To understand Christian, one must understand the anatomy of a mountain. From a distance, it is immovable, terrifying, and cold. But beneath the surface, there is a core of molten heat that, if ever released, would consume everything in its path.
For four hundred years, Christian was that mountain.
He was born into the era of King Spear, a time when the Lycan Kingdom was not a place of diplomacy, but a forge of iron. His father, the original Strength of the Seven, had been a man of few words and heavy fists. Christian had been bred for one purpose: to be the unbreakable shield and the unstoppable hammer of the Crown.
By the time Christian was six years old, he didn't play with toys; he played with the lives of the King's finest warriors.
"Stand up, boy," King Spear had barked, his voice echoing across the stone-walled arena.
A massive Lycan warrior, a veteran of a dozen border skirmishes named Harkan, stood opposite the child. Harkan was six-foot-six of scarred muscle and fur.
Christian was a boy, barely reaching the man's waist, but his eyes were already the hard, cynical brown of a man who had seen too much.
"He's just a pup, Sire," Harkan had grunted, looking down at Christian with a mixture of pity and hesitation.
"He is the Strength," Spear countered, his golden eyes narrowing. "If he cannot take you down, he is nothing but meat. Break his ribs, Harkan. Show him what the world does to the weak."
Harkan lunged. He didn't hold back. But Christian didn't flinch. At six years old, the floodgates of his power were already cracked. He moved with a speed that defied his small frame, his hand shooting out to catch Harkan's wrist. The sound of bone shattering echoed through the arena- not Christian's, but the veteran's.
With a low, guttural snarl that sounded far too old for his throat, Christian pivoted, using the man's own momentum to slam him into the stone floor with such force that the granite cracked.
"Is he still a pup?" Christian had asked, his voice cold and devoid of the high-pitched innocence of childhood.
King Spear had merely nodded. "Better. But you let him breathe too long. Next time, ensure he doesn't."
By the age of twelve, Christian was no longer in the training pits. He was on the front lines. He stood alongside Leo- who was then a young, fiery prince, and the original Seven. He watched his parents and their comrades fall, one by one, replaced by the children who were bred to take their spots.
Christian was taught that emotions were a liability. Fear made you hesitate. Love made you vulnerable. Compassion got you killed.
The only emotion King Spear permitted was rage- a focused, cold anger that could be channeled into the crushing of skulls and the tearing of limbs.
He became a playboy of the barracks, a man who sought the company of women not for warmth, but for the temporary silencing of the war-drums in his head. He had no "mate" in those days; he had "conquests." When King Spear finally issued the Decree of Succession, demanding that the Seven choose mates to ensure the bloodlines remained pure and strong, Christian hadn't blinked.
He had chosen three different women over the course of a century. He didn't love them. He didn't even particularly like them. They were vessels for his heirs- strong, capable Lycan women who understood the arrangement. He had fathered a dozen children, provided for them, and trained them, but he felt nothing when he looked at their mothers. It was a transaction. It was easier to bed a woman and walk away than it was to descend into the madness of "The Search" that had nearly broken Leo before he found Selene.
"You're a cold bastard, Christian," Jax had told him once, centuries ago, as they sat in a tavern surrounded by women vying for Christian's attention.
"Cold keeps the meat from rotting, Jax," Christian had replied, downing a tankard of ale. "I'm the Strength. I don't have the luxury of a heart."
Then came the Vampire Kingdom. Then came the smell of yeast, sugar, and the impossible scent of home.
Walking into that bakery and seeing Madeline had been like a physical blow to his solar plexus. The four hundred years of iron, the centuries of suppressed rage, and the carefully constructed walls of his playboy persona didn't just crumble- they vaporized.
As he stood in the Queen's office now, watching the door close after he had dragged Madeline out, the possessiveness he felt was so intense it was actually painful. His lycan, a massive, scarred beast that usually only surfaced for blood, was pacing behind his ribs, whining for the female.
Ours. Protect. Hide her away.
He led Madeline into a small, private stone balcony overlooking the valley. The morning air was crisp, but Christian felt like he was burning alive. He turned to her, his hands gripping the stone railing so hard the rock began to groan under the pressure.
"Vampire," he spat, the word sounding like a curse. "The Queen wants to turn you into a leech, Madeline."
Madeline stepped toward him, her small hand reaching out to touch his arm. She didn't flinch at the golden glow in his eyes or the way his muscles were rippling with the effort of not shifting.
