15 15: Dinner with the Family

"Dinner should be ready soon, lets head inside." Lyra said, getting up from the concrete bench.

"Yes, it is getting late." Kafei followed her sister's example. "Amaris, I hope you will join us for dinner. I would love for you to meet our mates."

"Your what?" Amaris asked. Then, seeing how rude she was, said; "Sorry, that was extremely rude of me. Yes, I would like to join you for dinner."

"That is okay." Lyra said as Amaris stood. "We understand the term mates confuse you. In short, a mate is a life partner. It is a bond with an individual that one simply cannot live without."

"Yes." Kafei said. "My sister and I, while we are identical twins, are not each other's mates because our personalities are different enough that we can stand on our own and be judged fairly for our actions. However, we each have a mate whom we could not survive without because their primary role is to be a support to the other. I support my mate in his economic endeavors and he supports me and my role on the high council." She explained.

"Does a mate have to be a werewolf?" Amaris did not understand why she felt compelled to ask this question, but ask it she did.

"No, they do not have to be a pair of werewolves. Nor does this relationship have to be romantic. Because of this, the role of prostitutes and wenches is to carry on the race, even though the latter can only give birth to half breeds." Lyra explained. Amaris felt like the universe, as she had known, had changed. Not as though a natural disaster had destroyed it, but they had covered the world in a blanket of darkness that had just been lifted off, bathing the world in pure, unfiltered light.

"And some entrepreneurial fellows saw this and decided that this would be a good moneymaker, especially if the wenches were slaves eating one meal a day, if that." Amaris mused. Lyra and Kafei just stood there, silent. They had reached the alcove that separated the gardens from the rest of the castle, where unbeknownst to them, Ivailo had caught the tail end of their conversation.

"Did you three have a good time?" He asked, making his presence known. They jumped, evidently startled by him hiding himself on the inside of the doorway.

"Your Majesty, How long have you been there?!" Kafei screeched, looking as if she wanted nothing more than to beat him for startling her.

"Not long, I only heard Amaris's statement about the slavery of wenches." Ivailo argued, desperately trying to avoid being beaten by Kafei. He knew she did not mean him any harm, but there was a very specific reason she was the Lady of War, and that reason hurt. He knew from personal experience when their mother would charge Kafei with beating him if he had misbehaved.

"Not that there were a lot of scandalous topics discussed during our little adventure, Your Majesty." Amaris said. "We were just heading in for dinner."

"Then I caught you just in time. Amaris, can I talk to you a moment?" Ivailo asked. Amaris turned to Kafei and Lyra.

"You two go on in, I will be there soon." She turned back to Ivailo. "Is there something that you wanted to discuss with me, Your Majesty?"

"Yes. First, you can drop the title when it is just the two of us. Two, I wanted to ask what you three were discussing."

"Why do you want to know?"

"Because if you were discussing the siblings that you never met, I wanted to say that I am sorry that they got killed in my uprising." Ivailo said, looking at the ground as if he was ashamed of what happened. Then again, Amaris supposed he was ashamed.

"We discussed my late siblings, yes. I have never blamed you for their deaths." This caught Ivailo by surprise. "Their deaths were because of the late emperor, not because of you."

"You really think so?"

"No, I know so. You did not choose to be born into abuse, and you did what you thought was best." Amaris said, trying to comfort and reassure Ivailo. "My mother, brothers and sisters were all victims of the last emperor's tyranny, just as much as you and your sisters were."

"Your words bring me more hope than you realise." Ivailo kissed her hand. "For a long time, I blamed myself for my friend's death. When I first killed the last emperor, I thought what I did was entirely out of spite for the last emperor. I did not realise that it was such a popular move that an army would follow me. Your brothers even agreed to be a part of it."

"Again, my brothers got killed because the last emperor was a tyrant."

"Yes, yes, he was. Shall we head inside?" Ivailo asked, offering her his arm. She took it, and the skin contact sent sparks up his arm like he had never felt before.

The dining room was almost exactly as Amaris remembered it had been that morning, but instead of being lit by sunlight streaming through the large windows, candles were decorating every surface. It was possibly the most beautiful room in the universe. At the table sat Lyra and Kafei with two strangers, evidently their mates. As she and Ivailo entered the room, the other four werewolves stood as a sign of respect. Amaris smiled and stood in front of the chair Ivailo had pulled out for her at the foot of the table.

"Greetings, Your Majesty." All four of them said in unison.

"Greetings, sisters. And to you, Radcliffe," He nodded to the werewolf sitting next to Lyra, who was sitting on his right. Then he turned his attention to the one sitting next to Kafei on his left. "And you, Kieran. This is Lady Amaris Willow, the Lady of the people. Amaris, these are my brother in laws, Lord Radcliffe Ivan and Lord Kieran Thad." Ivailo sat down.

"It is lovely to meet you both." Amaris said as the rest of the dinner party sat down.

"It is lovely to meet you too, milady. Lyra and Kafei were just telling us all about you." Kieran said.

"Were they now? And what secrets were they spilling, my lord?" Amaris asked teasingly as the first course, duck, covered in some kind of sauce, was brought and set out in front of them.

"Nothing that would be considered too scandalous, but tell me, is it true that they sold you into slavery?" Radcliffe asked.

