Coal

I watched them all from where I sat in my balcony. Heathens. All of them. They were quick to make sure that I knew they didn't support my reign, but they would gladly attend my masquerade and the show I put on before the actual event started. They were laughing, smiling, talking amongst one another. They seemed genuinely at ease. I suppose they had no reason not to be at ease in my house. I wasn't going to kill them. Nor was I planning them any harm. This was supposed to be a celebratory event. The kind that we as a pack, no, as a kingdom would experience in only the best of lights. Afterall, tonight there would be dozens of couples leaving my palace in one anothers warm embrace.

The idea of it nearly had me laughing. The idea that these people who detest me so, would be thanking an event in my home for finding their destined mates. Somehow, that felt like the best fuck you I could possibly give to them. Let generations to come know that I played a part in their lives, that the first Beta King was the one who organized the very event that made their existence possible.

That was a little egotistical.

I wasn't solely responsible for it. They would have the oppurtunities on other occassions to meet one another, to recognize their sacred bond, but my event was designed to create the widest reach possible to make it so that the most unions possible came out of this night. Alphas, Betas, Deltas, Omegas, hell, even witches and vampires were invited to this event just to ensure that every adult over the age of twenty two who was not mated would at least have a better chance of meeting their mate. My reign depended on this evening going well. They hated me, but if they could say that this event was beneficial, then I'd have won at least a few of their praises.

Cassian cleared his throat, and put his hand on my shoulder. I looked over at him, and rolled my eyes at the silver mouse mask that he'd donned for the masquerade.

"Is that really the mask you chose? Out of every other kind you could have picked?" I raised my eyebrows and smirked, though he couldn't see that movement with my own mask covering my face.

"Only one of us could be the wolf, and since you're King you got first pick," he frowned deeply, "asshole."

"Damn straight I got first pick," I straightened out my tuxedo jacket, and looked back at the throngs of people. "Afterall, it is my birthday."

"And a big one at that," Cassian grinned and grabbed my wrist tightly, running his thumb over the tattoo that I'd gotten six years years ago. "The big two-five, buddy. You're finally going to be able to meet your Future Mrs.Henderson."

I rolled my eyes again, but my wolf was howling internally. We were both admittedly excited to meet our mate. It was something we'd been waiting for since we were sixteen, and our birthday couldn't seem to come fast enough.

Only thirty-two minutes, my wolf called out, pacing our headspace back and forth.

"Even if she's not here tonight, you have the resources to find her," Hannah said from beside me. She had a small smile on her lips as she looked through the crowd. "However, should you find her tonight, remember that the witnessing of a royal consumation is no longer a legal requirment of a King and his Mate." She winked at me.

"If you find your mate tonight, I want you to know, I'm running from this room as fast as I possibly can. Not a chance in hell do I want to see you make out and dry hump in my ballroom," I shuddered at the thought of watching my Second be sexually intimate with someone.

"Likewise," she said, audibly as disturbed with the thought of it as I was.

I grinned under my mask.

"So, did he show up?" Cassian asked, his eyes scanning the crowd for anything amiss.

I shook my head, "not officially, but patrol has alerted me that he was spotted on the boarder with two of his men."

"Have they detained him?" Hannah asked quietly.

I shook my head again, and smiled, "no. I told them to let him in. Besides," I shrugged, "what's he going to do with two men against my guards, and against us?"

Cassian huffed, "that's reckless, Coal."

"But it gives me the oppurtunity to put him in his place in front of such a large portion of his supporters," I countered.

"What if they're in on it with him?"

"None of the guests present have weapons on them, nor do they have anything else that could possible do damage other than the flasks full of whiskey that could knock a grown man on his ass with one whiff."

Cassian grumbled under his breath in response, and I sighed, then took my seat on the throne. I'd spent months trying to make myself look comfortable in this throne, and according to Hannah I was finally succeeding. The throne was finally looking like it belonged to me. Like mine was the ass that was meant to touch it. As I sat, I brought up my left leg to rest the heel of my foot against the cushion and leaned it against the armrest.

Hannah flanked me to my left, and Cassian descended the steps to join his mate near the patio doors.

The room was filled entirely soon, with hardly any open space between the wolves who were laughing and drinking with one another. The only space that I could make out one wolf from another was the dance floor. There, couples twirled and spun and dipped and danced well-choreographed dances to the music that played from the live orchestra just below my dais.

I inhaled deeply, trying to clear my head of my thoughts of the former-Prince planning to crash my birthday.

