The Rebellious Mate

10(i) The Spare

Acwulf licked his elongated canines to savor the taste of satisfaction. The weight burdening his soul since childhood had disappeared; he felt lighter.

Even Amoux bristled with pride, not rage. His beast's tail wouldn't stop wagging now he possessed territories to defend.

After losing many battles, they won the war—the proof—a gold tube bearing the Saxe-Coburg emblem with a declaration of his new title.

He flicked open the maroon velvet box. Nestled in the fabric lay a brooch and seal, recognizing his royal status. The centerpiece of the breastpin was the largest kyawthuite ever discovered. In the twilight, the rare stone, the size of a peach, sparkled. His shell company owned the only mines of the world's rarest precious stone in Nepal.

Last weekend, Emperor Félix Ashkenazic Saxe-Coburg declared him Duke Acwulf Darrah, the first of his name. An oak with fangs for roots symbolized the newly minted blue-blooded house of Oakenmedow. The tree could grow for centuries, and spawned groves. He hoped so would he.

He picked up the signet with his insignia and slipped it on his middle finger. The second piece, a delicate band with a pea-sized orange gemstone from the Mogok region of Myanmar, worried him. He'd gifted the princess cut, five-carat rock to the Emperor. However, Félix Ashkenazic's jeweler set it in a ring and returned it to him. The gesture conveyed an unvoiced demand–it was time Acwulf sired an heir.

Acwulf pressed the button on the handheld radio. "Now," he said, standing by the massive sliding glass doors.

High above, on the edge of a cliff, the banner unfurled along the tallest spire. In the moonlight, the golden evergreen against the black cloth glimmered. Flames blazed on the watchtowers' peaks.

"It's done," he muttered, watching the castle called the Nest, a Luxembourg stronghold since the fourteenth century. The Remus occupied it in lieu of his grandsire debts. After their ouster, the Emperor proclaimed it the crown's territory.

His skint pater dreamed of reclaiming it, yet failed to come up with the gold to do so. Acwulf purchased the forested mountains from the crown and restored the ruins, not to honor its legacy, but to erase it. It wouldn't bear the Luxembourg flag ever. His acquiring this estate was a strategic move to bruise his father's ego. Like most Olden dynasties, the Ducals of Luxembourg followed the archaic laws of inheritance. Systemic corruption, arrogance, avarice, lust, envy, gluttony, anger, and sloth ruined them. Inbreeding and extramarital affairs led to their precipitous fall from grace. They'd lost the patronage of the late Romulus Queen and went into exile for seven decades. The Emperor reinstated them in the eighties and his office granted them an annual stipend.

But his father, brought up in penury, never recovered from the humiliation. Even after the fates smiled, he couldn't manage his expenses or farmsteads. His maternal Cassian bloodline was in the same boat—with a cracked hull and full of holes.

Acwulf did better; a self-made aristocrat, his domains were his to rule and ruin. Only his. He'd inherited nothing. The establishment hailed him as the modern face of the Olden nobility.

He threw himself in his chair, still determined not to stay here, his official demesne, for long. A mere symbol of his victory, he didn't plan to reside here.

On inhabitable corners of Greece and Iceland, he'd built his summer and winter homes. His beast reveled in the isolation of both locations. The harsh landscape and inaccessible shorelines were perfect for them. But the real asset was the warren he'd created under the earth, hidden from prying humans and their satellites, and the source of his power and standing.

'No. Mikhael and Misha are why we succeeded. I miss them,' Amoux huffed.

Acwulf nodded as he observed the limestone walls of the refurbished carriage house. Bare wooden beams supported the tiled roof. The loft contained his living quarters.