Enemy Queen

Long Live the Queen

It was hard to believe that the night ended in those horrors. It was hard for me to even believe he is gone and that I feel nothing. There's no residual pain, not constant heart ache like it's tearing from my chest. I feel as if I lost an old friend that had drifted away from me, but I don't feel the wrenching feelings that they always explain to you when a wolf loses its' mate. He wasn't even our mate anymore though, we rejected him before this even happened. I felt more of Kieran than I ever felt with Roman when I lost both of them.

I look upon his casket carefully watching his face ready for it to move but nothing. He sits perfectly still, not even a slight motion from the heartbeat. He's dead. No more sinister comments, no more pain. No more reminders of being unwanted.

"My Queen, the minister asks if you wish to say anything to the people?" The high elder asks cautiously, I hesitate knowing that everything before this was rough with Roman. He was gone to me before now, it's hard to believe he's gone permanently.

"My people." I start but I couldn't find the right words immediately. "I haven't found the strength to put my sentiments together. I couldn't tell you his last thoughts or words before his demise. I know he loved his people, that's all that mattered to him. His people." I stop and I shake my head gripping onto the arm of the elder who took it upon himself to bear my shaken body. Roman didn't care about the people anymore though. Only a select number know what he'd become by the end, and without an alternative I kept it at that. Roman clung to the idea that Kennedy was the only person he could live by.

My eyes meet Roman's form once more before I was taken off to be seated for the ceremony. "I'll tell the stars about you." It's an odd thing, to remember coming down the aisle to him for our marriage and to watch him come down the aisle for his final rest. Never would I have imagined him in a casket, or even going before I did. Never would I have imagined we'd fall so far from where we started, that love that became a poison.

I want to ask so many questions of him. Lists and lists fill my mind as I watch the incense rise and filter through the room. I catch gazes of the people and realize that I should be crying but I can't. As a symbol of loss I should cry, I should appear upset but he was such a confusing figure in my life. As the Queen, as his mate, as someone who should have been closer to him than anyone else I should be devastated, I'm not.

"My Queen." The Elders call and I look up knowing it was my time to make my peace before they took him to be buried by his parents.

I push carefully from my chair and take the arm of the kind elder. I stand before his body, the mark of blood on his forehead where blood of his wound may heal his mind. Some stupid superstition that the ceremony has done for centuries.

"Here lies a king. Here lies a man. Here lies the wolf who protected his people and devoted his life to the well-being of all." My words echo as the hall is paused in absolute silence spare for my declarations. "We seek accomplishment and happiness above all things. These I believe the King was honored to have taken part in."

"He loved his Queen." A diplomat of some sort throws in from behind me and I almost correct her. I don't have the heart today to fill the people in on our false representations. How bad our marriage was by the end. Explaining how power hungry their king had become, how broken he would have made the nation.

"Time for burial." The minister whispers to gently pull me back away from my memories. I nod pulling back from the casket once more and then his cover is replaced.

The processional to the burial site is longer than anticipated. I feel so guilty being here as I am when things were so bad by the end of Roman's life. Being the leader that the people need even though I feel like a false idol, enemy Queen. It's so hard to think about the differences from when I first arrived and met him to just the last month.