David and Nathan were sitting peacefully in the room, known as the conference room, when they heard it. Even from behind the room's heavy wooden doors, the voice rang loud and clear.

"The next time you f*cking wake me up, I'm murdering you out of cold blood!" a man said, radiating a power behind it, like an Alpha to his pack.

"It was not my decision, Reno," David heard Arnold reply vehemently, yet his voice sounded more sophisticated than the other man, who David assumed was the mysterious general.

Suddenly, the doors flung open, almost falling off their hinges by the amount of force put upon them. A man was revealed, and it was almost comical. 

He was extremely short, shorter than any man David had ever seen. He was all muscle, but they were lean enough to make him look young still. He looked as if he was from a different nationality, perhaps somewhere in Asia from the looks of his eyes. He looked ruffled and disgruntled, as if he had literally just crawled out of bed and took no time tidying. 

His dark hair was a mess, sticking up everywhere, and his height was so short that his long sword's tip dragged on the ground when in its hilt.

 David would have laughed, the man would have been cute even, if not for his dangerous, crazed eyes and malevolent-looking scar on the entire right side of his face. The scar was a claw scratch, and if David's knowledge of the forest did not fail him, it was the claw mark of a wolf.

David knew this was no normal wolf's mark. A normal wolf, if they were to attack, would get a warrior better than that, most likely with their teeth. Unless there were more scars David was unaware of, this had to be a mark of a werewolf.

For his build and attitude, David wondered if this man was a runt of a werewolf pack.

The man looked at Nathan.

"If you are going to send somebody to f*cking wake me up, then send someone who I don't, or can't, hurt," the man growled. 

"I'm offended that you would want to injure me," Arnold voiced.

"Don't be f*cking offended," the general said, crossing his arms, "You aren't the only one."

"You must watch your language-"

"And why is that?" the general interrupted.

"And use your manners," Arnold continued, getting more aggravated at the man," because you are in the presence of the new queen."

The man's deadly eyes shot toward David's knowingly; it revealed the man was aware of David's presence, but, until now, he had been ignoring him. Yet David was not afraid. Arnold and Nathan said that the general was a good person, so David believed them. And he was not afraid of something so trivial as a runty werewolf. The man was obviously trying to assert his dominance over the room, which supported David's theory.

"This is your f*cking queen? Who the hell is he?" the general huffed.

"He's my soulmate," Nathan said, suddenly getting stern, "And you will treat him kinder than you have ever treated me or my father-" the man flinched, "That is an order, understand?"

"I don't take orders from you," the general replied, "And as long as he doesn't bother me, then sure. I'll try or whatever."

"Wow," said Arnold, pretending to be amazed, which was very childish compared to his nature with Nathan, "That was the nicest thing I have ever heard you say!"

"And that was the meanest I have ever heard you say," the general said, deadpanned, "But I can not imagine how tainted your mind is."

"If mine is tainted, then yours is corrupted," Arnold shot back haughtily, standing straighter, looking at Nathan, "Should I escort General Reno out now?"

"No," Nathan replied, smirking at their squabble, "He still needs to give me his mission report." At that, the general groaned in agony.

"Then shall I lead the queen away? Surely he would not like to hear of the gore of the battlefield?" Arnold looked hopefully toward David. David could tell that Arnold wanted to get far away from the general as soon as possible, and, though he didn't know why exactly,  he decided to help out.

So when Nathan said, "You'd be surprised," David replied with a soft, "Actually, I would love to freshen up a bit. It has been a long trip over here, and I would like some rest." -Which was the truth, but David was very patient. The leshy could have waited longer to freshen up and rest.

Nathan smiled softly at David's reply, and kissed his temple.

"Well then," the king said, "Arnold, please find someone to run a relaxing bath for my queen, and, if I'm not back by then, please escort him to my chambers afterward."

"Yes, sire," Arnold bowed, his frown turning into a small smile at David's help, "Queen David, please follow me."

"Oh... you don't have to call me-"

"It is my honor to," the butler replied, bowing as David stood.

It made David blush, but not like how Nathan usually did. It was a blush of uncomfortableness. Other than Jake, Nathan, and perhaps Malia, everyone in his life treated him like a lesser being. Now that he was the soulmate to a king, however, everyone was treating him like a higher-up,  and the leshy was not used to it.

As he thought these thoughts, Arnold led David down the hallway from the conference room.

"W-Why do you not like General Reno?" David asked. At the question, Arnold sighed.

"It is not General Reno that I do not like, trust me, your majesty," Arnold replied, "He and I are just polar opposites. We were meant to deflect each other. I like order and mature situations, and he lives in chaos and breathes recklessness."

"What if that's not who he really is? What if he's just putting up a facade?" David asked, thinking of Jake's soulmate, Derrick. The prince of MacTíre was just as grumpy as the general, for perhaps the same reasons.

