Chapter Text
Ancient Bonds
Epilogue: Thronnos Rokke
“Master Jean-Claude,” Aubrey moved smoothly into sight of where the new Master of St. Louis was enjoying a respite from negotiations with were clans and blood-oathing his new responsibility of almost ten thousand vampires who’d chosen to remain in his territory instead of taking their chances elsewhere.
Humans would riot if they knew how numerous vampires were, especially in those areas welcoming of them such as St. Louis, as some accounts suggest as many as one vampire for every three humans existed worldwide. Many of those were likely young, less than a century old, as of all the vampires in the world, perhaps half made lived to see their second century. Of those, perhaps half or a third again will rise to become master vampires let alone so high a position as the Master of the City.
And over them all presided the handful of Masters of the Vampire Council and the Mother of Darkness.
The new Master of St. Louis had his human servant - the main reason why Aubrey had stayed loyal to Jean-Claude when it seemed the Frenchman’s gambit to unseat Nikolaos might have failed thanks to Robert’s foolishness - with him, the two talking softly amongst themselves as Jean-Claude encouraged his bonded to try the various blackberry treats one of the wererats had gone out to retrieve. There were other foods spread out on the table in the Master’s new rooms in the caverns beneath the Circus of the Damned. Aubrey had to acknowledge that the rats had a familiarity with the young wizard that none but his godfather and Jean-Claude himself had managed to forge or had already existed prior to Harry Potter moving to the city. Many of the foods seemed strange to Aubrey, but given that he hadn’t had solid food since the late 1300’s, that was more than understandable.
“The Ulfric of the Thronnos Rokke pack has arrived,” Aubrey hesitated as Harry seemed to perk up at that. “He is without his Lupa, though he has brought both Jason and Stephen with him along with others, including several submissives of the pack and the majority of the pack leadership.”
A leadership that was all alpha werewolves, even if a couple of them were new from what Aubrey understood of the pack's hierarchy.
The differential between a dominant and a submissive werewolf - or a were in general - wasn’t a matter of power as that between a master and regular vampire but it was there in scent nonetheless. Unless the dominant was also an alpha, then that was another story. In all his years, Aubrey didn’t think he’d heard of an alpha submissive, but given that he’d never heard of a witch accomplishing ever many of the things Harry had done in a matter of hours or less, he wasn’t as quick to discount such idle fancies as he might have been before meeting the green eyed wizard.
Harry and Jean-Claude shared a look and then rose.
The day had long since passed into night, filled to brimming with politics and formality with almost no time to address personal issues beyond Jean-Claude taking a moment to ask after Sirius’s state.
That Marcus had come himself and without his mate…
Well, it didn’t imply anything good regarding the state of the pack to say the least.
An especially troublesome turn of events on the dawn of Jean-Claude’s dominion over St. Louis as the wolves were his animal to call.
Not that it mattered.
Whatever the problem, whatever the issue, to protect what was theirs both of them were more than ready to handle it.
And the devil help whoever got in their way.