Arc 4.24 Queen Mother
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About a month after Alex and Nile returned to the colonies, the funeral for Lily and Taina was finally held after both families finally finished the preparations.

As for the families' views over their deaths, they were naturally not pleased and demanded explanations.

Lily's death was "justified" as before the Rigels could keep the fact that she had killed a fellow comrade in the dark, Duke had already released the news that she was no longer human backed by the evidence of her body that had the yellow blood of the aliens. With the power of the Fomalhaut family behind him, the Rigels could not stop the leakage.

As for the Fomalhauts' stance on Taina's death, they demanded compensation from the Rigel family. As one of the leading families how could they not be aware of the Rigels' attempts at trying to topple them? From the moment the first wife of Michael Aldebaran, Alex's father, died by his own hands, the Fomalhaut family already connected the dots. It was clear that the current mistress was sent by the Rigel family to cut off the Fomalhaut-Aldebaran connection that had been in existence for generations. It worked, but to the current Fomalhaut head the Aldebaran family was simply a pretty vase not worth investing in with Michael leading it.

While Henry Fomalhaut truly was distraught over his only daughter's death, as the head of the family he had to put the family before his own daughter which was ironic as his daughter was "family." So, he took advantage of the fact that Lily had killed Taina to cripple the Rigel family by asking for a hefty sum. They also fanned the flames between the Rigel and Betelgeuse families. This was in retaliation for coming in between their own family and the Aldebarans. That, and to cut off the Rigel's right hand as the Betelgeuse family had the most say amongst the four families since the head, Nile's grandfather, was the Grand Marshall of the entire military.

By ruining the longstanding relationship between the Rigel and Betelgeuse families, the Rigel family was sure to suffer much worse than when the Fomalhauts cut off ties with the Aldebarans.

Anyway, John Rigel--Lily's father and the head of the Rigel family--hadn't seen even a shadow of Nile's figure prior to the funeral. So, when he finally saw that man walk in with a nonchalant face as his arms wrapped possessively around Alex's waist, he exploded.

There were many reasons for his outburst. For one, Nile as Lily's fiancé was supposed to protect her. Second, he broke off their engagement without telling anyone as soon as he returned to the colonies--and very cleanly at that. Not only was Lily dead, Nile also threw out old evidence of Lily's scandals that were hidden by her and her family. She already lost her virginity before she was sixteen, when the two were engaged since childhood.

Those were just the small stuff, as both families didn't really care for such insignificant reasons to break off a business marriage. Of course, Nile didn't neglect to throw in the more professional details in order to discourage the Betelgeuse from maintaining a friendly relationship with the Rigels. Over the years, the Rigels had always wanted to topple the other three families so that they could reign supreme, so it wasn't hard to find evidence of their actions that impended the Betelgeuse house. Unfortunately, while it wasn't hard, it sure did take time to collect enough.

As opposed to Lily's numerous sex scandals, the original Nile met Alex when he was fourteen and actually kept himself clean for his beloved.

The last reason for John's outburst was that even if the engagement fell through due to Lily's unforeseen death, Nile should have still been tied to the Rigel household by marriage to another daughter of the family but he was playing around with some broad right after he was "free!" And even worse was that they seemed extremely familiar with each other like they'd been together for years, which made John assume that Nile was a hypocrite who criticized Lily for infidelity when he himself was seeing other women during his engagement.

Of course, it wasn't a lie that Nile was indeed seeing another woman before he broke off the engagement, but it was only one woman--not women.

In his explosion, John stalked up to the white-haired man who towered over him at over six feet tall and fearlessly threw a punch upwards at his left cheek.

But who was Nile? While the thought of letting the angry man punch him in order to gain his wife's pity did cross his mind, he had actually already overplayed the cute and pitiful act the past month so he knew Alex would most likely only laugh it off this time around.

So Nile did what one would expect someone from the military to do. He punched the man square on his own left cheek, causing him to fly harshly into the air before falling pitifully onto the cold hard floor before the latter's fist could land on him.

And before others could criticize him for being disrespectful of his elders, Nile monotonously stated loud enough with his mellow, sonorously deep voice for the silent crowd to hear,

"My bad, trained reflex."

Those who knew of the man's skills couldn't help but cough blood because it was obviously intentional, yet he claimed otherwise! For Nile, John Rigel's weak punch didn't even pose a small threat so how could it possibly incite him to feel threatened enough to rely on his so-called reflex to "defend" himself? Actually, as John wasn't even the least bit trained and was weaker than even the youngest soldier in their ranks, all Nile had to do was either catch the punch, sidestep it, or take it.

His fist was clearly itching for some action on such an occasion that was his ex-fiancée's and her former best friend's funeral.

"YOU--!!"

