The Last Wolf Prince

7 - The King

~~Tristan’s PoV~~

As I lead Raya from the meeting room, I’m relieved that she didn’t overreact to my reticence about finding out we were mates.

Overreact? my wolf snarls in my head. It would have been the appropriate reaction, you simpleton. I wouldn't blame her if she'd rejected you outright. The woman has the patience of a saint.

Thanks for the vote of confidence, Grif.

It’s not that I’m not happy that she’s my mate; I am. I’m very happy to know that I do in fact have one, and if everything Raya’s told me is true, about coming here from the future and all the rest of it, then it explains why I had to wait so long to meet her. It would have been impossible to meet her before now, since she wasn’t in the same time as me until today.

So what’s the problem, then? Griffin demands.

The problem is that now that she’s here, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do next. I always thought it would just fall into place, that my mate and I would spot each other and we’d just naturally know what to do, just like everyone else seems to.

Maybe Yvette is right. Maybe there is something wrong with me after all.

You’re overthinking! Griffin howls at me. Just do what feels right. Like, right now – look at our poor mate. She’s exhausted. Help her.

I glance down at Raya again and see that she is, in fact, struggling to put one foot in front of the other. She didn’t seem so weak when she first arrived – despite being small and slight, there was still a fire in her. Now, it seems to have faded.

Her wolf is getting stronger, but she’s using Raya’s energy to do it. Help her, for crying out loud!

Alright, alright, calm down.

Tentatively, I reach down and put my arm around Raya’s waist to take some of her weight. There isn’t much there to take. She looks up at me in surprise, so I give her a smile of encouragement. “It’s not too much farther.”

There is a chamber next to my own which is used for visiting dignitaries. It’s empty now, since diplomatic visits have been put on hold because of the recent attacks, so that’s where I’m taking her.

“I’m sorry,” she apologizes. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I don’t normally have trouble walking…”

She doesn’t even get the full sentence out before her legs give way, and I quickly pick her up, one arm around her back and the other beneath her knees. As I hold her close to me, my body warms from the contact and her enticing scent fills my nose, giving me a sense of calm I have rarely felt before. She’s still conscious, but just barely, and her head rests against my chest as she struggles to keep her eyes open.

“Don’t worry,” I whisper to her softly. “I’ve got you.”

Now that I’m not trying to match her pace, I move quickly up the stairs and down the hall, nodding at the guard posted at the entrance to the royal family’s private quarters. He is obviously surprised to see me carrying Raya, who must look like as much of a boy to him as she did to me on first meeting, but he says nothing as I walk past him to the door of the guest room.

The room is small but well-appointed, with a comfortable mattress stuffed with straw and down feathers. I lay her gently down on top of it before grabbing a blanket from the end of the bed and draping it over her. Her eyes are closed now, and after a quick glance around, making sure there is no one who might see, I lean down and press my lips to her forehead, for just a moment.

The sparks that travel between us are warm and exciting and soothing all at the same time.

She is my mate; she must be. I know of no magic that could replicate the bond this way. I believe that she did not know it because her wolf is weak, and though I don’t completely understand the reasons she gave for her wolf’s weakness, I have no reason to doubt them either.

Working backwards from that assumption, I have to believe that everything else she told me is true too. Until I have reason to believe otherwise, I will trust my mate because she is my mate, because that bond is sacred to me.

Which means that it is time for me to speak to the king.

Before leaving Raya’s room, I mind-link the servants to ask them to bring food and drink and some proper clothing for her, so that when she wakes up, she will have everything she requires. The room has a small garderobe attached to it, a luxury afforded to very few rooms in the castle. I wonder for a moment if she will know how to make use of it, but surely that is something that cannot have changed all that much in the future.

Taking one last look at her peaceful, sleeping form, I let myself out and leave instructions with the guard that no one besides the servants are to go into the room until I return. With that settled, I head for the king’s bedchamber.

