"But what?" Queen Marianne looked at Nichs intently. "Did she not want to see you?"


    Nichs sighed. "No... it''s not it."


    He looked at his mother glumly. "She is now living with our enemy... together with the kids."


    "Enemy? What do you mean?" The queen asked, not understanding. She didn''t remember they had any enemies. It''s been decades since thest confrontation with their neighboring kingdoms. She couldn''t think of any other enemies, except...


    Wait.


    She pressed her lips in shock.


    "Yes," Nichs said to confirm his mother''s suspicions. "She is now living among the Lycans."


    "H-how...? How is that possible?"


    Nichs didn''t reply. He also didn''t know the answer. Of all people, why did Sophie end up with an Alpha of a lycan pack?


    "Are you really sure about this?" the queen pressed on him. "How did you know?"


    Nichsughed bitterly. He raised his wounded arm and tilted his head at it. "Because I fought with them?"


    "Oh..."


    The queen pressed her chest, feeling distraught. Her mind went back to the royal partyst month when she saw Sophia Romanov and her adorable sons. Sophie looked healthy and happy.


    So, if she was really living with a pack of lycans, that would mean she was treated well by them. Was she really happy living among those monsters? She was a regr human and didn''t have a capacity like those other lycans.


    "It''s very unfortunate," the queen murmured to herself. This new development surely gave her a shock. After Nichs was bitten and turned into a lycan, it seemed the royal family''s war with werewolves was met with conflict after conflict.


    How could the royal family keep dering war toward the werewolves tribe when the new king of Riga was a lycan himself? And now, Sophie, the king''s wife was actually part of a werewolf pack herself?


    And what about the children?


    "I believe Luciel and Jan are also werewolves," Nichs exined before his mother could ask. "That''s why I still cannot go there and take them away because it seems Sophie and the kids are now part of the pack."


    Queen Marianne knew werewolves were territorial creatures. So, she understood how the pack members wouldn''t allow Nichs toe closer without a fight.


    "I have been thinking," Nichs continued. "Maybe it''s time to bury the hatchet and find amon ground where werewolves and humans could ept each other''s presence and live side by side."


    "Peace?" Queen Marianned''s eyes bulged. She couldn''t believe they were talking about actually making peace with the monsters. She remembered how herte husband hated werewolves so much and made it his mission to kill as many werewolves as possible and the war they had against werewolves had be decades-long.


    "Yes. I do believe we all want the same thing," Nichs said. "that is to live in peace. Those lycans, I am sure they also have family and won''t benefit from the ongoing war between humans and werewolves."


    He never really questioned the war before. He only knew that werewolves were monsters and had killed many humans from his kingdom. However, after he transformed into a werewolf himself and met his sons who were now part of the enemy pack, Nichs started to reassess his perspective.


    Now, he started to think about his family, and surely those werewolves who were waging war with them had families too. Their parents, spouses, friends, and children would not want to see them die like pawns.


    "Before that can happen, I need to know what actually started the conflict between our family and those lycans," Nichs said to his mother. "Once I get to the root cause, I will know how to fix this."


    Nichs knitted his brows when his mother didn''t respond to his question. Instead, she fell silent with a straight face that was hard to decipher.


    "Mother," he called, touching his mother''s shoulder and making her look at him. "Mother, are you all right?"


    "Yes." Queen Marianne smiled stiffly. She lowered her face dejectedly and tried to think of the moment where it all began. "I am all right. I was just... thinking about those moments when your father dered war on the lycans."


    "What started it, mother? Do you know?" Nichs was already curious about what happened. He touched his mother''s arm and asked her questions.


    "Before my father dered war against all lycans, there was no animosity between humans and lycans, right?" Nichs confirmed to his mother.


    Queen Marianne nodded. "Yeah... it''s true."


    "So.. what happened?" Nichs asked again. He had been brainwashed by his father to hate lycans and consider them as monsters, the enemies, but he never really knew why and what started the war.


    "It started with the death of the two people your father loved the most." Finally, Queen Marianne spoke wistfully. Her voice was hoarse when she recounted the story about what happened in the past.


    "Whose deaths?" Nichs was very curious.


    "His older brother, and the woman he loved." Queen Marianne smiled bitterly. "I think you know that your father never loved me, even though we were married for so long."


    "Don''t say that, mother. Father might not love you in the beginning, because you were both in an arranged marriage. However, he must have loved you after you both spent so much time together and got to know each other," Nichs tried to console his mother''s feelings. "He treated you well and he listened to what you wanted."


    "No. You don''t have to say that to try to make me feel better. Your father never loved me until the end of his life." Queen Marianne steeled herself to say that."It is what it is."


    "To him, our marriage was an obligation. A king must have a sessor. Your father did it not out of love but out of necessity. In your father''s heart, there was only one woman and that woman was not me," exined Queen Marianne with downcast eyes.


    Nichs was silent. He didn''t know what to say. All this time his father had never loved his mother. His mother must be very sad.