

Admittedly, Darian is the hottest guy I have ever seen. Hotter than Thorne.

But Thorne and I have a connection, and I’m not going to throw that away for the lycan’s firm and nice looking backside that I try not to look at every time he turns.

Yes. I’m a sucker for hot men.

My thoughts drift to Rune. I don’t know what to feel about any of this. Fear? Anger? More hate? Why did he attack me? What happened to him? Why was I the trigger to whatever psychotic issues he has going on with him?

And there comes the thought I absolutely abhor the most.

Is he alright?

I shiver and my fingers rise to touch the bruises on my neck.

He could have killed me.

A slight knock on the Infirmary door has me momentarily distracted from my thoughts of Rune’s wholly black eyes as he had strangled me.

Someone steps in and from the uniform he wears, he is a sentinel. He bows slightly, deferring to nurse who’s going through the tubes arranged in neat lines on her white panel. “I apologize for the interference, Nurse Ayla, but the Chancellor has summoned Astrid Blackwood to his office.”

There’s a cold feeling in my chest and my brows furrow in confusion.

The nurse waves in dismissal without looking up. “I’m done examining her.”

I stand from the bed. The aches are barely noticeable now and I can move without wincing. I straighten my uniform and fix the top button of my shirt. “Why has he summoned me?” I ask the sentinel.

And as always, there is no reply.

His face is hard as stone. Like every other sentinel.

“Am I being punished?” I ask again, wrapping my hair in a bun.

You just never know with these people. Nothing surprises me anymore in this place.

The sentinel doesn’t answer and instead, Darian says, pulling away from the wall he has been leaning on in that insufferable pose, “Can you walk?”

I nod, swaggering forward for effect.

Darian chuckles lightly and I meet his gaze. His golden eyes are lit with amusement and my body hums with strange excitement at the taunting curve of his lip.

An alarm goes off in my head and I tear my gaze from him, walking out of the infirmary swiftly to hide the flush on my face from him.

By the time we reach Chancellor Vesper’s door, my insides are in knots. Anxiety makes my pulse pound abnormally.

The sentinel presses his hand against the door and it swings open, letting us in.

I pause in my steps when I catch sight of Rune’s pale hair.

No shit. Am I really getting punished for Rune’s slight?

There are two chairs in front of Chancellor Vesper desk. Rune’s seated on one– more like lounging in it like he owns the place, and I suppose the other chair’s mine.

“You may go, Asher. Sit, Blackwood,” the chancellor says without looking up.

I steal a glance at Rune. He seems relaxed as usual, like he had not tried to killed me a little over an hour ago.Belonging © NôvelDram/a.Org.

Letting out a breath, I pull back the chair beside him, further taking pains to put enough distance between our chairs before I settle beside him.

“You both must have heard of Alaric Grimshaw’s death,” he starts, hitting a red stamp in top of a file.

My gaze is drawn to the large smart screen on the wall behind him. I can’t be too sure, but that was not there before.

“We thought it might have been a mistake on our end. However, another new intake has been found dead in the Werewolf Academy.”

My mind begins to race as a couple of faces cross my mind. The look he gives me only confirms the fear that blooms in my heart and I start to hyperventilate.

“I believe he is the son of your pack’s Gamma–”

“No,” I whisper. My hands–my whole body–I am shaking uncontrollably. Fine tremors fill me, and a numbing cold settles in my gut. My hands press together painfully and emotions begin to rise, filling me to the point where I think I might just explode, all the while I am whispering, “No.”

“Orion Frostclaw.”

“No,” I say as the pressure behind my eyes rises.

“Astrid Blackwood,” Chancellor Vesper says, his stark voice cutting through my heart wrenching wail. His eyes are hard and void of emotion as he says, “If you wish to mourn, do it elsewhere. I have called you for something else.”

I clamp down on the cries that are about to escape me. Orion? The strange twinkling of his sapphire eyes are still fresh in my mind and my lips still bear memories of the kisses we shared in the castle’s storeroom.

He’s dead?

I want to ask what happened; yell that it isn’t possible, but something starts to beep in the office and the smart screen comes on, a green emblem flashing on its screen.

The chancellor looks between me and Rune before tapping softly on a red button by the edge of his desk. “It is prohibited to connect with others outside the premises, but dire situations require dire actions. You have five minutes each to converse with them.”

He stands from his seat as the screen comes alive and I am struck by the image of my father and mother, staring strangely at the camera. Rune’s parents are in the picture as well, speaking to my father who seems to be fumbling with what resembles a speaker.

My mother’s dark brows are furrows. “How do these things work? Such complicated sets of cords,” she mutters, adjusting the flaps of her elegant coat that matches the maroon tailored one my father is wearing.

“Mom?” I say, voice breathy and hoarse, but I don’t think they can hear me yet, or see us.

“Aha!” Queen Zephyr jubilates and she straightens when she realizes we can see them. “Astrid, my dear, have you been well? I heard what happened and–”

King Fenrir clears his throat, silencing her. She shoots her husband a glare before reclining in a black couch, a perfect figure of elegance.

“Rune,” King Fenrir says and his dark green eyes are so cold, it causes me to shiver.

I wonder if that is where Rune gets his ruthless side from.

“Father,” Rune says, matching his father’s energy and it occurs to me that I’m probably infringing on family time.

I start to rise but my father cuts in, “Stay, Astrid. This is for the both of you.”

I relax, wiping the under of my eyes quickly before anyone can see the tears rolling down. Keeping my act together is hard, but I must. Before everything else, Orion was my friend.

Was…

Fuck. I’m speaking of him in past tense now.

“We had thought the first wave of attacks would be in our realms, hence we fortified our defenses against him and his army, but it would seem we were wrong.”

I sit up in my chair, looking at my parents rather than Rune’s father. “I don’t understand. What do you mean? The Blood Moon isn’t until another decade.”

My father’s lips tighten. “It would seem he found a way out of the veil earlier than we surmised.”

Terror has my eyes widening. “The Hekate has broken through the Veil?”

Father sighs. “Not the male himself, else, we would not be seated here. We think that he has conjured a way to get his men out. The Grand Mistress deems this possible, since the Void Realm was originally created to contain him. If his men tried getting out hard enough, they would.”

“Why attack the schools first?” Rune ask, managing to look both bored and unfazed by the revelations. I wonder if he already knew of this before, and just how much of it he knows. “The schools are hidden and protected. They were created after his containment. There is no way he should even be aware of their existence. I saw the footage. Alaric walked out of the school himself. No lycan’s aura has a reach strong enough to rip through the magic that defends the schools.”

As much as I hate to admit it, Rune is right. “Perhaps, there is another reason why this has happened.”

My mother’s blue eyes pin me to the chair as she says, “We decided to keep this quiet to avoid panic–”

“Keep what quiet?”

“The land outside the schools have begun to rot.”