Royal Wolf Box Set by Haley Weir

Chapter Eighteen

On the day of their wedding ceremony, the humans in the kingdom and the shifters from the forest attended the lavish event in the city. None of the humans were aware that anyone other than humans was present among them. The wedding had been announced immediately, which quelled the uprising for a moment to breathe. And then the ceremony had been put together with even more haste so that there was no time for the troublemakers to get things riled up again. Fortunately, the royal family had everything they could want at their disposal, so throwing together a beautiful and regal wedding at the spur of the moment was no trouble at all. Food, decorations, flowers, and even a beautiful wedding gown were ready within a day’s time.

The kingdom was even more eager to embrace the union of Holly and her new husband than Rubius and Cassandra had expected. They had thought that it would keep trouble from stirring too much more, but it was actually met with great joy and welcome by most of the kingdom. As was already known, most of the townsfolk loved Holly, and now that she would have a husband, and there would be a king sitting atop the throne alongside her, the humans felt secure in the fact that the royal family would remain intact. Therefore, the uprisings ceased, and the wedding was packed to the brim with excited guests.

The troublemakers had only really been a few small groups to begin with, mostly packs of hunters that had managed to stir discord in the rest of the city. But now that everyone else seemed okay with the situation, the hunters had a more difficult time causing problems. And that was the entire point of the marriage.

The wedding ceremony itself was a joyous and elaborate event. The ritual and the vows were meaningful and splendid, and on top of being exactly what the humans wanted to hear, they were also a moving moment between Holly and Dex. The guests were all treated with the best finery of meats and cheeses and breads and served with an endless supply of ale and wine. The royal family stayed outside of the castle after the ceremony to enjoy the revelry with the people and to show that they were all a united kingdom together.

Holly was pleased to see that the tavern keeper was there pouring out mugs of ale.

“Look at you being so beautiful and all in your wedding gown,” he smiled at her.

He was such a kindly old man, and Holly felt as if they were friends since he had kept her appearance at the tavern so inconspicuous for all the times that she had gone there to drink ale and escape her royal monotony. He handed her a full mug and then poured one for himself as well and raised his glass to hers.

“Cheers and well wishes to you and your new husband, and our new king,” he smiled.

“I’ll drink to that,” Holly smiled as they both indulged in a long swig.

“Yes, I’m pretty sure that you’ll drink to anything, won’t you?” the man next to her said. “A drunken queen is certainly not going to have a sober wedding.”

Holly turned to look at the man and immediately recognized him as one of the hunters from the first altercation that she had in the tavern. From the corner of her eye, she saw the tavern keeper slip away to go and get her husband for help.

“It is a lucky thing that you have a husband by your side now, isn’t it?” he said. “To keep you safe from mongrels like us.”

“He is not just a husband,” Holly snarled at him. “He is your king.”

The man laughed.

“That man that you slept with out in a cave in the pit of the woods is no more deserving to be a king to me than you are to be a queen. I will recognize neither of you. And perhaps when you are gone, your mother will once again realize that it is her place to sit on that throne instead of trying to pass off her illegitimate daughter as a ruler.”

Holly was about to turn and walk away from him, realizing that it was pointless to get into an altercation with this pathetic man since there was nothing that he could do now anyway. But no sooner had she turned her back than he pulled a blade from his sheath and readied to plunge it into her back, directly where her heart aligned in her chest.

Dex didn’t have time to think about the consequences. He saw what was about to happen and knew that there was not enough time for Holly to turn to see it and protect herself. Nor was there enough time for him or anyone else to get to her on human feet in time to save her. So, he did the one thing that would save her life, although it might possibly endanger the lives of all of them in the moments after. Dex shifted, right there in front of the entire kingdom of gathered humans, and leaped onto the hunter who was within a split moment of skewering the queen in her back. He descended upon him and tore the man’s head from his shoulders. Then he stood there on all four paws—a massive black wolf with human blood dripping from his jaws.

Screams erupted from the crowd of humans as they all backed away in panic. The people that didn’t back away were the shifters at the gathering, and since they were now in fear of an attack, their eyes glowed yellow, and they, too, were revealed. Holly turned around immediately when she heard commotion and saw Dex in his shifted form after clearly having just saved her life. Her mouth dropped open, and she stood beside him protectively, putting her hand on his back and looking toward her stunned parents for guidance as to what to do. Cassandra and Rubius looked just as shocked and disarmed as Holly was, and Theo quickly ran to stand beside his pack members to try to temper their reaction to what might happen.

It was the most tumultuous and elevated situation that could have possibly happened. Not only was the existence of the wolf shifters revealed, but instead of revealing them as a peaceful species able to coexist with the humans, they were introduced to Dex’s brutal wolfish attack on a human. Everyone was frozen in a tense silence until one human woman spoke up.

“The hunter was about to kill the queen,” she said. Her voice was shaking and terrified, but also loud enough for everyone to hear. “Her husband saved her. He turned into that giant wolf, and he saved the queen.”

No one knew how to react to what the woman had said. The humans stared in a paralyzed fear at Dex in his shifted form, and the shifters waited to see if they would need to fight or run depending on what reaction the humans would have.

Thiswas the moment that Holly had been waiting for. Granted, it may not have come in the manner in which she wanted. But now it was her chance to seize this moment to affect the change that she wanted to make in the kingdom of Grenvich.

“People of Grenvich,” Holly said with as commanding and calm a voice as much as she could muster. “Today, your perceptions of reality will change, and they will change for the better. Today, you have seen something that few others before you have seen, and you will now have the sacred duty to convey the truth about the wonders that you are about to experience to all of your future generations. Today, thanks to the bravery and the love that my husband has for me, and his desire to keep your very own kingdom safe from the likes of the hunters who would seek to murder your queen—you have now discovered the existence of the wolf shifters.”