Ava curled her hands as she straightened her back. The silence in the middle of the room was suffocating. For a few seconds, the only thing that she could hear was the sound of her heart that had been angrily hammering inside her chest.
"You suppressed the wolf?" Ava asked."
Baba told her about Matthew’s sudden changes then the spell that the Shaman gave her to suppress Matthew’s wolf. It was different from binding and definitely less dangerous. The spell was supposed to suppress Matthew’s world and put him to sleep until Ava came back.
But it didn’t work.
For some reason, Matthew’s fever didn’t go down. It has been months and his body still felt like his insides had been set on fire.
"It wasn’t supposed to happen," Baba said. "I believe it might be because Margery added something to his food and it had some sort of effect and now this."
"Margery... Queen Luna?" she asked.
"Yes. I found out that she wanted to forcefully make him in heat and sleep with another woman. I was there and I stopped it. Or else the effects would have been devastating."
"She wanted to rxpe him?"
"In short, yes. That’s what she wanted to do."
Ava’s eye twitched. She gulped. The Lycan Kingdom.
She knew almost nothing about it.
"And the King knew this?" she asked.
"There is no way that the Queen would do something without the King’s permission."
"So, he wanted his own son..."
"He wanted to force Matthew to take a woman, any woman."
"Why?"
"He wanted his children." Shaman Gaas who had been keeping his silence since they arrive said. "The Lycans are somehow possessed with bloodlines. They always wanted to become the strongest and so, they wanted to ’cultivate’ the people with better bloodlines and treat the rest as a nuisance."
"Lycans have long lives... I mean... "
"The longer the life, the better. It means more children," Baba said. "The Lycan Kingdom had been struggling to keep their power. For the longest time, they have enslaved witches and other supernaturals. Now, that their bloodlines and becoming weaker and weaker, many creatures had been threatening a revolution if they are not going to change their older laws."
"Older Laws?"
"Slavery," Shaman Gaas said. "The witches who live outside of Scotland wanted the Lycans not to treat witches as a slave and some shifters wanted to change the council of the Lycans, stating that they no longer represent the strongest shifters in our world."
"Politics and power," Ava pursed her lips. "What do you think would happen if they knew that a witch became the mate of a Lycan?" Ava couldn’t imagine the effects.
Witches and other shifters would definitely want to take advantage of the confusion and try to assert their authority.
"In retrospect, Lycans may have humans, lycans, and werewolf mates. Though they do not show it, the Lycans still look down on you if your mate isn’t another Lycan."
The Shaman continued, "Lycans have always considered themselves as superior. Their bites are poisonous to both demonic and celestial races. And so, they always see themselves as the blessed ones. They said the moon goddess blessed them. Of course, the curse from that witch a long time ago changed everything. Since then, they have struggled and their bloodlines have become weaker and weaker."
"But I don’t understand," Ava said. "Matthew is young. Why force him to have kids and marry someone he doesn’t like? Was this just because of politics?"
"The King married Matthew’s mother because of some arrangement," Baba uttered. "But this all changed when he met his mate. You see, the current Queen Luna didn’t have any support from the council. What she has... was a powerful witch."
Baba looked melancholic as she thought of the things that happened in the past. She stared at the table, her facial expression unreadable. "The politics started when Matthew’s mother didn’t get pregnant for years."
"For years?"
"Tens of years," Baba corrected. "The firstborn was from Queen Luna. I know you already met him. Prince Drigo. Queen Luna had other children before Matthew was born. But after he was born, his mother... died. Leaving him alone to fend for himself."
"So... this is like the first wife and the first son," Ava said. She had heard about this from dramas about ancient China or Korea. But she never thought she would one day see something like that.
"Queen Luna naturally treated Drigo as the next King. Born from mates. He was older and more mature. Of course, he was stronger too. He was treated as the next King since he was a child while Matthew... had been treated like trash."
Baba continued. "But when the test was conducted, they found out that Matthew had better blood. Matthew was more powerful even against Drigo. Albeit younger. The King understood that by then, it was already too late. Matthew never showed any ambition to inherit the throne. He tried to coax his own son. Richest, lands, power, and even money. But Matthew made it clear that he would only marry one woman. And that woman is his mate."
"I can only imagine the chaos that it had created." The Shaman sighed.
"Oh, it was chaotic. But Matthew was just in his early twenties. He was young and naive. Or so they thought."
"So now... the noble families were trying to pressure him into marrying someone?"
"Of course! They wanted to have his... seed. They wanted their families to inherit his ’qualities’. Though I am pretty sure that they just wanted to use this opportunity to lay a claim to the throne. After all, the King is still young. What would happen if Matthew have a son that is stronger than him? Naturally, the nobles would immediately make that child the next King."
"How could they treat Matthew like that?" Ava asked.
"Because he had no one," Baba answered almost immediately. "He only had me. In fact, the only reason why he survived to live until the testing was because... of me."
"They have been trying to kill him?" Ava asked.
"More than I can count." Baba stared at Ava’s face as if she was looking for something. "But now... everything would be different. After all, he already found his mate."
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