Chapter 3
**VLADIMIR**
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The war following the explosion had just ended, and as King, my primary responsibility should be my people. I should check with my second-in-command and see how many deaths and injuries we have. I should check in on my people and see how I can help them. My duty should be overseeing the recovery effort; instead, I'm running around looking for a certain she-wolf. A pretty little thing with bright turquoise eyes and thick brown hair. The wolf Myra had been in the back of my mind since the explosion happened earlier in the day. I'd lost her in all the chaos; I vaguely remember her yelling someone's name as I took off running in search of Damien, Nikolai, or Alex. Throughout the war, Myra had been in the back of my mind. She was my mate, my salvation; she held the key, the answers to everything.
After hours of searching, I was no closer to finding Myra than I was before I started. She wasn't in the infirmary, she wasn't located on a makeshift list of missing wolves, and she wasn't in the morgue with the other unnamed bodies waiting to be claimed by their families and loved ones. She was just gone as if she'd never been here in the first place.
"Vlad!" I could hear Gwynn shouting down the hall as I lounged against the door to the mortuary. "VLAD!"
I ran my hand up my face and through my hair, hoping to ease my frustration. Guinevere had already been through so much during the war; I didn't need to burden her with my problems.
"Oh, there you are!" Guinevere exclaims, spotting me as I straighten to my full height, hurrying down the hall to reach me as she continues talking, "We've been searching all over for you! Damien's trying to get everyone together so we can plan out a recovery effort. Now that Jupiter is gone, mending the pack is our utmost....what's wrong, Vladimir?" She asks, coming to an abrupt halt in front of me, caressing my cheek with her palm.
I clear my throat before responding; since meeting Guinevere, I've become more emotional, more intuned with my human side. I've forgotten what it's like to have others know what I'm feeling.
"Vlad?" Guinevere questioned again, her face filled with concern.
"It's...." I want to tell her about Myra, but there's so much more for us to worry about. "It's nothing. There are so many unnamed men and women in the mortuary, waiting for their family members to identify them."
"I know there's more to it than that." Guinevere replied, looking skeptically at me, "But, for now, I'll let it slide. I know there's a lot on everyone's plate. Let's hurry to the house. Since the war ruined the packhouse, Damien is having everyone meet at our home."
"We could always have the discussions at the castle," I reply as I let Guinevere take my hand and lead me away from our dead.
"Nikolai's already made use of the castle," Guinevere replies as she walks slowly beside me, peeking at me from her peripheral, "There are many homeless pack members. He's set up accommodations for all of them until we can rebuild their homes. The families have been given the available rooms, and the individual members have been given small tents to set up around the meeting, dining, and dance halls."
I nodded my consent. This is why I'd chosen Nikolai as my second-in-command. He had a good head on his shoulders. Even without me, he could get through the necessary reassignments of living quarters. "Good. I wouldn't expect any less." I reply when I notice Gwynn seemingly waiting for a verbal response.
We walk the remainder of the way in silence. Not the awkward type of silence, where it feels like there's been too much left unsaid, but the peaceful kind. The type of silence that's needed after far too much has happened in too little amount of time.
"Vladimir!" Damien calls as Guinevere, and I enter their home. Alex and Nikolai quickly stand, welcoming us in greeting. "We'd wondered where you'd run off too."
"There was something that needed my immediate attention," I reply, not offering a further explanation, even though I could tell the four of them were hoping I would.
"But of course." Damien responds, "Please sit." He states, gesturing to the empty chair beside Nikolai, placing me by Guinevere and opposite Alex.
"Alright." Alex states once everyone has taken their seat, "We've managed to change pack laws, unite a vampire colony and a werewolf pack, and defeat a god. Now it's time for the hard part." He pauses, smiling at each of us, "If we want the Solar Moon pack to remain united, to be the strongest pack in the Northern part of the hemisphere, then we need to focus on our recovery."