"Yes, it is true. They sold me into slavery. I worked at an Inn three days ride from here, scrubbing the floors during the day and working as a wench at night, getting a single small bowl of light porridge ans sharing my bedchambers with at least ten other girls, and all of us wore clothes that would barely be considered clothes with how worn, stained and patched they were. Despite my treatment, I have blamed no one but the former emperor for my lot in life, and I am glad to have served as a slave because otherwise I would not have had such an amazing opportunity to learn what the people need." This seemed to take the lords by surprise, that she would be so openly candid with them, but Amaris felt like she had told her story so many times that she was sounding like her default setting was to repeat herself, and she was tired of it. "Now, I would really like to learn about you, Lord Radcliffe, and Lord Kieran. How did you meet Lady Lyra and Lady Kafei?"

"I met Lyra when I joined His Majesty in the uprising." Radcliffe started. "She was the most beautiful person in the room."

"And I met Kafei similarly." Kieran said, looking at his mate with adoring eyes as Ivailo ate the duck and Amaris took a drink of wine from her goblet. At least, she thought it was wine, but she could not be sure. She had never tasted wine before. Montego only kept stores of the homebrew on hand for the patrons and prostitutes, and the slaves that he kept could only drink the same water as the farm animals. After all, why waste something that could bring income to the Inn on the help?

And thus they ate and drank and had a merry conversation for many hours, ending when Ivailo set down his fork after a delicious dish of berries and cream, arranged in to a decorative bowl from which all six of the dining companions were served from. And now, Amaris sat, the last remaining companion in that lonely dining hall left to her own devices. Feeling full from the lavish meal that she had just consumed, and maybe slightly drunk, she got out of the elaborately carved chair that had supported her weight through the meal and stumbled to the open door. Her head spinning, she tried to remember the way back to her chambers. She had little luck.

Amaris sighed. She would have to just wander aimlessly around the castle until she found the door to her chambers. She set off, going left out of the dining room and heading towards where she knew the throne room was.

After several minutes of trying to find her way back to her bedroom, and now with a substantially clearer head, Amaris conceded she was, in fact, very lost. The walking around had given her system a chance to process the alcohol that she had consumed during dinner, but in her recent semi-drunken state she had ended up in a hallway that she did not remember Ivailo showing her this morning, and if he showed it, she did not recognise where she was in the darkness.

I will just have to ask someone for help, she conceded as she knocked on a random.

"Who is it?" A familiar voice asked.

"It is Amaris, Your Majesty. I appear to have gotten lost." Amaris responded, as Ivailo opened the door.

"In deed, if I did not know you better I might have thought that you had gotten lost on purpose." Ivailo said, leaning his shirtless torso on the doorframe. In the moonlight, he looked as if he was a statue made of the purest obsidian, carved to stoke a woman's desire.

"I would not dare, Ivailo." Amaris said, forcing her eyes from his perfectly chiseled chest to look at his even more perfectly chiseled face. In this moment she was extremely grateful for the surrounding darkness, as she felt the blood rush to her cheeks. Ivailo laughed, making Amaris blush even more.

"Come on, I will bring you back to your chambers." Ivailo grabbed her hand and lead back down the hallway. They walked like that for several minutes, only stopping in front of the rose-carved door that her chambers lay behind. "Here you are, my Lady." Ivailo said as he tucked a stray strand of hair that had fallen in front of her face. At this, butterflies erupted in Amaris's stomach as Ivailo leaned in, as if to kiss her.

"There you are, Milady!" Kenia interrupted the moment, causing Ivailo to jerk back. Seriously? He thought; I had only just gotten the nerve to kiss her, and you had to ruin it? "Oh, your Majesty, I am sorry to be so rude." Kenia seemed to realise that she had interrupted him and curtsied deeply.

"It is quite okay, Kenia." He turned back to Amaris. "I will see you tomorrow, my lady." He kissed her hand.

"Yes, your majesty." With that, he left, mentally cursing that he had jerked back, that he had not just kissed Amaris, and to hell with the consequences.

"Where were you, Milady? I was expecting you to be back after the meeting, not about to kiss His Majesty!" Kenia shrieked as she helped Amaris get out of her gown.

"Kenia, could you please keep it down? I have a headache, and I do not need the rest of the castle knowing my personal business." Amaris stepped into the clean nightdress that Kenia was holding. "Yes, I went to the high council meeting. I then had a walk with Lyra and Kafei, had dinner with them, their mates and His Majesty, and ended up too drunk to remember my way around the castle, and by the time I was sober again, I was in an unfamiliar hallway so I asked for help. I did not know that the emperor of Acad would bring me back to my chambers." Amaris argued, sitting down at the dressing table.

"His majesty really cares for you. Just do everyone a favour, and do not hurt him like the last one did." Kenia said as she picked up the hairbrush and started combing Amaris's hair.

"The last one?"

"He loved another, many years ago. She hurt him, badly. His majesty is extremely sensitive, and when he gives someone his heart, he gives them every single piece. She knew that and used him, and when she was done, she left him a shattered mess. It has taken ten years for him to get to the place where he can give his heart again, and so I ask that you do not hurt him like she did."

"I promise, I won't."