Chapter X – Of Blood and Howl
962 Words
The Forgotten Pact of Dracula and the Wolves
“Before there was a throne, before there was war, there was a promise made beneath the blood moon.”
The castle library had always been Esme’s refuge, but that night, it was more than a sanctuary—it was a revelation.
She’d gone searching for something light. A bedtime tale, maybe, to help settle Ciel’s restless spirit. But what she found, wedged behind a false panel near the oldest shelf in the northern wing, was something else entirely.
It was a book with no title, its leather cover cracked with age, its pages stiff with dust and time. The parchment glowed faintly beneath the candlelight, as though it remembered being touched by magic once.
Ciel peeked over her shoulder, eyes round with curiosity.
“Is it about knights again?” he asked, climbing into her lap and wrapping his small arms around her waist.
“Not quite,” Esme said softly, brushing his hair away from his face. “It’s about someone stronger than knights.”
She turned to the first page, where a single sentence had been written in curling ink:
“To the child who carries both light and night: know this truth before it is taken from you.”
She paused. Then she began to read aloud.
The Story Hidden From the Courts
A Tale of the Bloodfather
Long ago, before the courts were built, before the vampire lines fractured and the wolves disappeared into the mists, there was one who walked between beast and blood. One whose shadow stretched from the blackest forests to the highest spires.
His name was Vladislas Dracul, though time and fear would soon call him Dracula.
He was not yet king. Not yet the tyrant or savior of legend. He was only a warrior prince—young, hungry, born into death. Unlike others of his kind, he did not thirst for war. He wanted something far harder to win:
Peace.
The vampire clans of the east were splintered, constantly at war with each other. The werewolves of the mountains lived wild and lawless. And the humans, multiplying like fire ants, pushed further into sacred lands, burning, poisoning, taking.
It was a time of extinction.
Then came the Red Winter.
(The Red Winter refers to a deadly and transformative season in ancient times when famine, war, and supernatural instability affected the vampire and werewolf populations alike.)
The blood moon hung low for three nights. Crops failed. Hunters killed without honor. Something had to change—or both vampire and wolf would fade into myth.
So, Dracula went alone into the Black Forest—the wolves’ territory. No weapons. No guards. No fangs bared.
And the wolves came.
They did not strike. They watched. Studied. Among them was their queen: a snow-furred alpha named Selvara, whose howl could pierce bone and echo across centuries.
She challenged him.
Three nights, she said. Three nights in the forest without hunting, feeding, or turning to mist or bat. If he could survive the old way—as flesh and claw—he would earn their respect.
Most vampires would have refused.
Dracula agreed.
The Trial of the Moon
On the first night, he shivered in cold and hunger.
On the second, he defended a wolf pup from a human hunter.
On the third, he led the pack.
He did not break.
He transformed—not through blood, but through will. The legend says he became a wolf, not by magic, but by surrendering his need to rule. He moved like them, ran like them, killed for survival—not sport. When the red moon rose on the final night, Selvara bowed her head to him.
“You are not beast nor leech. You are both. You are bloodfather.”
And thus the pact was made.
The vampires would take the cities, building halls and courts and keeping the blood. The wolves would protect the wilds, keeping balance. They would share knowledge, defend each other, and—if war ever came—stand together.
It was Dracula who placed the first vampire and the first werewolf on neighboring thrones.
It was he who carved the warning on stone:
“Should brother turn against brother, darkness shall swallow us all.”
And for a thousand years, the pact held.
Ciel’s eyes had started to droop by then, but he held on, listening.
Esme turned another page.
The book spoke next of the wild times—when young vampire lords disrespected the wolves and were hunted for their arrogance.
And of the silent age—when werewolf clans took refuge near vampire estates to hide their wounded pups during the Purge.
The Romano family was one such pack. Their loyalty to the Drac family stretched back generations.
That’s why Taylor trusted Xander, Alpha of the Romani pack.
That’s why Ciel could play with the twins in peace.
That’s why Esme, though human-born, was accepted as queen—because she believed in unity, not purity.
But not everyone remembers the pact.
Not everyone believes in it.
Some whisper that the wolves are outdated. That Dracula’s ways were naive. That it’s time for vampire dominion again.
That peace is weakness.
And in those whispers... the pact begins to fray.
Ciel had fallen asleep in Esme’s arms, clutching the corner of the book.
She closed it slowly, staring at its worn cover. Her heartfelt heavy, like the book had pressed its weight into her chest.
If Agatha truly brought division to the court… if the council’s obsession with purity meant breaking the old alliance…
Then it would not just be her throne at stake.
It would be everything Dracula fought to protect.
Everything that bound the night together.
- Writer
