"You need to talk to Holland." My response is quick and Christine looks surprised.
"But-" she start but I cut her off.
"Ain't no but, Princess." Shaking my head at her. "You're circumstances and mine are completely different. You're in a position with a very strong foundation, that in itself is something to consider with a decision like this."
"But if you can do it then so can I." She stands from the couch and giving me a look like I just dissed her.
"Absolutely true, you can. But then what would Holland say? What about your pack? You're the Crowned Beta Female, you think they're going to just let you leave?"
After a beat I see Christine slowly realize what this is. She's in the position that I've managed to keep myself out of, just barely. She's has much more to lose than I do.
She slowly sits back down on the couch as I lean against the wall opposite her, crossing my arms over my chest as I watch the wheels turning in her head. Her blue eyes losing their glow the longer she sat there.
The silence in the room heavy as her eyes begin to tear up.
"I can't leave." She says quietly, her eyes glassy as she looks up at me. "I can't do anything on my own, can I?"
I didn't answer as her cheeks turned red and her head fell in her lap. Her thick brown-golden hair hanging in front of her face like a heavy curtain as she sobbed loudly. Her hiccuping sobs filling the space of my living room making Bubba perk up from his bed staring at her.
I head over to the kitchen grabbing paper towels and walk back handing them to her.
"If you keep crying Holland is gonna know somethings up." I say as I hand them to her. She looks up, her face red and something in me felt sorry for her. "C'mon clean yourself up."
She nods and taking the paper towel from me blowing her nose loudly.
"You remind me of my little sister when you cry." I state as I head to my room. Coming back with a lit joint I take a pull before passing it to Christine. She looks at it in confusion then looks back up to me before taking it.
She mimics me, taking a too large pull before coughing hard. The smoke expanding around her with every cough, a smile tugging at my lips as I try to keep myself from laughing.
"I fo-cough-forgot you had siblings."
"Yeah well, sometimes I do too." I say with a shrug, taking the blunt back from her. Smoking as I sit on the couch beside her. "Sabrina, that's her name. She's not a bad kid and she's still got a lot of growing up to do. But when ever she throws a tantrum she cries exactly like you."
Christine sniffles as I laugh at the memory. "I don't have any siblings. I wonder what's it like growing up with siblings."
"A lot of fighting, crying, shit being stolen and being blamed for things that wasn't your fault." I say as I blow a smoke ring into the air and passing the blunt back to Christine.
"When you make is sound like that, it doesn't sound as appealing anymore." She gives a half hearted laugh as she tries again with the joint.
"No, don't get me wrong. I don't hate my siblings. When Sabrina and Jayson were born, I thought they were the cutest things ever. I spent almost all my time with them, if I wasn't with-" I stop myself. Clearing my throat, I continue. "Anyways, I'd play with them, sometimes make meals for them. Help them with homework from school, and they would hold onto my legs when ever we'd go somewhere."
"I think you would have made an amazing big sister." Christine says as she hands me the blunt back. I laugh as I take a pull. Leaning back on the sofa as I close my eyes blowing the smoke into the air.
"Christine?"
"Mm?"
"Why do you want to come with me to Amsterdam?"
It's silence for a second and I look her way, her eyes still glassy but turning red from the weed. Dazed and looking off into space, I smirk.
"Christine?" I say waving my hand in front of her face. She jumps looking at me confused.
"What happened?"
I burst out laughing as Christine let's out a confused giggle.
"I don't know what happened. I was listening to you but I wasn't?" She says which only makes me laugh harder. I struggle to breathe as I sit back up looking to her.
"You're high. It happens." I say with a giggle. "But my question was, why do you want to come with me to Amsterdam?"
"I want to at least try to be independent." She sighs. Curling up in the couch as she rests her head on her arm. "I want to know if I can live on my own. I think I can, I want to believe that I can, but I don't know anything. Not about life."
"Christine you know a few things I'm sure." I say as I head over to the window opening it to let fresh air in. The dark sky was clear of clouds, the only thing that could be seen was the moons shadow and a sprinkling of stars.
"I don't." She shakes her head. "Whenever Holland had to do business with anything relating to finances or home ownership, or even balancing a checkbook I was always thrown out of the room. Now I don't even try anymore."
"Mm." I nod, continuing to smoke by the window.
"Even with government things, even though I am the Crowned Beta Female I was never respected as such back then. I wasn't respected as me, I was seen as the mate of the crowned beta."
I stop smoking as it dawns on me. The fucking irony. But I let Christine keep talking to see if she will actually hear herself.
"I mean, even if I wasn't in the room, I had to look presentable to them. I was always told what to wear, how my makeup should look. My hair wasn't even my hair at one point, they made me wear wigs."
