The Silent Bond

Amber

“Just try not to stare at the gold leaf on the ceiling, Amber. They’ll think we’ve never seen a roof before.”

Lena’s whisper is a warm puff of air against my ear, a small anchor in the glittering, roaring sea of the great hall. I try to pull my gaze down, I really do, but it feels like trying to look away from the sun. Everything shines. Everything glitters with a light that feels ancient and heavy.

“I think they already know that,” I whisper back, my fingers twisting the worn fabric of my tunic. It’s the finest thing I own, dyed a deep forest green, but here, surrounded by silks the color of jewels and velvets as dark as night, I feel like a weed in a rose garden.

My stomach growls, a low, embarrassing rumble. I press a hand against it, hoping no one heard. The smell in this hall is a weapon. Roasted meats dripping with juices I can’t name, bread so rich with yeast and honey it makes my head swim, fruits piled in glistening pyramids that I’ve only ever seen in faded drawings.

“It’s the quail,” Lena says, her eyes wide as she follows my gaze to a platter being carried by a servant. “They’re stuffed with figs and nuts. Can you imagine?”

I can’t. My mind can’t make the leap from the dried roots and tough, stringy rabbit that have been our only meals for months to this… this casual miracle. We are two dozen survivors, the last of the Silverwood pack, huddled at a table near the kitchens, and we are starving. We have been starving for a very long time.

“Remember the plan,” I murmur, forcing my eyes away from the food and onto the stern face of our elder, Ronan, who sits at the head of our small table. His face is a mask of stone, but I can see the tremor in his hands. He’s just as overwhelmed as we are. “We eat what is offered, we are grateful, and when the King asks, I speak. That is all.”

“You’ll be brilliant,” Lena says, squeezing my hand under the table. Her palm is calloused and strong, a familiar comfort. “You always know what to say.”

I don’t feel brilliant. I feel like a child about to ask a mountain to move. I clutch the smooth, cool stone of the pendant around my neck. It’s a simple piece of river rock, polished by my mother’s hands, my only link to a time before the blight took our lands and the sickness took our people. It feels small and insignificant here.

A woman at the next table laughs, a sound like tiny, sharp bells. She leans toward her companion, her crimson lips pulling into a sneer as her gaze sweeps over us. “Look at them,” she says, her voice low but not low enough. “Fringelanders. They smell of dirt and desperation.”

Lena stiffens beside me, her knuckles white where she grips the table’s edge. Her wolf is closer to the surface than mine, quicker to anger. I place my hand over hers.

“Let it go,” I breathe. “We are here for aid, not for pride.”

Her shoulders slump. “I know. It’s just… they have so much. They use more food for decoration than we’ve seen all winter.”

She’s right. The waste is staggering. It’s a physical pain to watch servants clear plates that are still half full. My own stomach aches with a gnawing emptiness that has become my constant companion. I try to eat the small roll of bread in front of me, but my throat is too tight. My whole body is a knot of fear.

Then a hush falls over the hall. It moves like a wave, starting from the grand entrance and washing over the hundreds of assembled lords and ladies, silencing their chatter, stilling their hands. I feel the shift in the air before I understand it. A pressure. A weight. Power so immense it feels like the air itself has grown thicker.

“He’s here,” Lena breathes.

The trumpets sound, a blast of brass and glory that vibrates through the stone floor and up my bones. Everyone rises. Lena pulls me to my feet. I keep my eyes down, fixed on the patterns in the marble floor, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.

“His Royal Majesty, the Alpha King, Theron of the Crimson Peak,” a voice booms, echoing in the sudden, reverent silence.

I can feel him moving through the room. It’s not just the sound of his footsteps, heavy and sure on the stone. It’s a presence, a force of nature. The primal part of me, the omega that lies quiet within my soul, stirs. It recognizes a power it has never encountered before. It shrinks, wanting to hide, wanting to make itself small and unthreatening.

I risk a glance up through my lashes. He is walking toward the high table on the dais at the far end of the hall. He is tall, broader than any man I have ever seen, with shoulders that could carry the weight of the world. His hair is the color of midnight, and though I cannot see his face clearly from this distance, I can feel the force of his command in the way he moves, in the way every single person in this hall defers to him.

He reaches the dais, and a woman rises to greet him. She is stunning, an Alpha female in her own right, her silver hair braided with what look like actual stars. Her gown is the color of blood and she moves with the lethal grace of a predator. She places a hand on his arm, a gesture of familiarity, of possession, and he inclines his head to her. The Queen.

