Jamal Kunis POV
I clicked my cups with a random guard. I didn’t even know that guy but we had both been drinking, eating, and exchanging jokes for the past three hours. In fact, I had been doing this with everyone. It was the mood in the palace. Not just the palace, but the entire pack. The celebration of the safe delivery of twins from my surrogate Methis Delis had been thrilling to say the least.
I did not fully understand how it had happened but somehow I was in a mood I had never been in my entire life, not even when I had fallen in love with the Dark Witch very long ago. I walked around the castle where male and female, young and old, all gathered together to share meat and mead and to make a toast to the safe delivery of the future of the werewolf world. At least if not for anything, I was happy that my line of succession was secured and that the curse had finally been lifted.
I stepped outside the castle. It was dark at night as it usually is but there still were people gathered around, having the time of their lives.
Conrad sat in one of the bonfires, surrounded by some guards, they were discussing and playing a game of chess, more like drunk chess because both players had both sacked each other’s king but were still playing. Whatever they were discussing must have been amusing because every ten seconds someone laughed so hard they scattered the game, only to rearrange it, putting the pieces in the wrong places.
I myself was not very drunk so I could take notice of these things. It was a time of celebration, regardless, it would still be a blotch on my name as Lycan King if I were to drink myself into stupor like the other men.
“Conrad!” I shouted out. Conrad turned his head to look at me. He seemed to not recognize me immediately as he gave me a queer stare. Then a light bulb lit in his head and he recognized me.
“ALL HAIL THE LYCAN KING!” he roared. Perhaps too loudly as every head turned and a loud cheer erupted. I walked down towards Conrad, receiving pecks and hugs from the ladies and slaps from the guys. Some even intercepted me to have small chats with me to which I did not deny them.
“So much for a quiet and collected Beta, eh?” I said to him as I finally got to him. He gave me a big hug and held my face in his arms.
“At long last,” he said.
“We finally have a successor. Two successors,” I said.
Conrad belched loudly. “We finally know that you are strong down there are you are up here.” he moved his hands towards my biceps. His joke sent rumbles of laughter from the guards around. Even I could not help but crack a smile. “So what next?” he asked.
I stood, confused a little. I was so bent on fixing the curse that for once I never stopped to think of what would eventually come next. “I don’t know,” I said. Honestly, I don’t think there was a need for anything to come next. “We groom them to be rulers.”
“Yeah,” Conrad concurred. “I guess.” He then lowered his voice. “What about the girl?”
“I don’t…” my voice broke in thought. “I have to send her back, don’t I?”
“It was what you promised to the elders, remember?” Conrad placed a hand around my shoulder. “Look, you’ve grown to like the girl, haven’t you?”
“No. I have grown to love her,” I corrected him.
“Good.”
“What are you thinking?”
“You can still have her.”
I turned around to face him. “I made a promise, Conrad. To the council – the elders. You were there.”
“Of course I was.” We slowly walked away from the feast. I steered Conrad away to a quiet place. “What are you doing?” he asked.
“You can’t talk about that in the feast,” I cautioned him.
“There are people there.”
“Exactly. They’ll overhear us.”
“And what makes you think we won’t be overheard here?” he asked. “Have you forgotten tactics so quickly?” He came closer and put a hand around his mouth. “Here is too quiet, our voice will bounce off every wall so anyone a fair distance away would hear us.”
“But the feast is noisy,” I said beginning to understand his explanation.
“So our voice can’t travel far.”
I smiled at Conrad. “I am glad to know that even when your breath stinks with alcohol, you can still think like someone who has seen battle.”
“It’s in the blood.”
Eventually, we walked back to the feast to continue our discussion but we made sure to stay clear of any maid or guard or to not allow anyone get to too close to us.
“What was it you were saying?” I asked Conrad.
“Methis has broken the curse. The very same curse that took the life of three wives,” he stated. “There is a feast going on right now and it has been going on for weeks, safe to say it might run till the new month. All I am saying is that with this celebration, men are drunk and filled with joy just as they are supposed to be.”
“What is it you are thinking?” I asked.
“In the morrow, call a council meeting. I’ve seen all the members of the council tonight. They are as drunk as fly sucking on a Venus flytrap. They’ll have a hangover and even by morning they won’t be thinking well but they won’t realize.”
I think I know where this is going, I said to myself. He wanted to bank on the moment to run a trick on the elders. I let him finish.
“So call a meeting and be absent, say you went to check on your wife, and leave it to me. I’ll put in a good word with them. Once that is done, they’ll gladly let you keep her,” he finished.
His scheme was promising to be honest, but I did not see how it was going to work out. There were more variables that Conrad was not taking into consideration.
“Thank you. But…”
“Most there always be a ‘but’?” he laughed.
“Yes,” I said. “You aren’t thinking of everything right.”
“Is that so? Tell me what I missed.”
“My promise.”
“We can overturn the promise if all the elders agree. It would be like it never even happened.”
“True,” I admitted. “But I was not referring to that promise.”
“What then did you mean?”
“The one in the contract.”
“Damn.”
“Yeah.”
“Wait!” Conrad called me back when I was about to leave. “The contract allows you.”
“How?”
“The contract is a surrogate one with a marriage option though it comes with an extra fee. Pay the extra fee and trigger the marriage clause.”
“Look, Conrad. I appreciate your attempt to help me keep Methis which I would have loved but you need to understand that this girl had a life before she met us. She had family, friends and sometimes I know she thinks about them and who knows, she even misses them.” I can’t believe I was thinking of this now, at this moment. If I was asked the question of Methis leaving about three moments ago, I was going to say that she must stay, but now, I had to look at things from her own angle. I looked at Conrad, my Beta. “You know, maybe if I truly love her I would let her go. Maybe that’s true love, Conrad.”
“Well said, Jamal. I understand.”
“So I must keep my promise. That’s what a true King does.”
“And there are no truer kings than you, eh?” Conrad joked.
“Nah. Maybe not.” I laughed along.
“Now head on to the party, King, you look too serious for a celebration.” Conrad laughed.
“Well, I am smiling.” I bent forward laughing, wholeheartedly.
“Not good enough!” Conrad tousled me playfully.
I shoved him off and we laughed.
I headed back to the castle where I sat myself down on one of the couches with a drink in hand and a plate of meat on my lap, eating and drinking in silence. It was an awesome experience. The feeling I had just felt these past weeks was unequal. Never in the history of the clan had there been something like this, a massive celebration where all the wolfs from all around the pack regardless of their status were allowed access into the grounds of the castle. It was amazing.
But now I had to leave and go and check on Methis.