Standards of Etiquette
Aurora POV
With a resonant, heavy groan of ancient iron hinges, Kieran pushed the massive oak doors inward.
The ambient hum of overlapping conversations severed instantly. It was as if all the air in the room had been violently sucked out, replaced by a crushing, absolute silence. Every single head turned toward the entrance. Thirty pairs of eyes locked onto us.
The sheer weight of their stares should have been suffocating.
For a normal wolf, it would have driven them to their knees in forced submission.
But as I stepped over the threshold with my hand securely tucked in Kieran’s, my heart rate didn’t even flutter.
I kept my chin perfectly level, my eyes sweeping over the massive, obsidian table that dominated the center of the chamber.
Kieran led us into the room, his presence radiating a dark, suffocating wave of Alpha dominance that commanded the space without him having to utter a single syllable. Silas moved silently, pulling the heavy doors shut with a definitive thud that echoed like thunder off the stone walls.
We reached the head of the table. Seraphina sat with the fluid, flawless elegance of a woman who had ruled this very room for decades, her chin tipped up in a silent challenge to anyone who dared question her presence.
Then, with a tenderness that completely belied the lethal aura rolling off his broad shoulders, Kieran moved, pulling out a heavy wooden chair for me.
I smoothed the soft fabric of my dress and took my seat.
Only once I was settled did Kieran finally take the massive, intricately carved throne at the center, resting his forearms on the table.
Silas instantly anchored himself into a rigid, military stance directly behind Kieran’s chair, a lethal shadow waiting for an order.
The silence stretched, pulling as tight as a drawn bowstring.
“Well,” a harsh, abrasive voice finally snapped, shattering the quiet.
I turned my gaze down the length of the table.
The speaker was an older, gray-haired man with a deeply lined face and a stiff, self-important posture.
He wore a pendant of a regional Elder, with a pack insignia imprinted on it, his hands planted flat on the table as he glared at me with undisguised contempt.
“Is this the standard of etiquette we are to expect?” the man demanded, his voice echoing off the vaulted ceiling. “A feral unknown who takes a seat at the high table without so much as a bow or a word of greeting to the representatives of the main packs of Valdora?”
Beside me, I felt the immediate, terrifying spike of Kieran’s annoyance flare through our bond. A low, warning growl began to vibrate in his chest, but before he could unleash the full fury of the Alpha King, I reached under the table, placing my hand firmly over his thigh to stall him.
‘Let me’, I projected down our bond.
I didn’t raise my voice. I simply leaned back in my chair, meeting the Elder’s furious stare with cool, unblinking mercury and azure eyes.
“Elder Thorne, I presume?” I asked, pulling the name from the political lessons my mother had drilled into me what felt like a lifetime ago.
I kept my tone perfectly even, a velvet-wrapped blade.
“I am well aware of court etiquette, Elder. In fact, I was taught that it is customary for the lords of the realm to stand when their Alpha King and his mate enter the room. Yet I saw all of you were seated and you spoke before my mate as well.”
A few of the younger Betas standing behind their respective Alphas or Elders exchanged highly amused glances, several of them desperately biting the insides of their cheeks to suppress their smirks.
“If we are speaking of respect,” I continued, my voice carrying the clear, ringing authority of a born royal, “then I suggest you evaluate your own. Given my rank as your King’s fated and chosen mate,
you and every other representative currently warming a chair are the ones who are profoundly out of line. You do not demand a bow from your Alpha or your Luna. You offer one. And above all, you do not speak before you have been greeted.”
Thorne’s weathered face flushed a violent, mottled shade of crimson. His jaw dropped, and he sputtered, slamming a fist onto the table. “You arrogant—! You are an unvetted rogue! You have not been officially recognized by this council, and until you prove your bloodline, you have no right to—”
Scrape.
The harsh, grinding sound of heavy wood dragging against stone cut Thorne off mid-rant.
Halfway down the table, a massive man pushed his chair back and stood up. He was built like a mountain, his face bisected by a wicked, jagged scar, and his dark eyes danced with deep, genuine amusement. He ignored Thorne completely, turning his massive frame to face the head of the table.
Slowly, deliberately, the man placed a hand over his heart and bowed at the waist. A deep, traditional showing of absolute respect.
“She has you there, Thorne,” the Alpha rumbled, his deep voice thick with a rumbling chuckle as he straightened up and met my gaze.
The absolute approval in his eyes washed away the sourness of Thorne’s outrage.
“You can’t preach about tradition while sitting on your own ass in the presence of the Alpha King and his mate, our Luna Queen.”
The man offered me a wide grin. “Alpha Garrick of the Ironwood Pack, Your Highness. It is an absolute honor to meet a Luna who knows how to bare her teeth.”
