Chapter 15: The Weight of the Crown (The Old Wolf's Wisdom)
Grandpa Silas Senior leaned back in his chair, his eyes tracking the way I kept glancing at Wolfie as if she might vanish if I looked away for a second. He gestured for me to sit closer, away from the roaring laughter of Grandma Martha and the others.
"Listen to me, Drayan ," Silas said, his voice a low, gravelly hum. "I see you trying so hard to be what you think she needs. You're always reaching, always whispering, always acting like the world is ending if you aren't touching her. You think that's romance?"
I hesitated. "I just want her to know I'm here. That I'm not leaving."
"She knows," Silas said, a small, knowing smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "But look at your father. Look at the way he carries himself. He doesn't bark, he doesn't howl, and he doesn't beg for attention. He just is."
He leaned in, his gaze piercing. "You are a Vampire, Drayan. You have a stillness in you that we wolves can never have. We are loud, we are messy, we are heat. You are the moonlight. You don't need to be a 'warrior' in a cage, and you don't need to be a poet at the dinner table. You just need to be vigilant."
"Vigilant?" I repeated.
"Be the shadow that never leaves her side," Silas advised. "Don't act out of fear that she'll leave. Act out of the power that you are her husband. When you're calm, she's calm. When you're powerful, she feels safe. You don't need to 'perform' your love, Drayan. Your strength—that quiet, city-bred steel in your bones—is the most romantic thing you can give her. It tells her that while the world is screaming, you are the one thing that will never break."
I looked over at Wolfie. She was listening to a story, her face lit by the fire. I realized Grandpa was right. My constant "mushiness" was coming from my own insecurity. I didn't need to be a "lovesick pup." I needed to be the Vampire Prince who stood by her side with such absolute certainty that no one would ever dare question our bond.
I felt a shift in my own spirit. The muscles in my back relaxed, but my senses sharpened. I didn't reach for her hand. Instead, I simply sat next to her, my presence a solid, unmoving force.
Wolfie felt it instantly. She didn't look confused; she looked settled. She leaned her head against my shoulder, sighing in content. She didn't need me to whisper "I love you" for the hundredth time; she needed to feel that I was the anchor that couldn't be moved.
The Messenger's Arrival
The heavy doors of the Longhouse suddenly swung open. The warmth of the fire was sucked out by a gust of freezing city air. A messenger, dressed in the obsidian-black uniform of the Vampire High Council, stepped into the hall.
The wolves went silent. The vampires stood up.
The messenger held a scroll sealed with the crest of my old House—a crest I hadn't seen since the night we fled. "Drayan of House Drac," the man announced. "The City has not forgotten its debt. Your marriage is seen as a political defiance. You are summoned to the High Court to answer for your 'desertion' and the legality of this... union."
I felt the room bristle. Silas stood up, his hand on his cane. Grandma Martha stopped laughing, her eyes turning a dangerous amber.
I didn't rush forward. I didn't growl. I didn't panic.
Following Grandpa's advice, I stayed in my seat for a heartbeat longer. I stayed in that Vampire Stillness, my face a mask of elegant, terrifying calm. I stood up slowly, the powerful muscles of my legs and back moving with a grace that made the messenger take an instinctive step back.
"Tell the Council," I said, my voice cold and smooth as silk, "that I am no longer a 'subject' of the city. I am a husband of Redpaveley. If they wish to discuss my marriage, they can come to the forest and ask me themselves."
The messenger's eyes widened. He expected a scared boy; he found a Lord.
"They will not like that answer, my Lord," the messenger whispered.
"Then they shouldn't have asked the question," I replied.
I turned back to the table, ignoring the messenger entirely. I sat back down, picked up my glass, and took a sip of wine. My hand was steady. My heart was quiet.
Wolfie looked at me, her eyes filled with a new kind of heat. She didn't see the "City Boy" who was afraid of his past. She saw the man who had truly become her mate—a man who was powerful enough to be still in the face of a storm.
The dinner continued, but the air had changed. We weren't just a family anymore. We were a fortress. And the city was about to find out that a Vampire who finds his home in the wild is the most dangerous creature of all.