Secrets in the Wolf King's Castle

Born for the Crown

It was hours later before Lyria emerged from the King’s bedchamber, with her mate at her side. He kept one hand wrapped confidently around her waist as they strolled through the corridor. He shot her happy glances every so often, drinking in her beauty, which had been completely undiminished by aging. Her long, flowy lightly autumn colored hair, which glinted a pretty almost red color in firelight, sparkled at him. He resisted the urge to run his hands through her hair once again, but he grinned at the feeling of the ends of her hair tickling his forearm where it just barely reached the small of her back.

They had been married for nearly eleven years now, but to Wallace, each time he saw Lyria it felt like the first time. Her beauty was breathtaking, but even more so was the fire in her eyes that gleamed with intensity, with drive and passion and a wit sharper than any claw.

Overcome with his passion for her, suddenly, he stopped, and dipped her back into a kiss.

It was ferocious, filled with need and love, his hands anchoring her at the waist even as she was half parallel to the ground, never letting her fall.

“What was that?” she giggled, when he finally released his grasp on her and swept her back into a standing position.

“I love you,” he said simply. He appeared utterly unaffected by the guards who stood around them, walking at a respectful but cautious distance as they always did. Of course, the guards were more than used to the King and Queen acting like lovestruck pups. It happened often, and was the source of many fond jokes amongst the castle staff. The oldest of the guards remembered the cold, dour air that had once filled the castle when King Wallace’s first wife Madelyn had died. It warmed their hearts and gave them strength to see their King happy, happier than anyone had truly believed possible for a long time.

Lyria, who had not grown up used to constant watchful eyes, still blushed after all the years together when Wallace was so free and bold with his affection. But she also smiled.

“I love you too, Your Majesty,” she said with a little smirk.

She started onward, continuing on the path toward the King’s study, where they had been heading, but Wallace did not walk forward with her. Rather, he stayed anchored in his spot, and tugged her hand to pull her back into his embrace.

“Wallace!” she protested, but without any heart to it, as he swept her into another kiss.

His mouth broke away from her own and his breath tickled her ear as he whispered, “my business can wait until tomorrow. I could send the Duke home… we could return to our chambers?”

Lyria laughed. The sound rung clear through the halls and Wallace laughed with her as he moved to kiss her again, hoping she would accept his proposition.

“I think I’ll come back later,” came an amused, but also embarrassed, voice.

Wallace pulled away from his wife just enough to see his eldest son coming around the corridor at the far end of the hall, attended by his own set of guards.

“Oh, Wyatt, son,” Wallace said, straightening up and releasing Lyria from his grasp.

“Wyatt!” she said, blushing furiously.

“Mother,” Wyatt replied. He looked fastidiously at a tapestry that hung on the wall near the couple, himself slightly red in the ears. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“No, no, not interrupting,” Lyria said hastily, patting her hair to make sure it was in place. “But we thought you were in lessons until sundown!”

Wyatt looked out a nearby window, then back at Lyria. Glancing out the window herself, she saw that indeed the sun had a rosy haze and hung low on the horizon.

“Oh,” she said.

“I was coming to find you,” Wyatt said, finally looking at his father, “because Duke Ballid told me had been waiting for nearly an hour for your audience with him. But I…” he trailed off, and a slightly embarrassed silence filled the corridor.

“Are we that late?” Lyria hissed in an undertone to Wallace. A nearby guard caught the exchange and snickered, the low laugh cut off when the guard standing next to him elbowed him.

Lyria heard the laugh, and a little giggle escaped her own lips.

“I think we are,” Wallace confirmed. Then in a louder voice, as he began to approach Wyatt, he said, “I will go give the Duke my personal apologies.”

When he reached the Prince, who was nearly as tall as the King, Wallace clapped him on the shoulder. “After all,” he added, “Duke Ballid is doing me a great favor by agreeing to organize the tournament in honor of your birthday! I shall find a way to make up for my thoughtlessness in keeping him waiting.”

Wyatt smiled, his lips pressed thinly together. “He didn’t seem overly upset,” the Prince reassured his father. “He merely commented how unlike you it is to be late.”

“Well, the Goddess frowns on poor character,” Wallace said, quoting the holy book. “He has long been a fan of the sweet bloodfruit and lime wine that we make, perhaps I will bring a bottle to the meeting…” Wallace, moments ago so amorous, was once again all business. He turned to his mate. “My love, I should go,” he said. She barely had time to nod before he had strode off, still murmuring to himself about wine.

Several guards in the contingent moved off with him, while several stayed with Lyria.

“Darling Wyatt,” she said, opening her arms wide to her son. “Have you had dinner?”

“Not yet,” he said, embracing Lyria. Though not his birth mother, Lyria had raised him from the time she married his father, when he was only six years old. He thought of her as a mother just as much as the wolf who had given birth to him. “Weston is insisting on having roast for dinner, you know. He’s been bothering the castle staff about it all day. But Annicke is demanding pheasant and mash pie, so I have no idea which we will be receiving.”

