Chapter 8: The Mourning Procession

KAILA ASHFOLD

The window curtains were all drawn down, and the room was grim and melancholic even though it was morning. As the maids stood still, unmoved, they watched Kaila in her grief, her lower eyes darkening, but she kept layering it with more dust from the cosmetic powder.

They couldn't walk towards her to help since they'd be risking their heads in that attempt. Kaila stared at the mirror, the more she covered. A little bit of tears stained her face, and the powder darkened.

She was infuriated as hell. She looked like a witch crying black blood. Her reflection looked horrible, and it scared the hell out of her. Her hands shivered as she dusted the foam into the powder and covered it. It was a total mess.

"We'd help you, my Lady!" one of her maids offered.

"Damn it! That wench!" Kaila yelled angrily as she madly raked all the cosmetics on her vanity desk away with her hands, and they all shattered to the floor.

"My lady!!" The maids all stood up in shock and rushed to help her. Kaila gripped an eye pencil and rashly stabbed the closest maid to her around the cheek, and she bled horribly with an excruciating yelp.

"Get away from me! Don't look at my face!" she yelled, as she covered her face with her two palms. She lost Alys, her only card, her only closest proximity to the king.

Alpha Axel had not called her for some time, and she only got to see him mostly with Alys. There was no way he'd chase her away when she was with his daughter, but now where was Alys?

"You look a mess, Kaila," Lord Ashfold's voice called as Kaila looked up to her father. He was all dressed in a wine robe, his gold necklace reaching his belly.

"Father?" Kaila called. Shame of failure washed over her as she bowed slowly. Lord Ashfold signaled the maids, and they all rushed out immediately.

"I've failed. I lost composure in front of the king and almost put our family in trouble. I'm a mess," Kaila said in her grating tone.

"Now I see you've proven to me that you are at least enthusiastic about this," Lord Ashfold said as he walked towards her, his hands folded behind his back, as Kaila stared up at him with her darkened face.

"You've not failed yet, and you will not. This should be a stepping stone. Everyone sees her as a monster now. You shouldn't be intimidated at all by her unborn child. She is currently a breeder, and once she gives birth to the child, she won't escape execution!" Lord Ashfold said.

"And then the courts will support your adoption of her child. But before that, you have to try conceiving for the king again," Lord Ashfold said, and Kaila's brows squinted as she swallowed.

"Conceive for the king?" Kaila thought inwardly, the thought curdling in her mind. To Axel, she was nothing more than a warm body during the cold years of his rebellion.

The king has never planted his seed in her. She was merely like a sex slave to him when he was preparing for the war against the mad king and the royal House of the Lycans.

Her father, Lord Ashfold, swore fealty to Alpha Axel. He knew that Alpha Axel would win the war. Lord Ashfold saw that Alpha Axel had raised a hundred thousand soldiers, the majority from his own Pack Stronghold, the Blood Claw Pack, and thousands of other soldiers from other powerful packs in the kingdom to seize the throne.

Her father, Lord Ashfold, was last to choose a side and only to secure their pack and family. He saw that there was no way Alpha Axel would lose the war now, and he quickly then offered five thousand soldiers from his own Stronghold, to fight alongside the king. To gain the king's trust, he also offered Kaila to be his mistress.

"Make yourself useful to him. Our future depends on it," her father told her.

Kaila tried several times to conceive for the king, but he was like an impenetrable wall. He only used her for sex and never planted his seed. His heart was cold as ice and had never softened to her. He was only focused on the war. Kaila had no choice but to conceive using Jeremy and drugging the king, passing a night with him, making him believe he owned her pregnancy, and then she gave birth to Alys.

"You have to do this if you still have the dream of becoming the Queen!" Lord Ashfold said. Kaila swallowed and nodded.

"I'll do that, Father," she responded.

"I have prepared the mourning procession," Lord Ashfold said.

"Procession? I am not going to walk and mourn the body of my dead daughter in the streets! I can't stand the wretched commoners wailing and throwing flowers at me, Father!"

Kaila immediately protested, and Lord Ashfold grabbed her hands tightly.

"You have to do this! You can't let the death of your daughter go in vain. Make the most of it. You have to walk her dead body today before she's cremated tonight!" Lord Ashfold said.

"But why? How will those gross commoners' sympathy benefit me?" Kaila said with a smirk of disgust. The thought of walking the streets in an open carriage mourning, with the commoners gathering around, throwing flowers and leaves, and wailing with her, grossed her out.

"You do not know the influence of those commoners. Once you win their sympathy, you win their support. They'd contribute to your coronation as Queen Consort. It is not just by saying you are Queen Consort at the Trial!" Lord Ashfold yelled, and Kaila's eyes squinted.

She saw that he was right. She was only his mistress, and this could be her chance.

"But how could there be a Queen Consort when there is no Queen?" Kaila questioned.

"The common people have eyes. They see that Princess Ava Killian is the king's mate, and he rejected her already. She cannot be his queen. This gives you an advantage. Take the procession walk—it's getting late."

Kaila quickly took her bath and wore a gorgeous black gown. Accompanied by over ten armored guards, she rode in an open carriage, while Alys's body, wrapped, lay before her on another carriage.

The procession started, and the moment she was outside the palace walls, crowds started gathering. She cried her eyes out even though there were no tears left to cry. Like she had thought, they walked with her and cried with her, throwing flowers and herbal leaves at her. They felt the pain of a mourning mother who lost her child to a cruel princess.

It grossed her out, and she wanted to throw up, despite the significant distance the armored guards had set between her and the commoners who sympathized with her.

"Damn Princess Ava the Cruel! The babe slayer! Long live Consort Kaila!" the people chanted repeatedly.

And Kaila's mood changed when she heard her name being called for the first time by this vast crowd of men and women, the old and the young, the youth and children, while Ava's name was being cursed.

"Long live Consort Kaila!" A smile crept onto Kaila's lips as they continued following the procession.

This is it, there is no going back, she felt powerful, she felt the approval from the people what excuse does Alpha Axel have now to marry her as his Queen Consort?