Chapter 177

Back when Alpha King James was a young man, he refused the arranged marriage that his parents set up for him. We definitely hadn’t learned about that. He opted instead to select his own wife.

This was Luna Queen Rosemary from our history books. In class, we learned that she was an unsuitable queen, being both too soft in nature and too weak in her health. But in the archive’s database were documents of abuse.

The poor woman saw the palace physicians on a regular basis, not for sicknesses but for bruises, broken bones, small cuts, and lacerations. It was a sickening account of domestic abuse and violence.

Then, in the months before her passing, there was a whole series of documented illnesses that were just as suspicious as the injuries. But they weren’t broken bones or bruises or the other tale signs of abuse. Rather, these were a series of illnesses, including nausea and vomiting, high blood pressure, and faintness, culminating in a hospitalization. The physician’s notes simply labeled the instances “weak constitution.” And then, the following week, she passed away.

I wasn’t a doctor, nor did I need to be to recognize the symptoms of a probable pregnancy. Something that shamed the alpha king must have resulted because there were no mentions of a baby, even a stillborn one. Perhaps she had miscarried early on, or maybe it had been an ectopic pregnancy or something that had damaged her to the point of being too ill. But based on what I was seeing, I wouldn’t put it past the king to have used this as an opportunity to rid himself of an unwanted queen.

Somehow, reading this poor woman’s history left a lump in my throat. I felt so sorry for this Rosemary woman, whoever she was. There was no way she had deserved this fate. So that just left one question. Had the king let her die of neglect, or was there something more sinister at play?

From there, the archives detailed several of the Alpha King’s relationships that were never fully legitimized so that the women were recognized as queens. But all of these relationships were the same, with patterns of abuse just like the first queen. These women also repeatedly saw the palace physicians about the same sorts of injuries.

I could only guess from reading between the lines that these women had left the king before getting saddled in an abusive domestic relationship. The relationship with the current Luna Queen Yarrow seemed to have started differently.

She didn’t show signs of any of the same sorts of abuse at first. Her good health lasted for numerous months, even after they were married, and she was crowned Luna Queen. Then, she was diagnosed with a hostile uterus, meaning that she wouldn’t be able to bear children. Within short order visits to the palace physician started up again with yet another woman.

I started pulling up accounts of some of the other alphas and cross-referencing. Thankfully, the Alpha Archives included personal information rather than a curated account. There were several messages passed back and forth between a couple of the alphas questioning whether or not Alpha King James still had the blessing of the moon goddess—his ancestors had carried it for generations, securing their place on the throne.

It wasn’t just his wives with whom the king had issues. Alpha King James seemed to ruin everything he touched. The first years of his reign were riddled with economic failures, diplomatic disasters, and mild unrest. I hadn’t been aware of any of this since all of this happened years before I was born, and none of it made it into our history books.

I leaned back in my chair and thought this over. Perhaps the most disastrous thing that the king had done was actually leaving Orlune without an heir. Luna Queen Yarrow was in danger of not having a child because about ten years ago, she moved to one of the King’s summer palaces all the way across the nation from Packhaven and hadn’t been seen in the capital since.

We did hear about the queen from time to time, but she rarely made the news. When she did, it was usually in reference to some foundation or another that she had started or some other charity work that she had done. And she disappeared as fast as she showed up.

Alpha King James needed to produce an heir soon. Yarrow wasn’t getting any younger. As a result, Orlune ran the risk of falling into civil war when the king died.

Reading through the archives gave me a new understanding of how alphas worked with one another. Theo might have been more correct in his assessment than I had been with my dreams of a parliament made up of the alphas. In reality, each one of the alpha families had a blood connection to the Alpha King’s family, meaning that they all had some small claim to the throne.

Human societies had monarchies where things were passed down through genetics. However, within the alpha community, if the Alpha King did not produce an heir, then genetics went out the window, and it became a brawl to see who had the strength to claim the throne. The alpha pecking order was traditionally based on physical prowess.

Trying to redirect that sort of genetic predisposition would definitely be a challenge. We had suppressed many of our less desirable base instincts, so perhaps we could do the same again with the alphas. It wasn’t hopeless, just harder than I thought.

Regardless, through both corruption and carelessness, Alpha King James had left Orlune in a precarious situation, and the rumor of a single possible pregnancy by his first wife, deeply suppressed within the Alpha Archives, wasn’t going to do anything to help.

“You’ve been at this a long time. What have you found?” Gwen’s voice cut through my thoughts.

I sighed and leaned back, tucking away my notebook. I wasn’t allowed to take the material from the Alpha Archives with me or take photos.

“I know what I’m going to do. I have enough material and evidence that I’d like to present to the public. I want to do a three-part series.” I explained. “The first will be on how he’s mismanaged his own family. The second will establish his connection to the corruption in Packhaven. The third will expose his carelessness with the wellbeing of Orlune.”

She put a gentle hand on my head. “I sincerely hope you are ready for what you’re getting yourself into.”

I let out a deep sigh. “I hope I am, too.”

She patted my head and then stepped back. “But I honestly can’t fault you for what you’re doing because I believe it is the right thing, as well.”

The three of us took my materials back to the apartment. Suddenly, the desire to have some sort of fun girls’ day was gone, and even Gwen wasn’t in the mood.

This time, I wasn’t in a hurry to get the information published. I took my time writing the piece, making sure that I had double and triple-checked everything, as well as I could within my sources. And finally, three days later, I released what I assumed would be my last work.

On the day of the release, we all sat around my apartment. It was a sign of how stressed we were that we even allowed Anthony to stay. Honestly, without him, the second of my three parts wouldn’t have ever been published. He gave me all of the information about what the king had ordered against whom and why, along with those who had been forced to carry the king’s wishes out, like Anthony.

By the time we finished with that segment, even I had felt sorry for Anthony. The Alpha King had given him an impossible choice. As an alpha family, the Bellweather stock was low, their bloodline diluted, and their position weak. The Alpha King had come in with an offer to restore their bloodline., quickly following up with the threat to utterly wipe the Bellweathers off the genealogical tree if Anthony didn’t agree to help.

The threat had been so strong that he had never taken a wife or had children. He was too afraid that they would be caught in the crossfire. Instead, he had chosen to live the life of a bachelor and do the King’s bidding in an attempt to protect only those of the Bellwether family remaining.

Pounding on the door cut through the silence. All of us exchanged apprehensive glances, and Charles stood to go answer it. He pulled himself tall, drawing on a stern face and trying to look as much the alpha as he could. It was the only thing he could do to protect me now, remind whoever was there that I was the girlfriend of someone who wasn’t entirely without power.

We all craned to look at the person on the other side of the door. The visitor happened to be a mousy little man who gave Charles a polite bow of the head before looking over his shoulder at me.

“Elena Laurentia, you are summoned to an audience with the king.”