"I agree," Guinevere replies once Alex takes his seat. "I think we should first focus on tending to our wounded, and then our next priority should be laying our dead to rest."
"Do you keep a census?" I ask, looking across the table at Damien. "It'll be tedious work, but if we cross-check our censuses, we should be able to determine who is still missing and possibly those who've died but haven't been identified yet. To show that the pack is still united, I believe we should have a combined funeral for all those we've lost."
"It will be tedious, but it's an effort I'm willing to put forth for those who've made the ultimate sacrifice for our people," Damien replies. "I'll get to it this afternoon. I can do a pack roll call. It shouldn't be hard, finding out whose pack links have been broken and the cause of the break."
"It will be a little more work on our side, but I should have a complete list by the end of this week."
"Then let's plan the funerals for Sunday. It'll take place at Dusk, we will light a pyre, and we will mourn those we lost until the moon is at its highest, and then we will have a celebration of life, and we will rejoice in everything we still have. It will mark the ending and also the beginning." Guinevere states, "While you," She states, looking between Damien and me, "are sorting through the censuses, I'll plan the funeral."
"Alex and I will start the rebuilding process," Nikolai states, looking over at Alex, who nods his agreeance. "I plan to start with the packhouse and then move to individual houses."
"Whatever the cost, I'll cover it," I reply, knowing the Royal treasure is endless.
"Same." Damien replies, "Alex, you're also pack treasurer; make sure you spare no expenses."
We stayed and chatted for a few hours more, making sure every I was dotted, and every T was crossed before we broke apart. It was nearly 2 am, and I felt restless. Something inside me was pulling me to leave the pack, but I couldn't. At least not yet. There was still so much to be done.
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For the next five days, I stayed at the kingdom in my office. I worked day and night on the census. I was almost done, and so far, I'd found that a hundred vampires had perished during the war, and at least fifty were still missing. There were thirty vampires in the morgue unaccounted for, so I'd tasked Nikolai with gathering the families of the missing and seeing if they could identify their loved ones. The funeral was in two days, and I wanted to complete my part of the recovery effort before dinner tonight, Guinevere had invited me over, and I wanted to review the losses with Damien and see what he thought we should do for the families that had lost their loved ones.
Damien had completed his list the very next day after our original meeting. I wanted to ask him about Myra, but I didn't want to raise suspicions, so I decided against it. I would find out later tonight anyways when we went over our lists, and hopefully, knowing if she was safe or not would ease this knot I've had in my chest since learning of her disappearance. Nikolai and Alex had also finished their task in a record amount of time. They'd only taken three days to rebuild the entirety of the pack. The packhouse was now triple the size it was before; it now looked like a miniature castle. Nikolai and Alex decided to move in there and act as pack liaisons, giving Damien, Guinevere, and I guess myself extra privacy. However, I'd decided to turn the castle into a new orphanage. There were many children, turned vampires and baby wolves, who'd lost their families during the wars. The children and their caretakers were already staying at the castle, and I didn't want to uproot their lives more than they'd already been. The children were barely starting to settle in, and I thought the familiar surroundings would offer them a small amount of peace in their new lives.
A knock on my office door and Nikolai calling my name pulled me from my thoughts.
"Vlad."
"You may enter, Nik."
"All thirty of the remains have been identified, and also the twenty names that were left on your list, I visited their relatives, and fifteen of them confirmed that their family members had passed shortly before the war, and the other five confirmed that their family member left at your announced Gwynn as Queen."
What would I do without my second-in-command? He should be King. Nikolai had already taken on so many of my tasks, and now he'd completed the one task I'd given myself.
"So it's done then. Now we can lay everyone to rest." I state, feeling like a dark cloud that had been present since Jupiter's clutches had reached the pack was finally starting to drift away.
"It's done," Nikolai replied, continuing to stare as if there was something more he wanted to say.
"Is that all, Nik?" I ask as I glance at the time and begin to gather my paperwork so I can head to Gwynn's.