"Christian," she said softly. "Look at me."
He looked. And that was his mistake. Those blue eyes were his undoing. "I've spent my whole life being the strongest thing in the room," he rasped, his voice breaking in a way it never had in four centuries. "I've fathered children I don't know the names of. I've bedded women whose faces I forgot before the sun rose. I thought I was untouchable."
He reached out, his large, scarred hand cupping her face with a delicacy that would have shocked the King. "Then I smelled you. And suddenly, I'm not the Strength anymore. I'm just a man who can't breathe if you're not in the room."
Madeline leaned into his palm, her eyes fluttering shut. "I feel it too. Since the moment you walked into the shop. It's like... like I was waiting for a storm to wake me up."
"But this?" Christian gestured wildly toward the Palace. "This is too much. You're human. You're supposed to be soft. You're supposed to smell like bread and honey, not... not grave-dirt and blood. If Julian bites you, he becomes your Sire. He has a claim on you. I don't share, Madeline. I can't share."
The Lycan's possessiveness was a living thing, a dark, heavy shadow that wanted to wrap Madeline up and pull her into the earth where no other male- vampire or otherwise, could even look at her. The thought of Julian's fangs on her skin made Christian's blood boil.
"He's Megan's mate," Madeline reminded him gently. "He doesn't want me. He wants to help us."
"It doesn't matter!" Christian roared, his voice echoing off the valley walls. He slammed his fist into the stone railing, shattering a chunk of it into dust. "I don't want his help! I want to save you myself! I want to give you my blood, my life!"
He dropped to his knees in front of her, his head thumping against her stomach. It was a position of total submission, one that the Strength of the Seven had never taken in his entire life. The floodgates were wide open now, and the four hundred years of repressed emotion were pouring out of him in a terrifying torrent.
"If I lose you," he whispered into her apron, "there won't be anything left of me but the monster Spear made. Don't let them turn you into something I can't touch without remembering I failed to protect your humanity."
Madeline ran her fingers through his thick, dark hair, her heart breaking for the warrior who had been taught how to kill everything but his own loneliness.
"Christian," she whispered. "You didn't fail me. You found me. But if I stay human, I'll be gone in forty years. You'll have to watch me grow old and die while you stay exactly like this. Could you handle that? Could you watch me wither away while you stay strong?"
Christian tightened his grip on her waist, the reality of her words hitting him harder than any blow King Spear had ever delivered.
"I won't let you go," he growled, his voice a mix of a sob and a snarl. "I'll find another way. I'll beg Selene. I'll find a witch. I'll-"
"There is no other way, my love," Madeline said, lifting his chin so he had to look at her. "The Fates chose this. I don't know why they made a wolf's mate a vampire, but I do know that I would rather drink blood for eternity than spend a single second without you."
Christian stared at her, the brown of his eyes swirling with gold. The possessive, territorial beast inside him was screaming at the thought of another male marking her, even in a Sire bond. But the man- the part of him that had finally learned how to love, was terrified of the silence that would follow her death.
"He will be your Sire," Christian whispered, the words tasting like poison. "He will have a piece of your soul."
"And you," Madeline said, leaning down to press her lips to his forehead, "you will have my heart. Forever. Isn't that enough for the Strength of the Seven?"
Christian let out a long, ragged breath, pulling her into a crushing hug. He buried his face in her neck, breathing in the scent of yeast and honey one last time before the world changed forever.
"I'm going to kill him if he hurts you," Christian promised, his voice dark and absolute. "Royal or not. I'll tear his heart out of his chest."
"I know," Madeline smiled, holding onto him as if he were the only solid thing in a shifting world.
Christian stood up, his 6'8" frame once again becoming the immovable mountain. The shyness was gone, replaced by a cold, deadly resolve. If his mate had to become a creature of the night to survive, then he would become the shadow that guarded her coffin.
"Let's go," he said, taking her hand in a grip that would never let go. "Before I change my mind and carry you back to the North to hide you in a cave."
As they walked back toward the Queen's office, Christian felt the weight of his legacy pressing down on him. He had been born for war, bred for blood, and trained for silence. But as he looked at the small woman walking beside him, he realized that his greatest battle wasn't going to be against an army. It was going to be against his own nature.
He was the Strength. And for Madeline, he would be strong enough to let her change.