"They?"
"Josephine and them, y'know the people that handle publicity and the public appearance of lycans." She says waving her hand dismissively. I cock an eyebrow at her as she continues. "And I wasn't even allowed to enjoy food."
"Ha! I could tell with how you devoured my burger the first time we ate together."
"Wait, you knew it was me?" She said looking at me with saucer eyes.
"You looked guilty as sin. Of course I knew it was you."
"Sorry." She groaned as her head fell back to the couch. I walk over to Christine handing her the blunt. She takes another pull as I head over to the kitchen looking for take out menus.
"But you know what was worse?"
"What is it, Princess?" I say shuffling through each of the menus
"Even with all that bullshit they put me through, they still didn't have the decency to show me respect like they did Holland. Holland got all the praise, all the respect, people looked at him and took him seriously. But when they look at me, I'm like a China doll to them. God it drives me crazy!" She says with a huff.
"And it's funny how you expected me to tolerate that." I laugh as I settle on Chinese food.
"I didn't say that-"
"Did you see how you came barging in earlier?" I ask turning to face her. "Everything you just said is some shit I would never, and I mean never, let happen to me. Firstly, because I'm an asshole and will actually fight everyone if they even tried it. Second because I know the lycans history already, it wasn't too cute for lycan women back then."
"But you're our queen, they have to treat you differently then they did me." She says.
"Negative." I scoff. "Lycan Queens back then weren't even recorded in their history books. They only have a list of activities that lycan women did to fill their time while their mates were out doing fuck-all. And I'm damn sure you know that list hasn't changed within the last four thousand years."
"Yes they have! If they weren't recorded how is that they are still known today?" She asks crossing her arms as she glares at me, but it doesn't even faze me.
"They are known by the people of their time. But they were never mentioned by their own mates, or the men in their court. Historians around their time intentionally left the females out because they didn't consider them important enough to document." I say as I walk over to her taking the blunt out of her hands. "If they were known then they were known by the people they ruled over. Werewolves like me, or other supernaturals."
"That can't be true." Christine shakes her head as I take a pull.
"You wanna check your library?"
Christine falls silent as I turn away from her dialing the number to the Chinese place. After placing the order I look back to Christine who seems to be lost in another daze on the couch.
"Do we mean nothing to our own men?" She whispers.
"Don't take it like that Christine. Whenever Holland comes around all he sees is you. He adores you." I say as I head into my room. Shuffling through piles of old homework that I still haven't thrown out. I find the folder heading back into the living room.
"The professors at Neoma were really kissing your ass this year." I say and slap the folder down on the table in front of her making her jump. "My history professor made us do a report on old Lycan civilizations. Most people went for architecture, nomadic patterns, but I instead went looking for your women."
Christine picks up the folder opening it. Inside were dozens and dozens of printed letters of subjects writing to their queens. It spills out all over the coffee table, some falling off the side onto the floor.
"It was a bittersweet moment when I found theses." I continue on. Sitting on the couch next to her as she shuffled through the papers. "They weren't noticed by their men, but they were seen by someone. A couple of the letters aren't even letters, just hand drawn pictures of what I think were their queens."
"All these people wrote to their queens?" She says as she lays them out in the table and I nod. "Why...why was this never mentioned? How did no one ever know?"
"I wish I knew. Most of these letters were written during times when the world was on self-destruct. Some probably got lost in the chaos. People reached out to their queens and begged them to influence their kings to do better."
Christine shakes her head as she skims over a few of the letters. "But women were never allowed to discuss politics with their mates."
"So you could see the situation they were in, them wanting to help and not being able to do a thing about it."
An hour goes by, the food arrived but Christine was still caught up reading each and every letter. Even going as far as to write down the names of the Queens the people addressed the letters to.
"Are there more?"
"Probably, but that's what I could find." I say with a shrug.
"I'm sorry." She says. "I'm sorry, I cannot believe I was so ignorant." Shaking her head as she reaches out to grab my hand. "It's no wonder why you were so uninterested in the idea of becoming queen. I mean, look at what our past queens are reduced to now."
She gestures to the table in front of us, letters laid about in a mess covering the whole surface of it.
"Just a memory." We both say.
"It sucks, doesn't it?" I laugh. "Going into history, it's hard to remain unbiased, because you just know that whatever was happening back then, would not be something you'd tolerate today."
"Like severe sexism?"
"That or faking an orgasm." I say jokingly.
We both laugh. But there was a sadness to it. Seeing the barely breathing history of women that were a vital part of the growth of a society, reduced to old letters of cries for help from their people.
But who was helping them?