He turns to face the hall. He raises a hand, and the room remains utterly silent, every eye fixed upon him. He begins to speak.

His voice fills the hall. It is deep and resonant, a voice used to command, a voice that could rally armies or soothe a kingdom. He speaks of harvests and treaties, of the strength of his domain. The words are for them, for his lords and his council, but the sound of his voice does something strange to me. It settles a trembling deep inside me I didn’t even know I had.

I find myself lifting my head, my gaze drawn to him against my will. It’s a foolish, dangerous thing to do. I am a petitioner, a nobody. I should remain invisible.

But I can’t look away.

His speech continues, confident and strong, but his eyes are moving, sweeping across the sea of faces before him. It’s a king’s gaze, assessing his court, his people. It passes over lords in their finery and ladies in their jewels. It moves, section by section, getting closer to the shadowed corner where my pack and I are hidden away.

My breath catches. His eyes are about to pass over me.

And then they stop.

They stop on me.

Time doesn’t slow down. It shatters. The entire world, the grand hall, the hundreds of people, the music, the scent of food, it all vanishes in an instant. There is nothing but his eyes. They are the color of a stormy sky, gray and deep and flashing with lightning. And they are locked on mine.

A jolt, violent and absolute, slams through my body. It’s not a thought. It’s not an emotion. It’s a physical impact, as if I’ve been struck by a bolt of pure energy. My wolf, my quiet, gentle omega wolf, rears up inside me with a force I have never felt. It howls a single, soul-shaking word.

*Mate.*

The air is ripped from my lungs. I feel it in him, too. Across the impossible distance of the hall, I see his jaw clench. I see his knuckles turn white where he grips the edge of the great table. His speech falters. He stops talking mid-word. A confused murmur ripples through the silent hall, but it sounds a thousand miles away.

I see everything. I see the strength in his jaw, the hard lines of his life as a king. I see the loneliness in his storm gray eyes. I smell him, somehow, over the cloying scents of perfume and food. Pine trees after a winter rain. Old leather and cold, clean stone. The scent of home. The scent of my soul’s other half.

The bond, the fated connection whispered about in stories, a myth to most, a miracle to a few, snaps into place between us. It is a golden cord of light, of warmth, of pure, agonizing recognition. It pulls at my very center, a divine and primal command to go to him, to be near him, to close the distance that suddenly feels like an unbearable chasm.

I see a flicker of disbelief in his eyes, then a flash of something fierce and possessive, a raw Alpha claim that makes my knees weak. His wolf is calling to mine, a mirror of the howl in my own soul.

*Mine.*

The single, perfect moment hangs suspended in time. It is terrifying and it is the most beautiful thing I have ever known. My life, which has been a long, gray road of hunger and loss, is suddenly flooded with impossible color. This is him. The one. My one chance at a life that isn’t just about survival, but about being whole.

The world begins to bleed back in at the edges. The murmuring in the hall grows louder. Someone coughs. The King does not move. He is still staring at me, his face a mask of conflict.

And then the moment is murdered.

The beautiful Alpha Queen at his side places her hand on his arm again. She leans in, her crimson lips close to his ear, her expression one of cool concern. “My love,” her voice is a perfectly modulated whisper, but in the amplified silence, I hear it. “Are you well?”

*My love.*

The words are daggers of ice in my heart. His gaze breaks from mine, turning to her. The golden cord between us doesn’t break, but it strains, and a cold dread begins to seep into the impossible warmth, extinguishing it like water on a flame.

He belongs to her.

My fated mate. The King. He is already taken.

The magic of the last thirty seconds curdles into pure, sickening horror. This is not a miracle. This is a curse. A cruel joke played by the Fates. My one chance at a full life, the other half of my soul, is the one man in the entire world I can never, ever have.

He looks back at me, his eyes filled with a torment that mirrors my own. The world is fully back now, loud and bright and suffocating. The lords and ladies are whispering, their eyes darting between the frozen King, the concerned Queen, and me, the terrified little omega in the corner.

“Amber?” Lena’s voice is sharp with worry. “Amber, what is wrong? You’re as white as a sheet.”

I can’t answer. I can’t breathe. All I can do is stare at the King, my King, my mate, as his Queen’s perfectly manicured hand rests possessively on his arm. The initial shock is gone, replaced by a cold, terrifying dread that sinks its claws deep into my soul. I came here to plead for the life of my pack. Now I don’t know how I will survive pleading for my own.