"I should go inside with you."

Seokjin smiled at his mate. "Don't worry.", he said softly, caressing the blueish bond mark on Taehyung's neck, a gesture that almost instantly calms the younger down in some way. "She wouldn't be able to do anything to me."

"But, Seokjinah-", Taehyung visibly wasn't liking the idea of Seokjin being alone with his mother.

"Trust me...", the omega kissed his cheek, wrapping up the blonde with his soothing pheromones as he assured him. "I am going to be completely safe. Now go. I'll be back soon."

Planting another kiss on the vampire's cheek, Seokjin turned around and entered the room where his mother has been confined for the last few months.

As he stepped inside, the first thing that caught his eyes was the large window right opposite to the entrance and the alpha standing infront of it, her back facing Seokjin.

She had one of her usual dark, almost blood red gowns on while her ginger hair along with patches of grey here and there, was left loose on her back and shoulders.

Seokjin sighed. He never understood what to feel about this one woman in his life. The things she has done to people, to his mate and his family, the way she has treated him throughout his whole life, makes him hate her.

But Seokjin doesn't know why he could never, completely hate her, resent her as much as he expected he would. And he feels extremely guilty for that too.

He feels like somehow he is doing injustice to Taehyung, to the trauma he and Jennie had gone through.

"They aren't coming?"

The omega got a bit surprised by the sudden voice of his mother. He was so lost in thoughts for a moment that he didn't realize when she had turned around towards him.

Straightening himself, Seokjin answered in an indifferent manner, "Jisoo has just given birth last night. As you can understand, she needs some rest and... well Jungkook didn't want to visit you."

He clenched his jaws as the woman looked sideways and chuckled, more to herself than to him. He did it intentionally, he emphasized on those words to hurt her only, he wanted her to know how much disappointed her children are with her.

He didn't know if it would actually hurt her or not. Seokjin is quite sure about the fact that nobody really matters to his mother more than herself.

"Why did you want us to visit you? If you have something to say then say it, I don't have much time.", Seokjin said, getting impatient. He wanted to get out of the room as soon as possible because he knows that the longer he will stay inside, the more anxious Taehyung will get.

"Aah yes ofcourse. You have a baby now. Must be time consuming, isn't it?", the alpha said, lazily walking towards one of the cupboards.

"Honestly I can't believe both you and Jisoo are parents now.", she stated, pouring herself a long glass of wine as Seokjin frowned at her.

Seokjin couldn't understand her. He doesn't remember the last time she has had a conversation with him like this, like normal people have with each other, like a person is supposed to have with their children.

He didn't know what to make out of the situation.

"She had a boy or girl, by the way?"

Seokjin blinked, a bit flustered. "Twins. Boys."

"Ohh...", the alpha smiled, sitting down beside a corner table as she gestured for Seokjin to join her. "Come... sit. You shouldn't stand for so long either, you had a difficult pregnancy, I've heard?"

"Is none of your concern.", the omega replied curtly. "Can you please make it quick? I don't have-"

"I won't, Seokjin. I won't take much time. I'm giving you my word. There are just certain things I need to tell you... actually the three of you. But since only you came-", his mother took a sip of the wine, putting the glass down on the table top.

"What things, may I ask?", Seokjin narrowed his eyes.

"You know I had a twin as well?", the question baffled him for a second before he shook his head. "What?"

"Like the ones your sister just had last night, me and my sister were twins too. We looked exactly the same, you know. I'm sure we still do. Oh but we definitely weren't similar in terms of our nature.", the alpha had another gulp of her drink, quite leisurely.

"I was just... you know.. me.", she chuckled. "And she was uh... gentle, kind... nurturing... a perfect omega, as you can already assume."

A subtle frown appeared on the Southerner King's forehead as the woman continued.

"We had completely different ambitions from each other. But we were inseparable too. That is until one day... King of the Southerner Kingdom, your father, visited our pack and demanded a female alpha from our house."

"Why are you telling me all of this? What is this all about?", Seokjin walked closer to the table, his voice stern.

"And so my father, the leader of our pack, handed me over to him.", his mother continued, as if she couldn't hear Seokjin's question at all.

"I'm asking for the last time, What is this all about?", the omega huffed, not sure if he should leave the room or not as his words fell on deaf ears.

His mother didn't stop.