----
Kieran POV
My wolf practically purred, vibrating with a profound, overwhelming sense of satisfaction.
The heavy, suffocating anger that had spiked in my blood the moment Thorne opened his disrespectful mouth evaporated entirely. I looked down at the slender, delicate hand resting firmly on my thigh, anchoring my temper, and then shifted my gaze to my breathtakingly beautiful mate sitting to my left.
She hadn’t just deflected the insult; she had caught the blade barehanded and driven it straight back into Thorne’s chest.
I was deeply impressed that she had correctly identified him.
Elder Thorne wasn’t just a bitter old man; he had ruled the Ashenvale Pack in the eastern territories with an iron fist for three decades before passing the Alpha title to his son and taking a seat as a regional Elder.
He was the very bedrock of the council’s traditionalist faction, a wolf who had spent the last fourty years hoarding political influence and demanding absolute deference.
To watch my mate completely dismantle his authority without raising her voice a single decibel was nothing short of glorious.
And then Garrick stood up.
A surge of deep, genuine respect for the Ironwood Alpha warmed my chest.
Garrick was a good man, a veteran of the border skirmishes, and, more importantly, he was Mara’s father.
Having watched Mara serve in my Vanguard with feral, unapologetic ferocity, it made perfect sense that her father would instantly recognize and respect the lethal steel hidden beneath Aurora’s quiet composure.
Garrick didn’t care about court politics; he cared about strength.
And my little mate had just shown enough of it to flood the entire chamber.
I let the heavy, shocked silence stretch for a few seconds more, allowing Garrick’s booming laugh and formal bow to properly echo off the stone walls. Thorne was still sitting frozen, his face a violent shade of purple, his mouth opening and closing like a suffocating fish.
Slowly, I leaned forward. I didn’t yell. I didn’t need to. I simply let the crushing weight of my Alpha aura bleed out into the room, pressing down on the shoulders of everyone present until the air grew thin.
“You heard my mate,” I rumbled, my voice dangerously soft, yet carrying enough commanding frequency to rattle the glass goblets on the table. I locked my eyes onto Thorne, letting my canines slip past my bottom lip. “When your Alpha and Luna enter the room, you stand.”
To my right, my mother took a delicate sip from the water goblet placed before her, her expression one of perfect, aristocratic disdain.
Thorne’s throat bobbed. He looked at me, then to the terrifyingly calm woman at my side, and finally to the furious, disappointed glare of the former Luna Queen, my mother.
Defeated, Thorne gritted his teeth, scraping his chair back.
That was the breaking point.
All around the table, the sound of chairs scraping against stone erupted in a chaotic, unified chorus. The remaining Pack Alphas and regional Elders scrambled to their feet, the Betas snapping to rigid attention behind them.
The sheer wave of submission was a palpable. The most influential, stubborn, and deeply dangerous wolves in the kingdom stood simultaneously, bowing their heads in deference to me and the she-wolf sitting quietly at my side.
One by one, moving clockwise around the table from Garrick, they kept their heads bowed and began the formal rites.
“Alpha Kaelen of the Frostpeak Pack,” the next man murmured, a massive, blond-haired warrior whose eyes remained respectfully fixed on the polished black wood of the table.
“Alpha Vance, representing the Riverbend Pack,” an older, elegant wolf followed, his bow fluid and practiced.
“Alpha Corin of the Nightfall territory.”
“Alpha Torrance of the Bloodmoon Pack,” a scarred brute muttered, his head dipping low.
“Alpha Rhyon of the Shadowpine Pack.”
“Elder Gideon, representing the Stonejaw Pack.”
“Alpha Vane of Blackwater.”
On and on it went, a relentless cascade of deep, rumbling voices echoing off the heavy stone walls.
“Alpha Lukan of Stormwatch.”
“Alpha Dax of the Redridge Pack.”
“Alpha Orion of Silverlake.”
“Elder Baelen, representing the Sunforge Pack.”
“Alpha Fenrir of the Hollowbane Pack.”
“Alpha Malakor of Grimvale.”
Finally, the chain of introductions reached the end of the table, coming full circle to the very man who had started the confrontation.
Every eye in the room shifted to the last man standing.
Elder Thorne’s jaw was locked so tight I could practically hear his teeth grinding from where I sat.
He stared rigidly at the table, vehemently refusing to look up and meet Aurora’s eyes.
He placed a stiff, trembling hand over his chest and jerked his shoulders down in a shallow, intensely bitter approximation of a bow.
“Elder Thorne,” he bit out, his voice scraping like rusted iron, the words clearly tasting like ash in his mouth. “Representing the Ashenvale Pack.”