A Throne of Fangs

2 - Power for A Crown

Hushed whispers followed me around my packhouse, my home. I was used to being followed by servants or guards as the daughter and sole heir of Alpha Arthur of The Western Pack, formally known as The Western Kingdom.

Our land had once been four separate kingdoms before they were united under one king, King Griffen, the unifier… or conqueror, depending on which side you were on.

He was the first wolf to rule men.

King Griffen ruled from The South and gave the duty of overseeing the other territories to the three he deemed strongest amongst the few first wolves that had changed with him. In exchange for land and power under his rule, they had to swear an oath to keep their bloodlines pure.

He believed he had a divine right to rule based on a prophecy that was now only scattered whispers.

It was the first taste of power they had ever held in the civilized world, and it took hold of them. To maintain their rule, above all else, they must preserve their wolven bloodlines. To remain separate from the weakness they ruled and not dilute their power.

To this day, the kingdoms remain as one under the wolven crown.

King Griffen’s line has now passed through generations, as did the lines of his three chosen wards.

My family were the wards of The West, a title that might have been seen as dukes and duchesses in another life. But names held power, fear, and the kingdoms became known as packs, their leaders as Alphas and Lunas, lest the humans ever forget what creature they bowed to.

“Miss Anaya.” A human servant bowed her head when she saw me, averting her eyes. I could tell she had a question, but more than that, I could smell her fear, and I hated it, hated that we were something to fear just because of what we might have been.

“Yes?” I asked gently.

“Your father would like to see you.”

“Where is he?”

“The dining room.”

I nodded and shifted my direction from my aimless wandering toward the great dining hall. This place, though formidable and cold to some, felt comforting. It held the memories of my childhood and my mother before she passed. These stones held her warmth, her laughter, and I could feel it seeping from them.

I rounded the corridor to the dining hall, and the warm memory immediately leeched. I pulled up the side of my lips from the frown that instinctually happened when I was met with a face I had grown to hate. Bethany, my dad's ‘friend,’ as he told me to call her, stood stoically outside the dining room doors alone.

She gave me a tight smile. “Ah, Anaya,” she greeted me. Her impossibly large eyes always made it seem as if she were about to cry, and I wished she would.

She was only a few years my senior and had started on the outskirts as one of my mother's ladies' maids. My mother had passed not even a year ago, and she had pushed her way into my father's good graces, preying on his sorrow.

My father was broken when she passed, even more than I was. The doctors deemed her death to be from a common illness. Wolven descendants rarely even got sick. We died from old age or on the battlefield.

We might not be as connected to the part of us that was once wolves, as we had been only a few generations past, but we maintained our heightened senses and immunity to human diseases.

We both drowned in a heady mix of shock and grief. What pulled my father and I back, if only barely to the surface, was our positions. Our lives belonged to the territory, to the pack, and we had to overcome our grief. We had something bigger, something separate to focus on.

It was a life I would willingly live. I was a vessel of my bloodline, and I had not only accepted it but had welcomed the thought.

Traditionally, daughters were raised to be Lunas to create petty political alliances through marriage. The eldest sons were raised to be future Alphas, wardens of the packs. If they were blessed with more sons, they would be diplomats or generals. Something pompous with a pretty title to keep them out of trouble and to appease them to not fight for the title that hadn’t been chosen for them.

But my mom was only able for one heir, so the title would be mine. A pure and direct wolven bloodline was to be put above all else.

I stopped feet away from her. “Bethany.” I nodded curtly, not even bothering to return her tight smile.

"Darling," she greeted me again, but there was no warmth in her voice.

She held out her slender arms to me and wrapped me in them but still managed to hold me at arm's length. When she pulled back, she was still clutching at my shoulders, straightening my gown. She gave me a pitying look, but I knew her well enough to know it was fake.

I didn’t know if she had an ounce of realness left in her. I used to wonder who she might have been before she turned into a shell of a courtier, hellbent on what I assumed was power. I had seen her flicker through smiles when she thought no one was looking, her face contorting with the effort. Sometimes, her expressions lagged when she was searching for the perfect one, and her brow raises and dips were calculated.

I would have admired it if it weren’t so harrowing… and if she were better at it.

"We have some exciting news, come come." She ushered me into the dining room.

As soon as I was in my regular seat to the right of my father at the head of the table, she went to stand behind him, placing a hand on his shoulder and looking at me with an expression I couldn't read, but I hated.

“Why such a formal meeting?” I asked.

No one else was here, bar a few guards. I could have met him in his office, a place I knew well. Anytime he skipped dinner, I would linger outside his office until he called me in. Some of my favorite nights were spent listening to his meetings and strategies until I fell asleep in a chair in the corner by the fire.

My father cleared his throat, and I focused my attention on him, trying my best to ignore that clawing figure behind him. "My dear girl.” His lips curled into a tight smile, but it didn’t make his eyes dance like they used to. Nothing did, actually, since my mother passed. Even so, this wasn’t a real smile; this wasn’t one I had ever seen directed at me.

“Father,” I responded with the same cool indifference, bracing myself for I didn’t know what.

He sucked in a breath, not expecting that tone from me. “Finally, it is time for you to live your own life. I've chosen a great proposition for you, and you will be married in a fortnight."