"A great deal for our house, you see? My father couldn't let it go. So he had to sell me. In a very Royal way ofcourse, but still... he sold me."

"When I came here... I was told that the sole purpose of me being married to your father was to bear a... special alpha heir for him. An alpha born from two alphas.. they were very hopeful about the child being almost invincible."

"But I was...", she paused and Seokjin thought he almost heard her voice quivering.

"I was not born to bear children, was I?"

Seokjin stared at his mother, maybe for the first time seeing any kind of emotion on her face aside from anger and extreme pride.

"I am an Alpha, I was born to be a leader. I was brought up to lead my pack, trained to be the head of our house. And they.... expected me to bear children. That too how? By experimenting on my body and pheromones."

The Queen laughed, cold and with a tinge of insanity, "You know... there are three people in my life whom I've hated with every cell of my body. My father... Your father... and Your father's most reliable noble, That Duke Kim, your father-in-law."

This time, Seokjin shivered as his mother laughed darkly once again.

"I don't mean to come off as insensitive but... its amusing to me how none of them are alive anymore.", with that, she laughed some more, only to collect herself yet again, but the look of amusement still evident on her face.

Seokjin gritted his teeth.

"Do you expect me to listen to you disrespecting my mate's father and my father?"

"Oh no, Seokjin, why would I disrespect them? They got what they deserved. I don't need to do anything to them anymore.", the alpha shook her head, her eyes sharp, irises almost burning.

"Your respectable father and father-in-law... ruined my life and didn't even feel a little bit of remorse for that."

"For two whole years... they've treated me like a guineapig, without having a specific idea of what they were doing.", she blinked hard and Seokjin thought maybe... maybe the alpha was holding back tears.

"I had lost unborn babies, sometimes my body just wouldn't feel like its my own. There were times when... I felt so cold, so cold I was not sure if I was alive or not."

Seokjin gulped. "Why didn't you try to stop them? Why didn't you say you don't want it? That its taking a toll on you?"

He found himself getting surprised at the quietness of his tone as a melancholic smile tugged at his mother's lips.

"Seokjin... you're so naive, my child. How come you're my son? I was sold for a purpose, I was the consort of the King... for a reason. Without fulfilling that, I had no value here. Absolutely none. And I couldn't go back to my pack either because by that time... my sister had already married an Alpha, who was chosen to lead our house. My people, Seokjin, didn't need me anymore."

"Oh and... I was informed that she gave birth to twins as well. I was so...", she laughed softly. "I didn't understand. I was here, going through hell, struggling to get what she got so easily. And if its so easy for her to get, then why wasn't she in my place?! It was her who was supposed to be married off, not me! But there she was, lady of our house, living my life and I-"

"I never wanted to see her face ever again. Never. I know you always had a complain against me, Seokjin. That I hate you, No... No I don't. I never did. You were my first child, Seokjin. The first.. much awaited result of everything I went through, you have no idea, how much I had prayed to see your face."

Tears pricked at the omega's eyes as he finally sat down on the chair at the other side of the table.

"I just envied you. You and your sister... and my sister... and every other omega in this world who constantly remind me of the fact that I suffered because I wasn't one of them."

"I used to degrade you... constantly remind you of your place in our society because that's exactly why I was degraded too when you were presented as an omega. The first fruit of their experiment was an omega, they could not take it and they blamed me for it... Me."

"I hadn't gone through all of that and still stayed here just to be considered as a lowly consort of the King who couldn't even give him what he wanted, No. I was born to be a leader and that's exactly what I had decided to become. By any means, I had to gain the faith of Southern's nobles."

Finishing the last bit of her glass, she leaned back on her chair, a sigh leaving her lips.

"You think I killed your mate's mother because I hate Northerners?", she asked and Seokjin chose to stay silent, because one thing he understood quite well is that today, his mother is not really expecting an answer from him, or from anyone.

"No Seokjin. I don't... actually never had anything personal against the Northerners. But the Southerners... they for sure had. And besides that... I wanted Duke Kim to suffer, to feel pain, like I did because of his stupid experiment. And so... I got rid of his wife. You know what it gave me?"

"Allies... inside this kingdom who became loyal to me, because I killed their enemy. And... the doom of that Kim.", she sighed. "Ahh.. It was a sight to see when he came back to us for justice."