"You seem distracted, Vlad." Nikolai begins shifting uncomfortably.
"Nikolai, you've been my friend since before we settled on these lands; please speak freely."
"The night of the merger, before the explosion, something caught your attention, and it's held your attention ever since. You've been distracted, Vladimir." Nikolai pauses as he stares at me for a minute before continuing, "Just remember that whatever you're carrying, you don't have to carry yourself anymore. You have an entire community here to help you. You aren't the lonely Vampire King you once were, dear friend."
"Thank you, Nik," I reply, giving my friend a heartfelt smile. "I will remember that, and in due time, I will remember your advice and take you up on your offer, but for now, I have to carry this by myself."
Nikolai nods before stepping aside and letting me pass.
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As I step into Guinevere's home, I am greeted with the warm scent of fresh-baked bread and the irresistible smell of oven-roasted turkey.
"Vladimir, we're in the dining room," Guinevere calls, having sensed me the moment I walked in.
I find it oddly soothing, knowing that even with me carrying the other half of my soul, our soul mate bond continues even with Sierra gone. As I walk into the dining room and sit opposite Damien once again with Guinevere sitting between us, she passes me a glass of Chardonnay.
"Okay, the jigs up," Guinevere states, looking stubbornly at me. "All of your tasks have been complete. As of tomorrow, our dead will be laid to rest. You have no more excuses, Vladimir. Tell us what's going on. I've noticed a change in you since the war; Nikolai says you've been acting strange since the merger, and even Mr. Obtuse here," She says, pointing at her mate who scowls at her nickname for him, "has noticed a change, although he thinks you're mourning the loss of Sierra, even though I've told him over and over again that your relationship wasn't like that."
I stare at Guinevere and then at Damien before finally realizing what this dinner is. It's a mediocre version of an intervention. Even as I rack my brain for ideas on how best to avoid the question, I realize there's nothing I can do. Guinevere has forced my hand. So, instead, I take a deep breath and turn to Damien. "Myra Faerie was... is she on your list?"
"Vladimir, we can discuss the list later. I want to know what's going on with you." Guinevere replies, taking my hand in hers, a worried look on her face.
"Gwynn, if you want to know what's going on, then I need to know what happened to Myra," I reply, my eyes not breaking away from Damien's.
Gwynn looks like she wants to say more, but Damien's already reached for his folder and begun shuffling through his paperwork. Gwynn's grip on my hand tightens, and I wonder if she can feel my rapid pulse through my wrist or hear my heart thudding against my chest, begging to break free.
"Myra," Damien states, running his finger down his list as he searches for her name. "Ah-hah. Myra left shortly after the explosion in the dining hall. She severed her pack link when she ran through the pack barriers without letting Alex or myself know where she was going."
"How do you know all this?" I ask, knowing that everything went to hell after the explosion.
"An Alpha's connection to his pack works differently than other wolves' connections. I can turn my pack link off and on, but everything that happens leaves an imprint on Leo. It's why I could complete my report on our losses so quickly. Leo was able to run through the names and let me know what had happened to each pack member."
"Who is Myra?" Guinevere asks before I can ask Damien for more insight on an Alpha's connection.
I pondered on how to answer that question. When I was first answering Guinevere's connection to our soul mate bond, I'd told her that Vampire's mates and wolf's mates were different. Their mating came from lust and their animal instinct to procreate, while ours came from our need to feel alive, but my mating with Myra was different. She wasn't the keeper to my soul; she is the person I'm meant to spend the rest of my life with, the person who I want to mate with, the person who completes me. She is the curse breaker.
"Myra is my mate," I reply softly and then continue on before Guinevere can ask more questions, "She's my mate, and I found her right before the explosion. I've felt this pull to go to her ever since, but I can't yet. Right now, I'm needed here, in the Solar Moon pack, but when the time comes, I will leave and find her." I state firmly, looking at Guinevere, "So tell me about the funeral arrangements.”