Her Silver Eyed Mate

Promises Made

“How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being?”

― Oscar Wilde

Sienna POV

The living room of our penthouse apartment looked as though a nuclear bomb had exploded as everything I would need for this mission was strewn across the cream carpet. There were carefully planned outfit choices which would make me blend in as a twenty-year-old supernatural student but also keep my own quirky style; my own items I was taking with me, such as my devices, a few weapons, my mother’s notebook and other personal belongings; mountains of books on supernatural species so I could swat up on my knowledge of what each species was capable of but also their traditions and customs. It was all quite interesting although a lot of it sounded ridiculous. This idea of mates was the oddest of all. Vampires apparently believe in soul mates and wolves have fated mates. It all sounds like some lame excuse for them to just be possessive of each other and breed more monsters.

I had barely slept over the last week preparing for tomorrow. I had pushed my body to the brink of exhaustion by either training or researching every moment of the day. I had to be ready for this. There would be no second chance and I couldn’t have any surprises thrown my way. I was a control freak at the best of times but there was too much at stake for anything to go wrong here.

A nervous feeling prickled in the depths of my stomach and it made me feel extremely on edge. I never get nervous. Picking up my mother’s notebook, I flicked through it to find the page I needed to ground me. The page that would help me remember that there was no room for nerves. Not when I was about to face the devil himself.

I read my mother’s scruffy, erratic handwriting as I leaned my back against the edge of the couch from my cross-legged position on the floor.

Tuesday (I think)

Guilt. That is all I feel. Guilt and emptiness. I can’t even look at her. My newborn daughter. What if she is like him? What if she turns out to have powers? I couldn’t bear it.

I can hear her crying. But instead of going to her, I am here, writing in this diary because I can’t face the alternative. Looking into her amber eyes just takes me back to those nights. To his glowing fiery pits of hell. They burned like turbulent comets in the sky through the darkness of that abandoned hospital room. The horrors of that place will never leave me. They are etched into my brain like a tattoo. And my body can still feel his aggressive hands, his hot breath on my skin and his violent thrusts as he took everything from me again and again.

I close my eyes at night and I still see him. I still feel him. I hear the screams of other women being raped by those creatures too, but he always came for me. Every night, again and again.

Her crying has stopped. Tommy must have soothed her. How he is still here, I do not know. The wife he loves is gone, replaced by the empty, battered shell of a woman. He went through hell in that place as well, yet he still functions. He more than functions. He is fathering a child that is not his. That was a product of the most brutal and barbaric events of my life. He is an angel. And I… am still in hell.

I want out. I can’t do it anymore. I can’t live like this, feeling like this from the moment my eyes open to the minute they shut. The creature that stole my life is burning in hell but it gives me no peace. Because the man who was behind it all, the man who commanded his kind to rape, torture and turn humans into those hideous beasts is still out there. The hybrid with one blue and one brown eye. Their leader.

I snapped the book shut when I heard Archie entering the apartment and sat up straight. It was always hard to read how much my own mother couldn’t love me, but I didn’t blame her. Twenty-five years ago, both her and my human father were kidnapped by hybrids. They were drugged, tortured and tied to beds for days in an abandoned hospital where the hybrids were using magic to turn humans into hideous beasts to build an army against pure-blooded supernaturals. From what Stanley has told me, they kept the men and women apart. Women in one ward, who were raped over and over every night by hybrids and men who were beaten and tortured in another. My parents had no idea if the other was still alive or if they had been turned into one of those beasts. The man who gave me my supernatural heritage was one of those hybrids who abused my mother. My mother and Tommy always heard the hybrid warriors talking about their ‘commander’. That he was a true hybrid, one of equal bloodlines, which meant he could access both his counterparts' powers, which was extremely rare. They never saw him until the night of the explosion. Tommy, the man who raised me as his own, noticed their commander barrel into the room just as he escaped through a hole in the stone wall that had suddenly appeared. He knew it was him as he had fangs like a vampire but his eyes changed to purple like a warlock.