"It was wrong. You were wrong. She never did anything to you!", Seokjin yelled, tears falling down his eyes. "You scarred them for their whole lives, what did they do to you?!"

"Nothing.", the alpha retorted. "They did nothing but I had never done anything to their father either. I still had to go through hell on the earth because of him though. We all... in one way or the other, face the consequences of the actions our close ones do, Seokjin. I had to suffer because of my father's actions, they had to because theirs, as simple as that.", she shrugged.

"And besides, if I didn't do it, I wouldn't have ruled over this Kingdom for fifteen long years. I wouldn't have earned people faithful to me even to the point that they will help me in ending my own life."

Seokjin's eyes instantly went to the empty glass of wine on the table and he jolted up from his chair.

"Ah don't.", his mother raised her right hand, "Don't do these things. Its impossible to save me now."

"What do you mean?!", Seokjin walked up to her. "Why are you doing this to me? All I've ever wanted from you in my life was just to be loved. Loved like a child is loved by its mother. And this is what you're giving me? For what?! What is my fault? That I remind you of your worst times? Is that my fault?!"

"No... its not. Seokjin, one thing that I had learned from my father was that you can't be a great leader and an ideal parent at the same time. And I chose to be me. I chose to be what I am good at being, what I was made to be. It was not your fault and still isn't. My decision is not your fault, Seokjin."

"You know very well that me being alive would not do anything good to you... neither to your family, nor to your rule. And I... refuse to live at the corner of someone else's realm. That's not me, Seokjin."

"I can't let you do this. Not infront of me.", Seokjin sobbed, grasping his mother's hand. "Eomonie... how would I live with this?!"

"By reminding yourself that I've done things that were unfair to the people close to you, that I've treated you poorly, that I'm choosing this for myself. I don't want you to forget what I am, Seokjin, no. That's not what it was all about. I wanted the three of you to know that I had things to say as well. But that doesn't change what I've done, because that's who I am. That's who I chose to be."

"I don't do things on impulse, Seokjin. I'm leaving because I choose to leave the way I want to. The things I have done throughout my life might make me a terrible mother and a terrible person but I chose to be what I am, a leader and the most successful Ruler Southerner Kingdom ever had. And that's all I ever wanted to be. So remind yourself that in the end... I won."

Lifting up her hand, she caressed her son's cheek for a very brief moment before saying. "Now go, Seokjin. I want to be alone when I leave. And don't worry.", she chuckled softly. "You worry a lot for your people, I know. But this poison doesn't hurt. The people who have supplied it to me won't want me to die in pain."

"Eomonie...", Seokjin shivered, gasping as he couldn't understand what exactly was he supposed to do.

"Have you ever... Ever loved me, Eomonie?", he laid his heart bare to his mother, for the first and last time. "Have you ever looked at me and felt the way a mother is supposed to feel while looking at her child?"

The alpha sat back on her chair once again, her demeanor exhausted, yet still.. very much prideful.

"Becoming a parent itself was not as easy for me as it is for others, Seokjin. As you can assume, my feelings for you were never that simple either. But yes... if there was any kind of feeling even close to love that I've felt in my whole life, it was for the three of you. And maybe that was because it was beyond my control."

They stared at each other for a few, silent minutes while the sound of Seokjin's sniffles filled the room before she stood up, her posture dismissive.

"Now go, Seokjin. You're my son and the King of Southern Kingdom. I expect you to be strong in situations like these? If people have chosen you as their King, then be a King."

Seokjin looked at his mother one more time before he turned around and calmly, steadily walked out of the room.

And as soon as he stepped out of the room, he saw Taehyung, standing infront of him with brimming eyes and tear stained cheeks.

"Seokjinah...", he whispered and the dam inside the omega broke loose. Rushing into the younger's arms, Seokjin hugged him for his dear life as a broken sob escaped from his mouth.

The vampire collected him in his arms, cornered him against the walls, all the while gently caressing his back.

"My Prince...", he murmured, soft, painful, yet reassuring. "Its okay..."

"It will be okay."

And that day, away from everyone's eyes, an era of Southern Kingdom came to its end.

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So...

Yeah 🌚

I would love to get some analysis on the Queen's character from y'all.

As y'all can realize already, this story is really close to its end.

Let me know about your opinion on this chapter and the story so far.

And please do not forget to leave a vote if you like it.

Take care, Purple Ya! ^_^💜