It is impossible to say what kind of mood I will find him in today. The king’s illness came on suddenly a few weeks ago, and it has all his physicians baffled. His body has withered rapidly, and his mental capacities come and go. Some days he is perfectly lucid and much like his old self, and other days he is impossible to speak to, neither comprehending anything nor making any sense.

It is our custom that the king reigns until his death, which is why he is still technically the king despite his ailments. Usually, the king’s death comes in battle; very few have died of illness and even fewer of old age.

Being king is a dangerous profession.

But although he still bears the title formally, in practise, the day-to-day running of the kingdom has fallen to Bertie, and even more correctly, it has fallen to the king’s advisors, and to me, as Bertie’s talents in that sphere are somewhat limited.

He is known as the last wolf prince. He is a legend.

Raya’s words come back to me, and I have to smile, remembering how she described the way Bertie is thought of in her time.

It seems history sometimes takes liberties with the truth.

“Uncle?” I call out as I walk into his room, not wanting to startle him if he is in one of his frightened moods.

“Tristan, is that you?”

I breathe a sigh of relief at the response. Some days he doesn’t even recognize me, so the fact that he does now is a good sign.

“It’s me.” I step further into the room where I can see him now, sitting up in his bed. The room is dark, the shutters for the windows closed while a single candle burns on his bedside table, but with my wolf vision, I can still see him quite clearly, and the sight always shocks me. His once strong, handsome face is sunken, his hair has fallen out in clumps, leaving him with patches of stringy strands. His blue eyes, once so like my own, are cloudy even at the best of times. At the worst, they are completely unfocused. Today, there are somewhere in the middle. “How are you?”

“No better, no worse,” he tells me wryly. “What news do you bring?”

Though he means nothing negative by it, it’s a reminder that I never come to visit him unless I need something from him, and a pang of guilt hits me. I am busy, but it’s no excuse. I should do better.

“We have had an unexpected visitor.” Keeping to the most necessary of details, I tell him of Raya’s arrival and the information she has shared about the Faceless and our imminent defeat. He listens to me carefully and when I finish, he is silent for a long moment as he thinks it over.

“Who else knows about this?” he asks, and I explain that his advisors and Bertie were in the room when Raya made her initial declaration about being from the future, but that’s all they heard. The rest is only known by me. “Let’s keep it that way, then. If there is truth to what she says, it seems we may have traitors among us. We will need to be more vigilant than ever.”

I completely agree.

“You can say that she is mad,” the king continues. “So those who heard anything at all will think it was false. You could even lock her in the dungeon, for show.”

A loud growl rumbles in my chest, and my uncle looks at me in surprise. “I’m sorry, Your Majesty,” I quickly apologize. “But I left out one thing: the girl is my mate. She will not be locked up.”

A light of understanding dawns in his eyes. “Ah, I see. That does complicate matters, doesn’t it?” He thinks it over a little longer before coming up with a new suggestion. “I suppose you could claim that the influence of the mate bond made her come up with this story, to try to impress you.”

I don’t particularly like that idea either. Raya is not the manipulative type, and it doesn’t paint her in the best light. But the king is right, the fewer people who know that we are taking Raya’s warnings seriously, the better.

“I will discuss it with her,” I promise. “And I will keep you updated on anything else I find out.”

“Thank you, Tristan.” He gives me a warm smile that almost makes him look like himself again. “I am pleased that you have found your mate. You deserve that happiness."

It still doesn't feel quite real to me, but I thank him too.

"It means more than I can say to know that you are working for the good of us all. And that you are watching after Bertie.”

He has taken to saying things like this whenever I leave, as if he is afraid it will be the last time he has a chance to.

I respond as I always do: “I will see you again soon, Your Majesty.”

I bow to him before taking my leave, giving him his due respect.

If only he was still at his full strength, we might have a better chance of defending ourselves. In his prime, the king was a brilliant tactician. Now, it is up to Bertie.

Somehow Raya and I will have to explain to him about where she has come from and why, and we will need to work together to come up with a plan to prevent the events she describes from taking place.

As I make my way back downstairs to see what I have missed, the thought of our success resting entirely in Bertie's hands does not fill me with a lot of hope.