Lucious Verus

Lucius Verus stood at the altar, the old stones of San Galgano Abbey looming around him, half-ruined yet still sacred in the Tuscan hills. He was no ordinary man; beneath his calm exterior pulsed the restless hunger of his kind, the Lupini of Monte Amiata, a pack rooted in fire and volcanic soil. Opposite him stood the sister of Getar, heir to the rival Selvaggi of the Maremma Forest, wolves hardened by marshes and wild coastal winds. Their union had been forged in blood negotiations, not affection, an uneasy truce to prevent open war. The woman’s stare was cool, unreadable, a mask polished by years of family expectation. No warmth, no surrender only the steel of someone who knew this marriage was a battlefield in disguise. Lucius felt the weight of her silence more than words. She was not here to bend, nor to comfort. She was here to measure him, perhaps to outlast him. When she lifted her chin, it was not an invitation but a challenge. “For the packs,” she said softly, her tone neither kind nor hostile, but edged with the knowledge of what failure would unleash. Lucius extended his hand, the gesture heavy with tradition. Their fingers brushed, and in that brief contact he felt not understanding, but resistance, like two rivers colliding. The forest around them whispered of old hunts and blood debts, of oaths never fully kept. They were bound for peace, yes but whether that peace would hold, or whether the Tuscan hills would again echo with howls of war, remained uncertain. © Anna Senzai