With every passing minute my wolf got more and more anxious, and my heart started to race.

"How much longer?" I asked Hannah.

She checked her watch, and smiled, "ten minutes, your Majesty."

I took in another deep breath, and sipped at the water that I had brought with me from the theatre.

I wanted nothing more than to get moving. So I stood, and bowed my head to Hannah respectfully, "care to dance, Hannah?"

She checked her watch again, then nodded, "we have time."

I offered her my hand, and together we joined the dancing couples on the floor as a new song started to fill the air around us.

My hand found her waist, and her's found the hem of her skirt while our clasped hands rose into the air.

We waited for the cue, and then we danced. Each and every couple on the dance floor moved in sync with one another, and I knew that it would have been mesmerizing to watch. I glided with Hannah across the floor, while she watched our surroundings like a hawk. She looked paranoid with how much her head was turning.

"Hannah, chill out," I chuckled, "there are guards crawling all around this place, it'll be fine."

"Beckoning in your biggest threat is hardly something to take lightly, Coal," she clenched her jaw, and her eyes met mine, "don't tell me to 'chill out' when my whole job is literally to stress over you. God, I hope you meet your mate tonight so I don't have to do this shit anymore."

"You don't have to stress about me, Hannah. I'm seriously fine, the guards wouldn't let anything happen to me, nor could the Prince beat me in hand to hand or even sword to sword."

She frowned, but nodded once, "fine, but if he kills you tonight, I'm going to stand over your grave and say 'I told you so' to my hearts content."

"I would be dissapointed if you didn't," I grinned.

The song playing started to reach the part where all of the stops were pulled out, so I shut up and paid attention to my foot work. We stopped moving in a circle around the dance floor and orbitted around our partners instead. Hands up, but not touching, and eyes locked on one another. Then with small spins, the women on the floor alternated partners. We repeated the same orbitting motion, and then they alternated once more, and the dance continued around the floor.

I held my new partner's waist gently, leading her in the dance as she seemed to stumble over her own steps.

"Here," I muttered to her after the first lap around the dance floor, then I lifted her gently by her waist, and set her feet on my toes.

She gasped, "thank you, your majesty," she whispered, and I saw her cheeks flush.

I nodded, but didn't say anything more to her. We alternated partners twice more, in the opposite direction, and I was back with Hannah as the song made it's last rounds.

Hannah looked over her shoulder to the partner I'd helped lead in dance. She smiled up at me. "Wasn't she pretty?"

"I didn't notice," I shrugged, and we moved to the final step of the dance.

She sighed as we bowed to one another on the last chord of the song. "She was blushing red as a tomato when you pulled her onto your feet."

I shrugged again, and offered her my arm. She took it and we left the dance floor.

"How long?" I asked her quietly.

"Three minutes." She said, not checking her watch this time. Her heart was racing in her chest.

I felt my own thundering along.

"Do you think my mate is here?" She asked gently.

I nodded, "I have no doubt he is. Anyone mated to you would have to party enough for the pair of you, and this is forecasted as the social event of the year." I chuckled.

She laughed, "are you calling me a buzzkill, Coal?"

"Absolutely, I am," I nodded.

"Well, that just means I'm doing a good job then," she shoved me gently, and let go of my arm as we reached the dais once more.

"Hannah, you eat, sleep, breath, and bleed your job. I promise that I won't die the day you decide to take a fifteen," I raised my eyebrows at her and sat back on the throne.

"Famous last words," she muttered.

I shook my head, "if you find your mate tonight I'm making you take a vacation with him starting Saturday. The second the conference is over, you are going to be flying first class to the country or state of your choice."

"First class?" She grinned.

I nodded, "not a chance in hell am I going to subject unsuspecting victims to two freshly mated wolves."

She took in a deep breath, "I just hope he's here."

I smiled at her, and took her hand, turning it over to check her watch.

"Forty-five seconds," I whispered, and let go of her hand.

None of the other wolves knew the real purpose of this event. They knew that a charm had been placed on the palace grounds to disguise everyone's scents until the stroke of midnight on my birthday, but they didn't know it was my birthday, and they didn't know I was also planning on some of them finding their mates at the same time I did. They also didn't know that I'd invited high ranking officials of other species to this event as well. Among the wolves were vampires, witches, and humans as well.

I could only hope that it all worked how I'd planned it, and wolves and supernaturals of all kinds would meet their destined mates and forever intertwine the hands of our kinds.