Xavier POV
It is desolating, as though the walls were closing in on the war room and there were too many eyes, as well as too many assemblages of thought, soaked in silence.
The fire was smouldering in the background, scarcely perturbed by the chilled looks which rolled about the table. The rain hit soothingly and regularly against the tall, curving windows, a minor music vying with the tension in the room.
With steely hands embracing my chin, I sat at the head of the council table, and stared on the map of our lands with the patience of a predator. The names of each place inscribed upon a vein of the body of a beast, I had promised to subdue.
"Alpha…" The silence was broken by Corvan, and he spoke rather tensely. "It has been hours. We must talk straight."
With my head still stuck down. "Well, say something".
Elias was a diplomat, and in his case there was desistency. "At the outer rings there are murmurs. The men in the lesser jurisdictions are doubtful of your purpose. People have read the summons… people have heard about Larissa."
"So?" I answered with smoothness.
Malrik sighed roughly. "So do the pack, Xavier. They recollect what she used to be. What she turned out. you disinherited her--in public. And you call her back today as though nothing had happened?"
I said, at last, looking up, "she was then a girl. She has become a woman. And that whose blood-line might bind the breach this pack has bled for ten years".
Corvan bent forward, and his voice was low and sharp. "You talk about family bloodlines and unity, but we all are fully aware that this is not just a political issue. Why her? Why at this moment?"
The silence which ensued was oppressive.
"Since no other person tasted like her.
Her eyes are haunting me in the twilight.
I can still visualize the way she looked at me--just as I was walking away".
I trod the thoughts beneath as mould beneath a smooth plank of flooring
"Because she is mine," I said flat out. "Unquestionable things don't sit well with me."
Elias's lips grew into a line, unbroken. He knew to not make any attempt to pry when my voice turned into steel.
But still, on the edge of the room, doubt hung in the air.
"Broken when she went," Corvan went on. So what makes you think she would bow now anyway"
"She doesn't have to kneel any more, I said coldly. She's got to stand by me long enough to finish off the wolves at my door. That's all."
Malrik grunted. "And if she attempts to run again?"
"She'll not, I said. Not this time."
"Because of fear?" Elias asked.
"Because she's smart," I whispered. She'll come. She will stay for her Dad and Mom For herself. For the anger I laid within her chest."
The fire sizzled louder as if in agreement.
The door swung open, a dirty young Beta approached at once, dripping from the rain, his chest lifting with effort.
"Sorry, for the intrusion of Alpha, he bowed. From the northern relay the message came. Marked urgent"
I nodded once.
He came forward, gave Elias a wet scroll and stepped back quietly.
Elias read it fast, then handed it over to me, expression uninterpretable.
I read over the parchment in my eyes.
The girl and her family have accepted your condition. They wait for the fixing of a date for the binding trial
"So they agreed?" I Said happily
"She agreed". Elias replied almost immediately
Air in the room rippled like a tide beneath a sheet of ice.
Malrik moved forward, his eyes glinting. "She's coming docile?"
"No," I said, rolling up the scroll. She's coming aware. No, that is not the same thing."
Corvan snorted. "You have won nothing yet".
I arose very slowly, and the legs of the chair grated upon the stone of the floor.
Corvan stiffened. Good.
"She consented to the binding. That is all, said. It is not a love thing. It never was. It involves power. Territory. Power. When she stands next to me all the pack elders who did not believe me will be ashamed to be quiet. Any foreigner who touches my rule will find out his place."
"And what about the girl herself? Elias asked. And you really think she will give in?"
"She does not have to submit, I said. She requires survival. And there are no other channels to that, except me."
Malrik folded his arms. "You are playing with fire".
I gazed at him. "Fire? I am the fire."
The words came out cold even than I thought to myself.
The storm grew deeper outside and there was thunder in the mountains. This sky was getting darker with every passing minute like it was the land that was waiting to welcome her back.
She was training somewhere over screaming walls. I had a sensation in the marrow of my bones. The connection may have broken up but the imprint that she had left was never washed away.
I stood before the hearth, looking at the play of the flames.
"She is not the girl she used to be, I said under the breath of my voice. That is what all you are dreading, is it not?"
Elias made no answer. He did not need to do that.
"And let them be afraid of her, I said. That they inquire with her. They will! because when she comes, and she walks that aisle under the moon they will see precisely what I have claimed"
"The word claimed, Corvan said with distaste. You talk like she is a sheep?"
I turned to him with a steel cold voice. "She is an icon. The symbols belong. Displayed. Respect or demolished."
Corvan started half out of his seat in protest, when Elias placed a restraining hand on his arm.
Elias' throat cleared. "Want the ritual here, Alpha, you do?"
"No. Not as yet."
An instant of silence.
Corvan frowned. "You are lagging?"
"I am practicing, I said. Binding will be done on the full moon, seven days to come. I desire old ceremonies to be re insured.i want the court presence.witnesses in all the friendly and enemy lands. Put ritual in it. Sacred. Unshakable."
"An empire in a single wedding", said Elias, subduedly.
I stared at his face. "Exactly."
Malrik bent toward me. "And in case she defies you - in the altar, or afterwards?"
I looked at him with a kind of smile that would cause lesser wolves to turn aside, and then I smiled.
"And then she will see what sort of a man will be able to follow through what she has started."
Behind my back the fire flared.
The lightning in the sky flashed down through the forest twice below, painting its warning. Wandering somewhere above there was a paroxysm in human skin, about to step into a dress which she had not chosen, on her road to destiny that was written in the blood of wolves.
Seven nights.
One ceremony.
With one girl who has fire in her eyes and goes back to a den which once broke her.
And this time… she did not come to give up!