My parents managed to find each other in the forest and fled, hiding in the thick woodland for a week before they felt it was safe enough to return to their home. By the time my mother realised she was pregnant, she was already a few months along and though she didn’t want to go through with it, Tommy had hoped that it was his child and not the hybrids. But he was wrong.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” Archie said in an exasperated tone. He hated mess. Everything had to be perfectly placed and always immaculate, so the sight of his living room right now would cause him huge anxiety.

“It is organised chaos. I promise. It just looks a mess,” I tried to soothe him and he gave me a pointed look before walking into the open-plan kitchen and grabbing a beer from the fridge.

Things have been a little tense between us since Stanley gave me this mission. Not only does Archie think it is far too dangerous to send me to the academy as myself and live among the supernaturals, but he is also still waiting for an answer to his all-important question. I haven’t meant to keep him hanging for so long, but if I am being honest, my mind has been a little preoccupied. It doesn’t help that we have ended up arguing every time we are in the same room together.

“So you are really going through with this?” His sharp tone didn’t go unnoticed as he took another swig of his beer, watching me carefully.

“Why wouldn’t I be? This is my job. This is what I am paid to do,” I replied with a shrug, not meeting his gaze. It was far more than a job for me and he knew it.

“Don’t give me that bullshit, Enna. You would risk your life and do this suicide mission even if you weren’t being paid.”

I inhaled deeply before responding. This was my last night with him before I left and I had no desire to start another fight.

“Archie. Let’s not do this tonight. I will be gone in the morning and I have no idea when I will get a chance to come back. Let’s try and enjoy tonight, yeah?”

He shook his head as his jaw tensed and he turned his back on me. I stood up from the floor and made my way towards him. Wrapping my arms around his waist, I hugged his back. I could feel all the tension in his body as he stood rigid against my touch.

“Please Arch. Try to understand. You know why I have to do this. This is the very reason I agreed to become an agent in the first place.”

A deep sigh vibrated from his chest as he turned in my arms to peer down at me. Lowering his beer to the kitchen counter, he cupped my face in his hands. “I know. I do. But this isn’t a quick kill, Sienna. You are walking into the lion’s den as yourself. You are not hiding behind a disguise. You put a foot wrong, you get caught… they will know who you are and they will come for you.”

“That is a risk I am willing to take. As long as I achieve what I need to, I do not care what happens to me after,” I said with confidence. It was true. I have never placed any true value on my life. The only worth I have ever felt is when I am helping to rid the world of these monsters. If I die doing that, then I am okay with it.

Archie’s eyes filled with sadness and anger as his hands gripped my face more firmly. “Don’t say that, Sienna. Don’t ever say that again. I care. Val cares. Ronnie cares. My father cares. You have people here who love you. When will you see that?”

I stepped away from his embrace, feeling uncomfortable in the direction this was going. I was no good at goodbyes. I couldn’t say the only thing that would make this okay for him, which was that I wouldn’t go. That I would give all this up and stay with him as his little housewife. But it did hurt me to see him like this. To see how much my choices were causing him pain.

Spinning on my heels, he glanced up at me from where he was now leaning over the kitchen counter looking defeated.

“This is the last one, Archie. If you can support me in doing this, this will be the last one.”

His blue eyes widened at my words and he stood up taller. “You are serious?”

I nodded. “Yes. Once I have done this, I will tell Stanley I will help with admin and profiles, but no more missions.”

He stepped towards me, relief transforming his face. He scooped me up in his arms and held me so tightly in a hug that I had to push his biceps to lean back and look at his face. His eyes gazed into mine with what I think was love, though it was hard to tell when I had never experienced it myself. “And then you will marry me?”

I froze. My eyes darted between his hopeful ones and I knew I had to give him an answer. Right now. No more excuses. I had already made him a promise that I’d quit. Why would I do that if I didn’t see a future with this man? Perhaps I was more open to it than I thought?

“Okay,” I whispered.

His face lit up into a gorgeous smile and he smashed his lips against mine. I closed my eyes and tried to focus on how I should be feeling right now. Who knows, perhaps once I have achieved my life’s work, I could dare to be happy.