Pressing Matters

Cyrus POV

I could not comprehend what had happened to me just last night. There was no explanation for it. I could not even get one because I was the Alpha. I was supposed to know everything. The only people I could confide in were perhaps the priest and Theo but even at that they were still my subordinates and my ego could not suffer injury. However, I had never read in any literature that the moon goddess would gift a werewolf, especially an Alpha, a human as a mate.

I was in a fix. The only explanation I could think of was that Agnes was a witch; she had to be. But still admitting that a witch could cloud my senses and pretend to be my mate would be exposing a weakness and I could not let that happen.

“Your Majesty? You are very distracted about something, do you mind sharing?” It was Theo at our daily meetings in the morning. I had ruminated about the possibility of Agnes being my mate or a witch all night and I still had no answers.

“What? I… I am alright Theo. I think I need a mistress,” I said with a devilish smile trying to mask my worry.

“Changing mistresses like your underwear is not going to make Agatha come back or make it hurt less. What you need is a woman that can be your Luna. Alpha Cyrus you need a mate. Your throne is unstable if you have no heir. If you were to die and leave the throne without a heir you would plunge the pack into pandemonium and you know it all too well,” it was the same anthem Theo changed to my ears every morning, I only smiled in return. At the moment I had problems bigger than producing an heir. I had to figure out what the hell Agnes was, what she had done to me and more importantly how to make sure that it never happened again.

“Lord Marshall's daughter,  she is very beautiful,” I said as though I had not heard a word he had said.

“She is a noble lady. If you want her you will have to ask her father's consent and more importantly marry her. I will not object if you want her as your mate, she is a decent woman,” said Theo.

“Theo, I am not getting a mate. Let's leave things at that, shall we?”

“I understand your Majesty. We shall table this another time,” he responded.

Sometimes I miss Theo, my best friend. I did not like him as my right hand. He was too stoic, too strict, he was too perfect a right hand but I understood him I knew all too well why he had to change: betrayal. We had been betrayed. I remembered it all too well and it still gives me the shivers.

“To more important things. Was my blood enough to pacify the south?”

“You know nothing ever is but for now they'll behave,” he returned.

“We need a permanent solution.”

“Your advisors are brainstorming night and day as I am, we will come up with a strategy but one of the things that would help immensely is…”

“If I produce an heir. It is all our conversations ever come to, doesn't it? Do you and the rest of my subjects think of me as a breeding horse?”

“Of course not but it is important that you procreate.”

“That will not happen soon so we need to come up with a better solution to our crisis, okay?”

“Your new slave. Agnes. She is not here. Is she a traitor? Have you killed her already?” I had thought he would not ask but I should have known that nothing ever escaped Theo.

“I did not want to disturb her this morning, I had her run errands for me until very late last night,” I replied off handedly. The thing with Agnes was something I had to deal with myself.

“If you need me to take care of her, you only need to say the word,” replied Theo.

“I don't need you doing anything about her, Theo. She's just a human slave, nothing more,” I replied, getting annoyed.

“You sound as though you want that to be true. What did you discover about her?”

“It is my business, Theo. Whatever it is and there is nothing.”

“Your business is the business of the pack.”

“There is nothing about Agnes that is off or odd.”

“You have never cared enough not to disturb anyone before. Are you sleeping with her?”

“No.”

“So?”

“So?” I echoed.

“Why do you care?”

“Theo please, drop it. I assure you there is nothing odd about her not being here this morning. Shall we discuss something else?” I said with finality in my voice. I could read from his expression that he wanted to dispute this but he kept mum.

“A bacterial outbreak was reported last night in one of the border towns. The situation is under control as we speak. I have ensured that the town is quarantined so it does not spread to other places. Our physicians are still trying to determine the cause of the outbreak,” Theo changed the topic and I could not be more grateful for it.

“Are there suspicions it could be the doing of the South?” I asked. The south was like a bad toothache for me.

“No, it is an impoverished town. I believe the poor living conditions contributed to it. Once we have the disease under control we have to look into the housing conditions there,” replied Theo.  

“The governor in charge of that town?”

“He is in prison as we speak. I arrested him much earlier this morning. He was trying to escape, he had been stealing funds meant for the town.”

“Have him tried this afternoon, I want a public execution to serve as a warning to any person who tries to steal from me.”

“An execution might pose some problems. He is a nephew to Lord Salmon.”