I never looked at myself in the mirror.
If I did, I'd end up seeing the emanating glow from my eyes that foretold a night of tumultuous visions and nightmares 'blessed' upon me by the deity that ruled my kind: the Moon Goddess.
No matter how hard I tried to hide from the visions she gave me, it never worked. I once stayed up for two days straight to hide from her—and ended up in a three-day coma filled with visions of what would happen to me if I ever tried that again. Let's just say they consisted of nameless tortures that I would rather reside in my subconscious than ever be spoken aloud.
Today, though, I peered at my reflection in the mirror as I placed the blue iris contact lenses on my milky white irises that seemed to glow from within after a particularly vivid vision.
The goal was to look 'normal' and not like the Oracle everyone in the kingdom feared. Maybe the contacts would help, or maybe they wouldn't. Only time would tell.
'We don't want any suitable mates getting scared off at first sight of you, Davina,' my parents had said. As if seeing the Oracle in person wasn't enough to strike fear into the hearts of each and every wolf and Lycan in the kingdom, they were forcing me to actively search out a male to rule with me. At school.
Today was my first day at an actual school where I wasn't privately tutored in Latin, French, German, and every other language a prominent wolf community resided—and I was dreading it. As if taking on an entirely new identity wasn't bad enough, I had to deal with adolescent males. That alone was enough to make a girl quake with fear.
They wouldn't know I was a royal, none of them would. I had to go by Vina, a nickname that I particularly loathed, and I would have to use a fake surname, which I loathed even more.
I wasn't ashamed of my royal status or anything of that nature, quite the contrary, I was enticed see what life was like beyond these walls, though the 'school' part was what ended up scathing my nerves the most.
The school I was going to be attending, however, was only a few measly miles away from the castle which I called home, so it wasn't very much of a reprieve when my parents could easily come and snatch me away.
The whole premise of attending one of the most prestigious academies in the kingdom was so that I'd find a suitable ruler to be by my side once my parents stepped down even though that time would be centuries away from happening.
'A young ruler must train to rule the kingdom with you, Davina', my father told me constantly during our lessons. It was better to marry early in order to acclimate the communities we would be ruling to the new monarch, though that didn't necessarily happen with my mother. She married my father after he'd already been the established ruler for centuries.
The majority of students at the academy would be children of higher up generals and soldiers in the castle, children of heroes from the infamous war twenty years ago, and wolves that both my mother and father had hand-picked from nearby communities to attend.
A few of the students, however, were put there by public opinion. My parents allowed a vote to be held for three student spots. They claimed it would be the best schooling in the wolf kingdom which would open certain doors for their children and jumpstart their careers—whether they wanted to be generals or advisors or part of the royal inner circle.
One of the wolves that had won the vote was a son of a previous member of the Order of the Lycans, a group that my father had disbanded after the war because of their treasonous actions. Rumor had it that my father had bad blood with his family and didn't want me to choose that wolf, but he couldn't overturn the vote without receiving bad press from the public.
I didn't care about past history, however; I wanted to meet these people as they were and make judgements on their character when they thought they weren't being judged and inspected by their future queen.
I would be going in undercover, and while that thought intrigued me, it also scared me. It made me wonder if I'd ever be able to make even a single friend there, considering how little social interaction I had been given growing up—especially considering the most I'd been socialized was with my fifteen year old little sister Victoria or our seven year old twin brothers Jameson and Michael.
If I did have social interaction, it would be arguing with an estranged soldier who thought I was a maid and put his hand somewhere he shouldn't or arguing with my tutors on the royal code laws.
This was going to be one of the most challenging aspects of my upbringing thus far, but at least I had the reprieve of knowing that no one had even the slightest inkling of what Princess Davina Alisha Caldwell Kachinova Andonov even looked like. They wouldn't know that the princess to the monarchy of the werewolf kingdom was an Oracle, let alone resembled one in the slightest with deep midnight black hair and the eerie blue moonlight blue eyes that never seemed to lose that ethereal cosmic glow.
A deep, bone heavy sigh left my lungs as I went to finish my normal morning hygiene routine before donning the uniform for Bellator Academy.
And though I wore no makeup save for some under-eye circle camouflaging, no amount of makeup could hide the weariness and exhaustion that crumpled my demeanor after a sinister vision that the Moon Goddess had given me that night.
I didn't scream royalty but my outward appearance also didn't scream suspicious either. Some of the students knew that the princess would be attending classes although they didn't know what I looked like, and for once in my life I was glad that my parents had kept me a recluse to society.
I stepped out of my room with my satchel bag on my shoulder and almost rammed right into Amelia, her matching uniform seemingly more appealing on her lanky body frame and more complimentary to her darker skin tone and hair.
"I almost forgot you were coming with me today," I told her before a twinkling laugh fell from her lips, her dark braided hair swinging behind her as we made our way to the black SUV waiting to whisk us away to our new school.
Though our mothers were best friends, her father was apparently my mother's original soulmate, but he rejected her. It was a scandal that no one would stop talking about after she'd disclosed the information to all of us, and we would always shoot daggers at her father when my mother wasn't looking, but one time she caught us and scolded us, telling us that it was in the past and she got her closure from it and that it was well earned. Apparently she had given him what he'd deserved for rejecting her.
'Leave the past in the past, otherwise you might find something you aren't prepared to find in the first place' she'd said. Her words held a preternatural meaning that sent chills skittering up my spine so I kept my mouth shut and didn't dare glare at Amelia's father in front of my mother ever again.
"Shut up. You know you wouldn't be able to survive an actual high school setting without me."
"They don't want me to find my mate, just a husband to take the throne with..." I trailed off, knowing her reaction would be atrocious.
"What do you mean?"
"My mom doesn't want me to meet my mate because she's sure he'll reject me like hers did to her. She said its best to find someone else before then, just in case mine turns out to be a scumbag. She doesn't want me to even give my true soul mate a real chance—just accept someone's claim blindly without having a clue as to what's out there for me!"
Amelia listened on in quiet contemplation while twirling a dark braid around her fingertips as we strode towards the SUV awaiting us.
It was only until we were safely inside the vehicle that she started screaming.
"Are you kidding me? That's basically an arranged marriage! That is so outdated, and your parents are mates! And yeah, sure, he might reject you but he might also love you with his whole heart for the rest of his life! Not all mates are pure scum bags of hell! This is outrageous, D! You have to do something to stick it to the man, go against the plan and fall for the worst of the worst—pick a guy that they'll totally hate! Ugh, wait, but didn't they choose the cream of the crop with everyone who got into this school?"
That wasn't the outcome I had been expecting from her, but I was liking the direction she was going in.
"Well, actually, there was a public vote, and two out of the three kids who got into the school on public vote are both children from the Order of the Lycans and the third kid who was voted in is one of the wolves' sisters. We should totally befriend them and tell our parents all about it and if one of them actually has potential maybe I'll mention him to my parents and see if they freak out. Let's do it." A mischievous grin befell my lips and my eyes practically burned through the silicone of the contact lenses with moonlight as the pure excitement sparkled in my irises.
I would never betray my one true soul mate by hurting him how my mother wanted me to. I would never accept any wolf's claim until my mate had either officially rejected me or passed away. Otherwise, how could I know what could have been?
I was most definitely not accepting the fact that my parents wanted me to have an arranged marriage, that was certainly not happening. Over my dead body.
I was playing the long game, and my parents were sure as hell not going to like it.
But maybe I would.