The Alpha Queen and Her Rogue Kingdom

CHAPTER SEVEN

BASTIAN

The news of her marriage to the new king of Crimson Woods spread like wildfire throughout the kingdom, and the reactions were immediate, the fear among the people of my kingdom grew untimely, and the spokesmen for those fears were the alphas of each pack of the kingdom, who did not delay in coming to ask me if it was true, and to berate me about my plans to deal with this new threat, even reaching the point where all the alphas were present at the same time and the discussions between them did not take long.

"We should have attacked those damn Rogues with full force a long time ago, but no, you had to start with that f*****g moralisms," exclaimed the alpha of the Jade pack.

"What are you talking about? My pack has taken the brunt of those attacks over the years, and you guys haven't even bothered to send help most of the time,” the Garnet pack’s alpha replied with annoyance.

"Can you both shut up?" Corina, the alpha of the Moonstone pack, told them.

"With what right do you shut us up? You don't even attack Rogues, and aside from everything you were defending the traitors a year ago,” the alpha of the Emerald pack replied.

"Yes, and I would do it again, are you so f*cking dumb that you do not realize what is happening? We are in this f*cking mess because you bunch of idiots came here to complain and demand Alistair's head, and guess what happened next? His daughter, the strongest warrior in the whole damn kingdom, went to the other side and has been attacking us unceasingly for a year, and now she has just acquired the means to end the entire kingdom if she feels like it," Corina practically spat out the words, and looked at the other men in the room, who suddenly seemed to have been speechless.

"What is the matter? No one says anything now? You know I am right, you know that if it weren't for that stupid self-importance of men of which you take so much pride, you would have seen that the smart way would have been to spare Alistair's life and find a way to use his connection with Arthur Bloodmoon to extract information that could serve us in this damn mess, but no, you just wanted to see blood, so guess what? Blood is what we will have from now on thanks to your stupidity,” she added and stomped out of my office, not before giving everyone a look of annoyance that almost seemed like ill-concealed contempt.

"The girl found a powerful ally, I think it is time for us to do the same too, Your Majesty," interjected the alpha of the Diamond pack, and the others rushed to agree with the idea.

"The king of the Moon Valley will surely help us, after all, you are practically family," added the alpha of the Topaz pack.

"Yes, but that man is not to be trusted, you have already seen how his envoys behaved when they were here escorting Princess Isabella, they do not respect our king, they do not respect our kingdom, I think it is best to seek alliances in other places," the alpha of the Sapphire pack responded, and several agreed with him, for indeed the guardians sent by Desmond Gray not only wreaked havoc within the palace, but they also did it in several of the packs as well.

"We can find a way to ally with King Desmond but without giving him too much power, and we should also look for alliances elsewhere, our king is still single, perhaps we should follow the example of the Bloodmoon girl and achieve a strong alliance through marriage,” added the alpha of the Opal pack, an old sage who was constantly counseling my grandfather, and I immediately felt everyone's eyes on me.

Shit.

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"I think they are right," August blurts out suddenly, once the alphas are gone and the two of us are left alone.

"About what?" I ask him.

"Maybe what Elina did is a good example of what we can do here, your mother has been looking for a candidate for a wife for years, since you grew your first pubic hair, she probably already has a list put together, we could just ask her," he says, and I look at him with annoyance.

"I am not marrying some stupid princess to get her daddy's support," I tell him, and he rolls his eyes.

“Bastian, we need allies, and as stated at the meeting, we cannot trust Desmond Gray, we need to start looking elsewhere, you know any king would be more than happy to give you his daughter in marriage in exchange for a few troops for the war,” August insists, and I stand up to walk through the office.

"We can look for allies in another way, there has to be something those other kings want apart from a marriage for their daughters," I reply, and he shakes his head.

"There is no commitment greater than a marriage, and even more so if you have an heir to consolidate the union, what do you think Elina has been doing since she got married?" he tells me, and I immediately tense up.

"What do you mean with that?" I ask through clenched teeth.

"I am sorry, I know this is a sensitive topic for you, but why do you think she has not been seen again in the confrontations with our warriors? She must be too busy trying to conceive a Crimson Wood’s heir to be able to secure her alliance, I know you don't like hearing this, but it's the raw truth,” he tells me, and I feel my stomach churn at the possibility of her having a baby with that i***t.

If I thought earlier that the fact that she married another man was bad enough, I hadn't even considered the possibility of her having a child with someone else, and I feel the pain of rejection becoming more noticeable as I try to swallow the bile that it went up to my throat.

"I know what you all say is reasonable, but I really want to explore what other possibilities we have for an alliance with other kingdoms before I even think about a marriage with ..." I start to say, but stop when I feel all the air leave my lungs, and the sharp pain that I have been feeling every night for a couple of days comes back with a crushing force that makes me collapse to the ground.

"Bastian! Are you okay? Is that pain again?" I hear August ask me in anguish, but his voice sounds distant, and my vision becomes blurry.

"That is it, I will call Dr. Phillip, this is not normal," he says before leaving the office in a hurry, and I do not need an expert to confirm what I already know for sure, and that is that this pain has only one cause: Her.

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