"With all due respects, I don't care what lies beneath all of the swear words, sire," Arnold continued, "I despise only what he shows me. And as long as he treats people the way he does, treats life the way he does, I will not enjoy being around him. I have seen only a glimpse of the man inside of him, and that is what reassures me that he is on our side. Otherwise, I would rather King Drake to hire a new general."

David digested his words. They seemed very thought out, a little too thought out. Like a child trying to explain how a broken vase was an accident, even when it was not.

"I see," was all David could say. Arnold seemed very serious, very strict, and he knew from those types of people that they held many secrets.

But that was okay, David knew. He and many others were allowed to have secrets.

The two eventually came back to those decorated doors that Nathan had declared was his room earlier. Opening the doors, Arnold showed him inside. There was a magnificent bed, with sheets of warm silk, and the walls were decorated in red and gold fabrics. In the room itself, was a fireplace, lighting it up from ceiling to floor, bathing it in dim light. David searched for the outlet in which the smoke was supposed to escape, and found a window, half-covered by a hanging rug.

It looked very warm and cozy, fancier than the rooms at MacTíre. 

"This way, your majesty," Arnold called from a doorway that led off from the bedroom. It turned out to be a bathing room. In the bathroom, when they first entered, there was a handmaiden who was wiping a big white bowl. Arnold told her quickly to draw a bath, which David assumed she did.

She quickly left and came back with buckets of steaming water; David watched in wonder, as she poured strange bottles of oil, flower petals, and other crystal-like things, into the water. And, after waiting for nearly a half-hour, she proclaimed the bath cool enough to get in.

"It's time to strip, sire," the woman declared, "Would you prefer me to do it for you?"

David blushed and shook his head many times. "No, thank you," he whispered, embarrassed, but the lady seemed unphased, curtsying and then leaving the room. The door slammed behind her.

Humans are so strange, the leshy thought.

He stripped off his shirt and his ratty old pants, and soon he was stark naked and feeling exposed. 

He assumed he was going to bathe in the big bowl of water, just like how he used to bathe in the rivers of the forest. So, he quickly slipped a foot into the water, then recoiled quickly. The water was warm? He had never bathed in such warm water; it unsettled him. He wondered if the texture, the feel, was how urine felt- then quickly dismissed that thought because the water did not smell like urine. It smelled like flowers and spices- things David would find in the woods. And that comforted him enough to slip himself into the bowl.

The water enveloped his body like silk. The oils that the handmaiden but into the water must have been the reason it felt so different. The water had taken on a strange pink tint, fogged-up by whatever the woman had put into it, so much that David could not see the rest of his body from above the surface.

It would have made David panic, but he was reassured only by the thought of Nathan. Nathan told her to do this, so it must be safe. His soulmate would never put his life in danger.

Would he? David had doubts like this all of the time recently. Wondering if Nathan was pretending to love him, or doing it out of pity. David kept telling himself that he was being an idiot. 

But his past always made him doubt others.

Your soulmate loves you, no matter what, thought David. He repeated it over and over in his head until his doubts started fading away. He thought of Nathan's tears of joy when they became soulmates. The little bracelet on his wrist that Nathan had given to him that day. The loving pecks and hugs that Nathan constantly gave him ever since their bonding.

Yes, he does love me, thought David with a blush and a happy smile.

A knock on the door made him sit up in surprise and blush harder. Of course, the person behind the door did not know what David was thinking, but David felt otherwise.

"Can I come in?" said the person on the other side. David was even more surprised to hear Nathan's voice on the other side of the door. Could he come in? David looked down at the foggy, pink water, covering the rest of him, and slid down into the water all the way up to his chin.

"Y-Yeah," David answered Nathan nervously.

Nathan, from on the other side of the door, wasn't sure he heard David correctly. David's voice, so soft and shy, but Nathan swore he said yes. So, carefully, he opened up the door, giving David all of the time in the world to object, until he saw his soulmate.

He was sitting in a pink-tinted tub of water, and the only thing that showed was his face.

"Hello, my queen," he said, "How is your bath?" Nathan leaned down, folding his arms onto the rim of the tub and laying his head on his folded arms. He smiled at David's blushing face.

"It's ...surprisingly pleasant," David replied, "How was it with the general?"

"The same as always: tiring," Nathan sighed, "His mouth will get him killed one day."

David nodded, and for a while, they both just sat in each other's comforts, staring into each other's eyes. And then Nathan decided to break the silence.

"I can't wait until we are comfortable enough with each other to share a bath," Nathan spoke.

David blushed, trying to imagine being extremely intimate with his soulmate one day. His heart was crippled at the thought.

"Me too," he whispered, and he meant it. Nathan's beautiful smile, the one in which made David's heart stop, shown, and Nathan leaned over to give a kiss on David's temple.

Shivers of love coursed down David's body, and he bit his lip to keep himself calm.

"I'll go get you some clothes," Nathan said, smiling, and left the bathroom, shutting the door behind him.

David used that time to find his breath again.

I can't believe that he's mine, David thought.