Twelve

Vali

I watched as every single leader in the room raised their hands, even with the blank look on Lilith’s face, everyone raised their hand. With Jackson’s left hand still on my withers, he lifted his right as my vote.

Ianthe looked me in the eyes so I lowered my head in a nod, she nodded back.

“That is as unanimous as a party can get.” She said, all of us turned to look at Mircea who seemed to have aged since he sat down. He already looked weary, the weight of everything he would have to do was crashing onto him. “As the Vampire Prince, the crown is now yours, Mircea Dracula. Use it wisely.” She said.

“I will.” He replied, his eyes focused on me as he spoke. I didn’t entirely know what the look meant.

“Now, moving back onto our topic for this meeting, do we need anymore evidence or time for rebuttal against the proposed law from White Wolf Vali?” Ianthe asked, using the title she had given me since the second meeting. There was silence in the room once more. “Okay, those in favour of the new law to end the Hunts, and ban similar events in future, raise your hand.”

I couldn’t move a muscle as everyone’s hand once again rose into the air, I couldn’t breathe as the newly crowned Vampire King raised his right hand and stared into my eyes the entire time.

The weight of what this meant finally hit me. I had done it. Even though it had been the longest shot in the history of long shots, even though we went into this with everything against us, we prevailed. My people would be safe.

Vali, you need to stop wagging your tail. Jackson said, so I immediately tucked it in front of me and sat my front paws on top of it. The excitement that buzzed right through to my bones was too much to contain, especially in my wolf form. We would need to finish this meeting soon so I could run around like an idiot and get rid of my energy.

“Well, that locks that in too.” Ianthe said, prompting everyone to lower their hands once more. “That brings us to the end of another Summit. Tonight we will have a celebratory dinner and a summary of events, I would like to thank everyone for another successful year and personally welcome Vali into our ranks. The past few days you have proven to be an invaluable asset to the supernatural world, and managed to pass the first law you brought to the table unanimously. I am excited to see where you take us all next.” She said, I dipped my head in another nod, this time as a thank you.

“I declare this meeting, and therefore the Summit, closed. I hope to see everyone tonight.” Ianthe closed the meeting and immediately stood up from the table. I turned towards the door, with Marcy and Jackson immediately jumping into motion as well.

“Little Red?” Marcy asked as we reached the hall, I snorted.

“You are going to need to tell me where that came from.” Jackson said, I nodded.

Fine, just let me get back into human form.

°•°•°

The summary of events had been just as boring as I had imagined it would be. Just as this so called dinner party was turning out to be as well. Although that could be because for me, parties tended to involve more alcohol and dancing. After all, what was the point of having werewolf metabolism if I didn’t get to use it for drinking?

Right now, however, I was restricted to a glass of red wine. Jackson had pretty much threatened me that if I had more than two that he would abandon me and never return. And I only had a mouthful left in my first glass. Shit.

My eyes had focused on each of the leaders here, I had made sure to make polite conversation with each of them after we had our dinner. Well, all except for Mircea. I was so confused about what his standing truly was that I had kept clear of him. Better to avoid that confusion entirely, but I knew that I would have to speak to him before the night was over, for no other reason that Jackson had also threatened to abandon me if I didn’t play nice with everyone in this room.

I would get rid of him if I thought I could find even just one other person on this planet that could do his job half as well as he did.

Marcy and the bane of my existence were on their own, also walking through the room to talk to the other advisers we had been seeing for the entire Summit. We didn’t just need rapport with the leaders, if anything the final meeting this morning proved just that. We needed rapport with everyone of importance, just in case another coup took place.

“White Wolf.” I turned to my right, where Mircea had turned up out of nowhere. “I feel like you’ve been avoiding me.” His eyes landed on mine, just as they always did.

“Maybe I have been, Little Red.” I replied, drinking the last mouthful of wine in my glass and sighing as I pulled it away from my lips. He watched the movement.

“Do you need another glass?” He asked, but before I could answer he was already pulling another one off a serving tray and passing it to me, the taking the empty glass and placing it back on the same tray.

“I agreed to this…” I trailed off, lifting the wine towards him.

“You’re going to need it. These things tend to be boring.” He said, a small smile on his face as he looked around the room. “Thank you…”

“For what?” I asked, sipping on the wine as he turned to look back at me.

“For coming here.” He said, his shoulders slowly relaxing as he took a mouthful of his own red wine, no doubt mixed with blood. “I’ve been so afraid of what my father could do, and now…” He trailed off, but it wasn’t because of his newfound calm.

“It was too easy.” I said, finally speaking what I had been thinking since this morning. “The entire situation this morning, it was too easy.” I said, he nodded as he licked his lower lip and his eyes looked over me.

“I want us to work together in future, and this affects you probably the most out of all the other leaders here. They won't care now the Summit is concluded, he's my responsibility. But, while they all voted for him to lose his position as Vampire King... you instigated all of this. You would be his primary target...”

“What? Spit it out, Little Red.”

“During the meeting this morning, my father was taken into custody. He was placed in a makeshift cell, a room that was enchanted by a witch so he couldn’t escape. Purpose was that we would take him tomorrow to Bran Castle and deal with him through vampire laws. But I went to check on him before the dinner and…” He paused, his eyes finally landing on mine again. “He was gone.”

“Traian was gone?” I asked, just to clarify the point because this… this was dissatisfactory to say the least.

“Yes. The only way he would have gotten out would have been through outside help. Someone freed him. It may be someone in this room, or it may not be, I don’t know. There wasn’t anything to follow.” He said, I drank the rest of the wine in my cup to give myself time to think of a response and calm myself down.

“He couldn’t leave without a trace. Take me to the cell.” I said, he looked me up and down and I felt naked for a second. In the damned dress that Jackson had picked out for me I may as well have been. The black material was sheer, I was covered underneath due to a black body suit, but it didn’t hide my bare feet.

“Vali-”

“Take me to the damned cell, Mircea, or so help me we will never work together and I will wreak anarchy on your people until I find him."