Chapter 5 - The king in the kitchen
1647 Words
We settled in the kitchen when we returned. Alaric set his jacket aside and moved automatically to the counter, filling the kettle before setting it on the stove. He glanced at me over his shoulder.
“How are you holding up?”
I didn’t answer right away. I leaned back against the island instead, fingers resting on the cool stone.
“I think…” I paused, searching for the right word. “I think my brain is still catching up with my body.”
He nodded, unsurprised.
“I’ve just seen things that were supposed to be myths,” I continued. “Creatures I grew up reading about in fairytales. I stopped something mid-air without meaning to.”
“An imp,” Alaric interjected.
I shook my head faintly. “And I’m standing in a city I used to dream about before I knew it was real.”
I looked at him. “It’s… a lot.”
“It is,” he agreed quietly.
My gaze drifted around the room—the arches, the pale stone, the scale of it all. “Your home feels… big,” I said at last. “For one person.”
Something unreadable crossed his expression. Then he leaned back against the counter.
“I told my family and staff to give us some space.”
I frowned. “Staff?”
“Yes.”
I stared at him. “Like… magically animated furniture staff? Or people staff?”
He let out a short laugh, a dimple creasing his left cheek. “People.”
“I don’t live alone,” he continued. “And I’m responsible for more than just this house.”
The way he said responsible sharpened my attention.
“Alaric,” I said carefully, “what are you?”
He didn’t answer right away.
The kettle began to whistle.
He turned from me, unhurried, and took it off the stove before it could boil over. He poured the water into two mugs, steam curling between us, then carried them to the counter and set them down side by side.
“Sit,” he said—an invitation rather than a command.
I hesitated, then took the stool beside him.
Only then did he speak.
“I’m a werewolf.”
I studied him closely, really looked—searching for something monstrous to rise to the surface now that the word had been spoken. Fangs. Claws. A shadow where his reflection should be.
There was nothing.
Perhaps there was something otherworldly in the amber of his eyes, but otherwise he was just Alaric. Solid. Human. Exactly as he had been moments ago.
Which somehow made it harder to process.
I shifted slightly on the stool beside him. Sitting this close felt unexpectedly intimate, the air charged in a way I couldn’t account for. His arm brushed mine, just briefly, and the contact sent a sharp, unfamiliar awareness along my wrist.
Is this a wolf thing?
The thought flustered me and I looked away quickly, heat creeping into my cheeks.
He went still—only for a fraction of a second, barely noticeable if I hadn’t already been paying too much attention. His gaze flicked to where our arms had touched, then back to my face.
“You alright?” he asked, voice easy.
“Yeah,” I said, too quickly.
He held my gaze a moment longer than necessary, then nodded, turning back to the counter. But the sense that something had shifted between us lingered.
I took a deep breath. “Okay,” I said. “I need to understand what that actually means.”
He waited.
“Do you change with the full moon?” I asked. “Were you bitten? Is it hereditary? And—” I glanced toward the sloping windows, the under-sky beyond. “There isn’t a moon here. So what does that mean?”
The corner of his mouth lifted into a smirk.
“When you put it like that,” he said, “werewolf is a little misleading.”
I frowned. “How so?”
“We don’t lose ourselves to the moon,” he said. “And we weren’t created by a curse or a bite.” He considered for a moment. “Shifter is closer. We choose when and how we change.”
“So you’re not… at the mercy of it.”
“No.”
“And the moon?”
“It affects us,” he admitted. “But it doesn’t control us. Not here. Not anymore.”
I absorbed that, then caught on to something else.
“You said we.”
“My pack,” he said simply.
“And they’re like you,” I said. “They can all… shift.”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“Enough,” he said after a beat.
“And they’re just… living here?”
“Yes,” he said. “As they always have.”
I turned the mug slowly in my hands. “Do they know about me?”
“They know you’re here,” he replied. “And that I brought you.”
That was… not reassuring.
“And how do they feel about that?”
He paused.
“They’re curious,” he said finally. “Cautious. But they trust my judgment.”
“That’s a lot of faith,” I said.
“It comes with the role.”
I looked up at him. “What role?”
He held my gaze, steady.
“If I didn’t tell you,” he said, “you’d hear it from someone else. And I’d rather you heard it from me. By birth, I am King of the werewolves.”
King.
It didn’t sit easily beside the man who’d made pancakes and English breakfast tea.
He paused, gauging my reaction, then continued.
“It’s not a kingship in the human sense,” he said. “Each pack is led by its own Alpha. They govern themselves. I don’t interfere in how they lead.”
“All of them are here?” I asked.
“No,” he said. “Aethyra is vast, but it’s only one city. One of many.”
I stilled. “Many.”
“Some packs live beyond its borders,” he went on. “Others choose the human world.”
“And you still… oversee them?”
“I uphold the law,” he said simply. “Wherever they choose to live.”
I stared at him. “So you don’t control them.”
“Not exactly.” His gaze sharpened. “They choose their leaders. I ensure the laws are upheld. That borders hold. That disputes don’t become wars.”
He paused, deciding if he should continue.
“I belong to the House of Talenwyr,” he said. “One of the founding Houses of Aethyra.”
I frowned. “And that means…?”
“We govern one of the city’s factions,” he said. “Its territory, its infrastructure, and the people who live within it. Not all of them are werewolves.”
That surprised me.
“There are three other governing bodies,” he continued. “The witches answer to the Conclave of the Weave. They believe in restraint. In mastery. In limits.”
I nodded, absorbing it.
“I get on well with the fae,” he continued, “but the First Court has a superiority complex. They were the first to rule Aethyra—before the uprising. They believe what came first should always come first.”
“And the others?” I asked.
His expression cooled, just a fraction.
“The Crimson Concord,” he said. “Vampires.”
“They believe in equilibrium—balance,” he added, without warmth. “Which usually means preventing anyone else from gaining too much ground.”
I hesitated. “You said a vampire sent that shadow thing to attack me.”
“Yes,” he said evenly. “And we’ll be approaching the council about it soon enough.”
The word council settled between us, heavy with implication.
I looked at him then. Really looked at him.
“And you?” I asked. “What’s your ethos?”
He didn’t answer straight away.
“Truth,” he said finally. “Justice.”
I waited.
“And,” he added, one corner of his mouth lifting, “an unfortunate tendency to help damsels in distress.”
I let out a quiet laugh. “Is that in the official charter?”
“Very small print,” he said. “Easy to miss.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It is,” he said mildly. “I don’t recommend it.”
Something eased between us, the tension thinning.
I hesitated, then asked the question that had been nagging at the back of my mind since that night.
“Why did you rescue me?” I asked quietly. “Why bring me here—why were you there that night at all?”
He didn’t answer immediately. His gaze dropped to the mug in his hands, thumb tracing the rim once before he looked back at me.
“Because there have been whispers,” he said. “Of an old power stirring on the surface. I wanted to look into it. Observe.”
My breath caught. “You mean… me?”
He held my gaze this time. Didn’t look away.
“I didn’t know who you were,” he said carefully. “Only that something old had surfaced.”
Then, more quietly:
“When I saw you in danger, I couldn’t not act.”
I nodded once. “Alright.”
He stilled. “Alright?”
“Alright,” I repeated.
A slow grin spread across his face, like a weight lifting from his shoulders. He reached for my hand, his touch warm, a faint tingle spreading through my fingers before I could react.
“Come with me.”
- Writer