John, who was sprawled on the floor as he cupped his bruised cheek while a sliver of blood leaked from his mouth due to having some teeth fall out due to the punch, felt humiliated! Not only did the younger man not give him any face by allowing him to hit him, he stepped all over it by retaliating with a punch of his own!

Never in his 70 years of life did he have to go through such an experience--the people lived longer in this world, so while Alex was 24 and Nile was 26 they had many more years to live if nothing went wrong. The longest someone had lived for was actually 203 years.

Too bad Nile wasn't finished smashing his face against the floor, since he wasn't even paying attention to the man. Instead, he turned to the fiery red-haired beauty in his arms with a smug smile, his eyes clearly conveying his thoughts.

I was cool just now, wasn't I?

Alex had to admit, the sight of her husband fighting never got old. He got to flex his muscular arms and show off his indomitable strength. In the first and second world he didn't really have the chance to do so, while the third world he was extremely sexy as a werewolf but he usually let her do all the killing.

Even under the black suit, the man was overflowing with power and hormones, which really tempted Alex to just strip and lick him on the spot. They didn't have to fight after returning to the colonies so Alex felt that the rarely-seen OP Nile was a very delicious sight.

To show her approval of him, Alex licked her lips, causing a flash of happiness to flicker through Nile's ice-blue eyes as his smug smile quickly morphed into a much sillier one.

Meanwhile, John only felt more and more hateful towards the shamelessly flirting couple. But before he could embarrass himself even more, mother Rigel quickly shuffled over and clutched onto his arm as she glared hatefully towards Alex in accusation.

She believed that Alex was a seductress that stepped into the loving relationship between Nile and her precious daughter.

John and his wife actually had two daughters, but Lily was obviously the favored one as the female lead. Now that the engagement between Lily and Nile was not possible, both of them planned to have their other daughter marry him to keep the tradition between the two families going.

But that didn't mean Lady Rigel wouldn't feel indignant on behalf of her favorite daughter. As the only wife of John with a tight leash on him at that, she really hated how her supposed-to-be son-in-law had already cheated on her daughter (even if she already died, and they weren't going to marry anyway plus he even broke their engagement before stepping over the line). She couldn't blame Nile as he actually had prestige and power, but Alex was another story as the abandoned child of the Aldebaran family.

She wasn't alone in her hate towards Alex, though. While Lady Fomalhaut hated the Rigels for being the direct cause for Taina's death, she somehow found out that Alex was the one who threw Taina to Lily. Even though everyone was supposedly unaware that Lily was an alien, she had a feeling that Alex purposefully aimed for her daughter's death by throwing her at Lily.

Call it a mother's instinct.

Thus, Alex received many glares from numerous women at the funeral. There weren't just the mothers, but also her half-sister and her step-mother. Don't even get her started on the women who were pining for the man who was currently all over her while ignoring everything else around him.

Their collective thoughts were: He wasn't engaged anymore!

Nile was officially the most wanted man in the colonies. Well, not that he wasn't already even while he was engaged to Lily. It's just now that he was "free," the women could finally openly pursue him.

Unfortunately, even before they found out his engagement had been annulled some bitch already snatched him away thus infuriating the entire female population. He was smitten with her, to make things worse!

Alice was one of those women. She had always loved Nile even when he was still destined to be with Lily. She wanted him even more after her position as the heiress of the Aldebaran family was being threatened by that hateful son in the slut beside her father's belly.

Why did Alex always have to beat her at everything?!

Another one was Isabelle, Lily's younger sister, who was looking forward to the engagement falling to her after her sister's death. She never liked Lily as she hogged their parents' attention fully aware of the neglect she was going through as a result.

Obviously, just because Alex was around him, that didn't stop the hungry women from trying to attract Nile's attention as every time one of them passed by they would attempt to accidentally rub their soft bodies against his hard and tall frame.

But, before they could get within even a five-foot radius from him and his wife, Nile would direct a blood-thirsty killing intent, scaring them all off.

Actually, the funeral ended hours ago and they were all currently there for the "after-party."

At least, that's what Alex called it in her head since it was no different from other social gatherings aside from the occasional offers of condolences to the hosts of the funeral.

Towards his parents' treatment to Alex and Nile, Duke would always smile apologetically when he saw them from afar.

As he finally had time after finishing his business with all of the guests, Duke was heading over to the couple when a holographic video suddenly popped up on the massive stage at the end of the room.

Everyone turned their heads, confused, as all of the funerary events were supposed to have been over.

To the horror of the Rigel family, lewd sounds echoed around the expansive lobby filled to the brim with people and business partners--basically those with status within the higher echelons.

Nile smiled dotingly down at his cunning little red fox as they stood in the distance taking in everyone's reactions.

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