His Sweet Little Mate

"Just confine her to her room until the burial."

"But..." Alan didn't think Hera should be let off so easily, however, Abby had already turned around to return to her bedroom as she threw one last remark over her shoulder. "She is hurting and not worth wasting my breath over!"

Abby's words didn't really convince Alan to let it go, but he couldn't defy the queen so openly. So he turned around to face James' mate to deliver one last warning. "Keep your mouth shut if you want to make it back to your pack in one piece!"

After that, he rushed after Abby, while Claire pulled a frightened Hera toward their guest bedrooms. From the moment Alan told the guards to lock her up, she was numb from fear.

For a moment after seeing her mate lying lifeless in that cold coffin, she lost her mind and forgot that Abby was not the same person they stepped on all over back in their pack until a few months ago.

But now that she came back to her senses, she was so frightened, she didn't need any external pressure from the guards stationed by the royal beta outside her door to stay out of Abby's sight!

However, she wasn't the only person who wanted Abby's insistence over not holding the funeral for the king to blow over. In the grand scheme of things, her outburst was brushed off as a child's tantrum while the whole royal council was in knots over debating over Abby's capability to rule the kingdom.

"Even after seeing all those coffins and countless dead bodies, she remains stubborn like this. She just insists on believing in her false hope, instead of doing the right thing." Fabron seemed to have finally had enough of people whitewashing Abby's stubborn tendencies as her being in a denial and unable to accept the harsh truth.

"With such a fragile mindset, is she even suitable to stand among us, let alone order us around?" The elder was still hung up on the matter of the councilors having to report every single issue to the queen, who was none other than Abby.

She was just a woman with experience of a new born baby, not to mention she wasn't even a complete shifter. She was a half witch, who they all looked down on. So how could he digest her wielding authority mightier than him, an elder who had seen two generations of kings ruling the werewolves?

Hearing him express his dissatisfaction toward Abby so openly served to incite a few others who had been stewing over this matter inwardly for months as well, and Mark was the first one to declare an ultimatum.

"Her background is so unsettling, while she was not even stronger emotionally. She can't even protect herself, how could we trust her to protect the rest of us?" The elder pointed out how weak Abby was, both emotionally and physically. Even a strong shifter woman couldn't compare to a mere royal guard, so the girl was obviously on the negative side when they took her combative strength into consideration.

"We can't let her ruin the kingdom," Pedro said, openly agreeing with the two others.

Letting someone incapable rule a kingdom would only lead to one thing, downfall!

The words of these three people insinuated the same and the few voices that had been suppressed in the face of Abby's careful and meticulous execution of her duties, started to come alive again as they strongly opposed the idea of letting Abby continue sitting on the throne.

Abby refusing to hold the funeral for King Micah really became a contention in the court and it gave the people opposing her a way to make things difficult for herself.

They wanted her to step down and hand over the reins to someone more suitable, someone who had more experience and the person was none other than Arthur, the former king.

However, before anyone could get ahead and bring up the former king's name, few of the representatives of the packs started arguing back with the elders.

"How wasn't she suitable when she was the destined mate of the late king?" Chance, the Midnight pack's representative, was the first to point out how ridiculous the argument from the people on Fabron's side was.

"She is even carrying the royal heir, why are you all so twisted up just to accept she is now the queen and move on?" Toby, the Black Claw pack's representative, stabbed a finger at the few people glared at Chance for bringing up the same thing again.

Just like that, the court fell into an uproar as about fifteen or so people divided into two groups and debated why Abby should and shouldn't step down from her position.

Only people like Gavin and a couple of other pack representatives stayed silent, apart from Arthur of course, as they tried to calm down the people who wouldn't stop fighting no matter what.

Chance and the others said Abby had been doing just fine for an inexperienced girl, as they pointed out the way she handled the court over the last few months.

While Fabron insisted she had only been dealing with some surface problems all this time and that once real problems surfaced, she wouldn't be able to hold her own.

They expressed how unsettling it was to leave the future of this kingdom in the hands of a weak woman.

But their opponents countered that they were all there to support her in times of need, because that was their responsibility.

"How long will you do that for?" Fabron couldn't help but ask as he felt this was really ridiculous.

"Until the baby in her stomach grew up old enough to take over!" Toby didn't back down either.

"Isn't it just better to let Sir Arthur take over until the wolf prince came of age?" Mark chose this moment to finally bring up the former king's name and immediately, silence descended in the great hall.

However, Chance quickly recovered as he stared at Mark. "Even if the king isn't with us anymore, we still have to respect him and his mate. Moreover, she is still the queen of this kingdom, I don't understand why you people couldn't see it as simply!"

For the few of them, Micah had been a good ruler and he was confident enough in his mate to teach her so many things about the kingdom in the short period they had been together. Only after she really took over the court did they realize how much Micah had valued her, because without such great insights from him, a weak woman like Abby wouldn't have known what to do.

It was clear in the way she handled the court and the problems that Micah had let her be privy to so many things, things that were really confidential. So they had long decided to support her, because she seemed capable enough. "Hadn't she proven herself enough after all these months?"

This was the counter from the people who supported Micah before, and the elders doubting Abby's capabilities had no strong comeback to rival it.

Even so, they weren't willing to give up on making a mountain out of a molehill, as they kept pointing out how convenient it would be to let Arthur takeover because they all could be reassured.

The chaos continued in the great hall until late in the evening without any side gaining an upper hand, while the person in the question remained unaware as she focused on the missives scattered over the small table behind the couch in her bedroom.

The words danced across the papers as she tried to get a grip over her emotions, which felt all over the place, recalling the same thing people repeated over and over. But she didn't think Micah had died.

Abby dropped the letter in her hands on the table as she hugged her stomach with one hand while rubbing her chest with the other, trying to calm herself with her eyes closed.

By the time she opened her eyes again, Alyssa and Reyna could be seen hovering over her. "My Queen..."

"I'm fine, just a little tired." She reassured them and then saw Reyna holding this small tray of food. Only then did she realize that she had forgotten all about dinner and medicines. And just as she finished her meal, Mirella came to talk to her.

"Abby, you don't look good." The witch didn't hesitate to call out as soon as she sat beside her on the sofa.

When Abby didn't say anything, Mirella reached out to grab her hand and squeezed it. "You need to let him go. If you continue like this, it will take a toll on you.."

The witch could tell Abby was out of sorts because of the king's sudden death, but there was nothing they could do about it. So it was not worth it for Abby to neglect her own health and the baby's life. Even her maids' thoughts resonated with that of the witch as they tried to comfort Abby, who had been looking more haggard with each day that passed.

"But he isn't dead, Mirella!" Abby uttered this sentence for the umpteenth time. "He is still alive."All text © NôvelD(r)a'ma.Org.

However, from the somber expressions on the faces of the three women, she could tell they just pitied her.

"I'm not lying to myself," Abby told them as she looked at them one by one. She was telling the truth, because she really wasn't holding onto any false hope.

Her hope was fueled by the fact that she could still feel the mate bond between them. Even though it was faint, it was still there, which only meant Micah was still alive.

So how would it be a false hope?