The White Wolf ||A Paranormal Romance Novel||

Mircea

The Summit didn’t officially start for another four days. Until then we had designated time for leaders of the races to meet and make sure every little piece of important information was shared with their designated ruler. This made the meetings shorter, as only one voice was being used per race.

Of course, for the vampires, that chosen leader was King Traian, my father. But I guess that chosen wasn’t necessarily the right word. An ancestor of ours became the King of Vampires and it has stayed in the family since then. What was regarded more than anything else was power, and the Draculas always had it.

Maybe we’d always had too much.

“We meet again, Prince Mircea.” I turned my attention towards the female vampire next to me. Her long black hair and almond-shaped black eyes were the same as I had been seeing since childhood.

“Mun Nari, it’s lovely to see you.” I said. Her response was to let a smile onto her blood red lips.

“Yes, well, I wish it was during a more joyful party than this.” She said, her eyes watching the room full of vampires dancing set choreography to repetitive music.

“I have no idea what you mean.” I said, sarcasm fuelling my tone.

“I also wish it was under better circumstances…” She said, her attention fully turning towards me.

“What do you mean?” The Summit was good circumstances, it was the one time of the year when we had to force ourselves into peace with the other races. It was usually joyful, if for no other reason than access to fae wine.

“Well…” She trailed off, her eyebrows slightly furrowed as she looked up at me. “Has your father been acting strangely?”

“You are going to have to be more specific than that.” I said, she laughed since she knew what I meant. Since Traian had killed my mother he had been acting stranger everyday, especially towards me.

“My father has been extremely withdrawn from me lately, as if he is hiding something. I have my suspicions but needed to know if Traian was doing the same.” She said. Nari was the closest thing I had ever had to a friend, we were born around the same time and so had grown up in the vampire courts together. When we were children we had promised to always speak truth to one another and always have each other’s backs. So far we had both kept that promise.

“I guess he has been more withdrawn than normal, but I don’t know if I would call that strange.” I replied, she bit her lip with her canine. “What are your suspicions?” I asked, knowing that if I didn’t that she wouldn’t tell me.

“Well, we are the only two high standing vampires our age. I believe that we are arranged to be wed without either of us knowing, and I further believe that we are going to be told of this while we’re here and then forced into engagement.”

“Nari-”

“If you think it’s not possible, tell me now and I will take it all back.” She said, and there was silence between us as I looked over the room once again to process what she had just said. It could explain this entire boring party, with the traditional dances and music. Normally we would have a dinner followed by formalities over drinks and blood. Never something on this scale. “Mircea-”

“What do you think of the odds it’s happening tonight?” I asked her as I turned my eyes back onto hers. There was shock in her irises as she looked at me and proceeded to process what I had said. She then seemed to piece together the traditional aspects of tonight with her theory like I had.

“Shit.” She whispered, looking at me with panic in her eyes.

“Am I really that horrible?” I asked, sarcastically of course, but the panic in her eyes strengthened. Not because I’m horrible, but because I had joked about it.

“No, you’re not it’s just…” She sighed before she took my hand in hers. “I could never love you, and it’s nothing to do with you either. I-”

“I know you like women, Nari, I’m not a moron.” I said.

“Oh…”

“Yeah, you don’t really try to hide it.” I said, she nodded slowly. “It did take me a while to notice though, if that helps.”

“What gave me away?” She asked, the panic replaced with worry.

“Nothing that your parents or anyone else would notice. Just, a culmination of smaller things like eyes lingering on women like mine did.” I said, she smiled then and the worry melted away from her eyes.

“Goes without saying, they cannot know.” She said, her smile faltering for a second as she let go of my hand.

“I gathered that. You would think that after all this time we wouldn’t care about that kind of shit anymore…” I trailed off.

“Maybe you can change it, when you’re King.” She said, and that was something I hadn’t really thought of before. Yes, I knew I was going to be King, but I had only thought about the weight of the crown, and the things that I would need to uphold. And yes, it had occurred to me that I would be able to change things, but not on such a scale as that.

“Well, if your theory is right, then you would be Queen. We could change things together…” I trailed off, my thoughts now running rapid with ideas and things that had always made me uncomfortable. The things I would be able to change and make better not just for our people, but for the entire world.

The room suddenly went silent as my father approached the front of the room and stood in front of the string quartet that had been playing music. They were now still, their instruments laid down to pay full attention to their King, mirroring everyone else in the room.

“Thank you for joining us on this fateful evening. I trust you are enjoying the festivities.” He said, although his bored tone didn’t reflect what should have been joyful words. “I am sure that some of you are wondering why we have enacted such traditional methods tonight, and that is because of an announcement I would like to make.” My eyes flicked towards Nari, who was already looking at me. Mun Kang-Dae approached the front of the room as well, with Seo-Yun close but not with him.

“Both Lord Mun and myself would like to call our children to the front of the room, please.” Traian said, I looked at Nari once more and decided on playing into whatever plan this was. I took Nari’s hand in mine and we walked to the front of the room together, both of us displaying soft smiles of fake joy. Confusion was what my father wanted, he wanted me to feel shame and embarrassment, and I could tell from the foul look on his face that my choice to smile and lean into the plan had thrown him off. Maybe I could do better?

“Everyone, it is with much pride and joy that I would like to announce my engagement to Mun Nari. However, it was quite sudden so I would like to point out that there is no ring yet. If I had known that I would be doing this I would have brought my mother’s engagement ring with me, but Nari took me by surprise.” I said, taking control of the situation and looking down at Nari once more. Her smile was almost genuine as she looked up at me. She could tell what I was doing, what it meant.

“It has been many months since we have seen one another, and it seems that in our absence of each other’s presence that we have realised what we truly mean to each other. I have accepted the proposal, and the wait for the ring.” Nari said, with a small laugh at the end of her sentence. The facade.

“Sorry, father, I know you wanted to announce it but I… I felt that I had to do it myself.” I said, looking towards my father who’s anger was clear in his eyes, but was hidden from his expression.

“Of course.” He said, with faux understanding. “The wedding will take place in two months, upon the blue moon and just before the Hunt. What better way to celebrate than by spilling as much blood as we can?” My father asked, and the room began to show it’s excitement through respectful applause.

The people in the room then began to line up and congratulate us on our engagement one or two at a time depending on their marital status. The entire time my eyes kept flicking back to my father, my mind focused on trying to figure out what this all meant and why he would do this.

All I knew was that I needed to figure out the why soon, because knowing my father it wasn’t good, and I wouldn’t have the upper hand for long.