The Last Spirit Wolf (Elena Norwood)

-Noah-

When I enter the dining hall, without Vera, everyone stops eating and stares at me. They don't know if they should stand, as they did with Alistair whenever he walked into a room, or if they should just ignore me like any other warrior, which I was less than 48 hours ago.

The silence is beginning to annoy me as I make my way to fix myself some food, the female lycans even attempt to take my plate from me and serve me themselves. I try to politely wave them off and thank them, but they're quite insistent. In the end, I just take my food and sit with my normal group of people. Once I sit, it's like everyone is holding their breath to see what I do; so, I just start eating normally, like I always do, not minding the stares.

Ethan, Ezra, and Mason are sitting next to me and in front of me biting their cheeks so they don't laugh. I growl at them slightly, challenging them to say something.

"So how do you like the stir fry, *Your Highness*?" Ezra asks, completely serious.

"Would you like for me to cut your steak, King Noah?" Ethan asks.

"Or here, Your Highness," Mason says, "let me just..." he proceeds to place a f*****g napkin in my collar.

The silence in the entire room is deafening.

I stare at all three cheeky bastards and unceremoniously grab my stir fry with my hand and spread it all over Ethan's face. The mouths of the other two hang open as they stare back and forth between Ethan and myself. I picked Ethan for this specifically because he finds this absolutely disgusting; I'm just waiting for his reaction.

"It's on, motherfucker," he says as he takes food in his hands and throws it violently my way. only I grab Mason by his neck and place his face directly in the line of fire. It misses me, but it gets Mason good.

There's another minute of silence as the entire room registers what just happened.

Then Mason yells,

"FOOD FIGHT!"

All hell breaks loose.

There is food flying everywhere, the female lycans have run into the kitchen to hide, and the youngsters are even on the tables, running away from their elders whom they took the opportunity to soil with food. It's complete chaos and I absolutely love it. Even Eli has joined in after one of his students threw a bowl of pasta his way.

This right here reminds me of the old days, when we were young and would get into food fights at least once a month and had to pay a very heavy price for it; cleaning up, extra hours of training, more combat hours, more laps around the castle, so on and so forth. It was worth it every single time.

By the end, there is no more food left to throw around and we are all exhausted from the action and from laughing so much. When we compose ourselves, I look around at all the mess we caused. All of us, no exceptions, are absolutely disgusting, covered in all types of food head to toe. The floor, the walls, and inexplicably the chandeliers and ceiling also have food stuck to them.

Everyone is looking sheepishly at me, probably waiting for me to snap. I clear my throat and look at all of them.

"Anyone below the age of 16 has to stay here and clean. The rest of you, back to work!" I say, completely serious. I can only imagine how stupid I look giving orders while completely covered with food.

I hear all the youngsters groan and complain, one even has the audacity to answer back.

"But you started it! It's not fair!"

"That's no way to speak to your King!" One of the teachers scolds him.

"It's ok," I say, "young man, it's not about who starts a fight, it's about who finishes it, and from what I saw, you were the last one to throw that bowl of salad." I point to the empty bowl still in his hands. Ethan, Ezra, Mason and the rest of our group burst out laughing.

I clear my throat again, feigning seriousness, "Alright, let's get to it."

As I leave the dining hall, I see out of the corner of my eye the female lycans coming out and handing the youngsters buckets with water and mops; I also hear their collective groans.

I smile to myself, on the verge of laughter, as I make my way to the kitchen to ask the cooks to prepare something for Vera for when she comes back. Next, I head in for a quick shower and coffee before entering the hours long torment that is my meeting with the Council.

At the meeting, I was pleasantly surprised to find that most of the Council members came back for the second round. It was my understanding that they were not at all pleased with the change in management but of course, they want to keep as much power and influence as they can.

The rest of the meeting was spent addressing their various concerns due to the coup; most of which had to do with their benefits as Council members, and of course, their pay, and very little to do with the well-being of the kingdom. One of them even suggested they get the pay of the ones that left evenly distributed amongst themselves for 'picking up their slack."

When the meeting is over, I at least managed to draw and agree on an agenda for the next meetings and changes that would be implemented right away, which included not taxing communities affected by drought or grain shortage. They were obviously not pleased, but agreed nonetheless. "Alright, Council session over, we will meet here tomorrow at the same time. You are all dismissed," I say.

Most of them bow their heads my way as a sign of respect as they leave, others won't even look my way. I make a mental note to remind them that they have a very simple choice to make; either they get with the program, or they can get the f**k out of this castle. I don't even know what time it is when the meeting finally ends, all I know is that I'm hungry and I haven't heard anything from Vera since she took off with Elden.

When I make my way back to the dining hall, there's nobody here; it really must be late. I open the doors to the dining hall, expecting for it to be completely empty, but instead I find Vera eating completely alone on a table. Her eyes find mine as soon as I spot her and she smiles at me.

This is all I need after a very long day.

I close the gap between us and sit next to her, giving her a quick kiss; her lips cold from the ice in her drink.Material © of NôvelDrama.Org.

"So, I leave you alone for a few hours and you get food on the chandelier?" She says, pointing at the chandelier at the center of the room with her fork.

I laugh,

"I actually think that was one of the young ones."

"They hate you, you know? It's barbaric to have them clean this entire hall," she laughs.

"Hey, it builds character. It certainly helped mine."

"Well, the cooks and other cleaning staff were very grateful, perhaps that's why they made us dessert," she points at the cake she's eating.

I smile at her, feeling incredibly lucky that I get to have some moments of normalcy with the love of my life; and that she's not the least bit spooked by everything happening in my life right now.

I open my mouth to speak, but her eyes dart to the entrance of the dining hall. I turn around, following her gaze.

Elden is looking directly at us, his eyes wide and looking rather pale.