1
SAMANTHA
It was cruel that the sun shone brightly today, when everything would change for me.
Today, when there were no more obstacles to block the dark path my future was treading along.
“Are you ready?” the female shifter who had been tending to my dress and veil asked.
I didn’t know her name. She was new, with bright orange hair. This color was unusual in shifters, but Clarity’s alpha, Lorenze Patche, had been collectingany and allshifters who reminded him of Mera and adding them to the pack.
His obsession with the woman who managed to snag the Shadow Beast was at its peak, but if he’d spent any real time with Mera, he’d have known all these new recruits were pale shadows—ironically—of the shifter who was one of my true friends.
Or maybe former friend, since I’d fucked up in a way that possibly couldn’t be undone.
“No, I’m not fucking ready,” I finally said, and my attendant jerked away. Her brown eyes widened enough that my reflection was briefly seen.White.I was dressed in a sleek white dress, off the shoulder and fitted all the way to my heel-clad feet. My dark hair was pulled up, the red undertones standing out against the white veil.
Just as the alpha wanted.
Bastard.
Today I would mate his youngest son, the alpha in waiting: Grant.
Grant was a pathetic beast, but it was hard to hate someone who was just a puppet, living under the control of his father and older brother for most of his life. When the oldest Patche offspring died a few years ago, Grant was suddenly in line for alpha, about to be mated to a complete stranger.
He overcompensated these days, acting all extra-asshole, but he was a damn boy. He was twenty-two years old to my thirty. Our mating was wrong on so many levels, not the least was the fact that his brother had been my true mate, and Alpha Lorenze was trying to replicate something that could no longer be.
Fuck, I wanted to destroy that bastard, but he held the last precious thing in my world, and I couldn’t lose her too.
“Is there anything I can do to help your nerves?” the female asked, misinterpreting myNo, I’m not readyfrom before.
“I just need some time alone,” I murmured, refusing to look her way again.
She left in a hurry, and I remained in the small white tent that had been erected for the ceremony. The mating was to be held in the forests off to the side of one section of mountain, on this perfect summer day. If I’d been truly mating a shifter I loved, it would be one of the happiest days of my life.
Instead, I was a prisoner.
And my time for a miracle had run out.
2
LEN
The trumpets rarely sounded in Faerie, and when they did, it usually meant some cataclysmic event was on the horizon. I spent only half my time on my world of birth these days, and I wished that today I’d chosen to visit the Library of Knowledge and my family there.
However, I was due to see my mother, so I’d made the journey back to Faerie earlier than expected. Just in time for the trumpets.
“I thought I’d find you here.”
Her voice was soft and melodic, and a history spanning over a thousand years flashed before my eyes. My mother had a way about her, that was for sure.
Turning from the weeping wanderer plant, I smiled as Glendriel, queen of the Silver Lands, entered my garden. One of the few who had permission to move beyond the gates, she appeared as if by magic, her long dress sparkling in the bright lights that shone down from the crystals above. Her hair glistened just as brightly, silver and sweeping near her ankles.
“Mother,” I said softly, falling into the less formal greeting. I might be centuries old, but my mother was my leader and elder, and she would always have my love and respect. “What are you doing here? I was on my way to the Silver Lands. I just needed to check in on my—”
“Children?” she interrupted with a lilting laugh. “I’m a plant grandmama and I’m not even upset about it.”
Her energy flowed with her words, power slapping against my skin. Those who were not used to being around her often reacted to her mere presence, but it was comforting to me. My father was taken from us when I was much younger, and since then the two of us had maintained the strength of the Silver Lands. Our royal house had been claimed in battle, and since then we had held on to it through blood and power.