“Well, Baiden hates pheasant,” Lyria pointed out, “so I hope we won’t have to listen to another of his long lectures about why it is the worst food in the kingdom!”

Wyatt laughed. “Was I so insufferable at his age?”

Lyria nodded. She took her son’s arm as she began to walk along the corridor once more. “Well,” she smiled, “I suppose I did not know you when you were four years old. But you were just as precocious at five!” She patted his hair fondly. “Do you remember?”

“I remember some things,” he replied. “It was not so long ago, I suppose.”

“It feels like a lifetime ago, but also a second ago,” she sighed. “The Goddess can be funny in that way. We remember the strangest parts of our history.”

“I remember the night you and I met on the astronomy tower,” he said. “But I don’t remember that it was during a competition for the Queenship. I don’t remember anything about that, specifically. Is that not odd?”

“Perhaps it is better that you don’t remember the competition,” Lyria said, slyly elbowing Wyatt. “I’d hate if you had liked some other contestant more!”

The two of them laughed as they descended the stairs toward the main level of the castle. The gorgeous, sweeping, multi-level entryway came into full view for them and guards and Omegas bowed from all around.

“Mother,” Wyatt said, a note of trepidation in his voice. “I’m nervous.”

“Whatever for, dear?”

“Well, I’ve heard,” he lowered his voice slightly, “that the first shift is painful,” he looked ashamed to admit his fear.

“Oh, Wyatt,” she sighed. “You need not worry so much. We don’t even know when you will have your first shift! And not for at least a year!”

“But it becomes closer with each passing moon, especially as I will be turning seventeen. Father shifted on exactly his eighteenth birthday…” He trailed off. “I don’t know if I am fit to rule, and if the Goddess does not choose me as Father’s successor, then what will I become?”

“First of all, my dear,” Lyria said, with look of sympathy, “I have no doubt that you are fit to rule. Indeed, your constant worry is what reassures me that if the Goddess does choose you, as is most likely since you are the eldest of your father’s children, that you would be the most just and wise wolf we could hope for.”

“I don’t feel like a king,” Wyatt whined. “I hardly feel like a prince. Should I not know who I am, what I am? Should it not feel right?”

“You’ll have to ask your father that, Wyatt. You know well enough that I don’t know what it is to be born to royalty.”

“But you always knew you were a Warrior.”

“True. But I never knew I was a Luna Queen. In fact, I still can hardly believe the Goddess would choose me. So if you want my opinion, I don’t believe you need to feel anything at all. If you are sure you are with the Goddess, and keeping her with you, I have faith you’ll find your path.”

“Maybe,” said the young wolf, though he did not seem convinced.

“Have you consulted with the Mystics?”

“Well, I sometimes confide in Navaill,” Wyatt said, and Lyria smiled at the mention of her old friend, now a well respected Mystic in the castle’s employ. “But he simply assures me that it is my path to one day rule the Wolf Kingdom. He never even asks if it is what I want!”

This caused Lyria to stop short. “Is it?”

“Well,” Wyatt hesitated. “I’m not sure. Maybe. But it would be nice if someone ever asked me, everyone just assumes it is what I want, and I have never had a choice!”

Lyria sighed, and took her son’s face in her hands. Though he was now much taller than her, and broad in the shoulders, looking into his eyes, it was as if she was looking at the same scared six year old who once clung to her for support.

“Your father and I will love you no matter what you want to do, and no matter what the Goddess deems is your role, you know that right?”

“Of course I do!” Wyatt said, shocking Lyria with the flare of his temper. “But this is exactly what I mean! Maybe I don’t want the Goddess to deem my role! Maybe I want to deem it!”

Wyatt turned and walked off, his footsteps echoing loudly.

Lyria simply shook her head, remembering all too well the turmoil that young wolves, not quite pups but not quite adult, often felt. Her reaction had been the same when her parents had once counseled her to accept that she may be an Omega, that being a Warrior might not be her calling.

The Goddess always sorted it out for the good. But she knew that wasn’t what Wyatt needed to hear.

You should talk to your son, she told her mate over the mindlink.

What about?

I… don’t know how to answer that. He’s upset. Confused. Worried about his place in the world.

He always has been a worrier, Wallace said. But the Goddess will see him through.

I wouldn’t mention the Goddess’s plan, Lyria told him.

Ah, Wallace said. That phase. I remember that. They say the moon pulls our emotions hardest just before bringing us our wolves.

The moon could do with a little less pulling for Wyatt, I think.

Well, I’ll talk to him, Wallace reassured Lyria. It can be a hard thing, to know you have a predestined role you cannot yet fulfill.

Lyria did not answer. She knew Wallace could comfort Wyatt in a way she could not. After all, she was not born for the crown.

She still felt uneasy wearing it.