Chapter 281

281 The Past

Selma Payne’s POV:

In just a minute, when the flash went off, when the microphone transformed my voice into an electric current and transmitted it to the world, my life changed in an instant.

The people’s gazes changed from surprise to doubt and then to respect and fanaticism. At this moment, the ordinary Selma had disappeared forever. From now on, the one standing on this land would be the princess of the werewolf pack, Madeline.

Just like the cameras in the auditorium today, every detail of my life from now on would be infinitely magnified and studied. My every word and action would affect people’s perception and evaluation of me.

I would never have a peaceful and relaxed life again. This was a heavy shackle that was accompanied by glory.

My position was temporarily arranged during the group photo to be in the middle. No one had any objections, including the representatives of the outstanding graduates from various departments who should have stood beside the principal and my father.

However, I took the initiative to move aside and told the boys and girls I was unfamiliar with, “These are the seats that belong to you.”

They hurriedly declined my offer, and as I backed down, they trembled as they stood in the center. They couldn’t help but smile brightly.

“Crack.”

I’d officially graduated.

Sitting in the royal family’s carriage, I elegantly waved to the people who had heard the commotion and were coming from both sides of the road. They cheered enthusiastically as if they truly believed I was a worthy successor.

But I knew that most of this was because people loved the house and its crow. People loved my father, so they loved me. If I couldn’t be a qualified Crown Princess, this love would instantly turn into a flood that would drown me.

“How do you feel?” My mother asked in a low voice, “Are you nervous?”

“A little,” I said honestly. “I feel a little torn. It was still calm when we went to school in the morning, but everything turned upside down in just a few hours. It’s so unreal when I think about it.”

My mother recalled the past and said with a smile, “We always think that we’re ready for the change of identity, but in the end, we’re caught off guard. It was the same when I married your father and was crowned the Queen. Everything felt so unreal, like a dream. It took me a few months to realize that I was no longer the little girl in the alpine estate.”

Speaking in front of the camera was a skill I had yet to master. It was only when I returned to the palace that I had the time to ask my mother, “The alpine estate? Speaking of which, you haven’t told me about your past.”

“Me? Before I married your father, my life was very dull. There’s nothing much to talk about.”

“Tell me about it. Your hometown is also considered my hometown. I’ve never been there before!”

With my coaxing and pestering, my mother had no choice but to relent.

She was born into a noble family of werewolves with a long history. Her ancestor originated from a royal princess, but it was passed down over a dozen generations. By the time her mother’s generation came, the Garcia family had already had a declining population, and she was the only descendant of this generation.

For a long time, the Garcia family had lived the traditional life of a landlord, living in seclusion in their manor in the Alps. Even the most tragic years of the cult’s persecution did not have much effect on them.

Just like that, the Garcia family lived in peace until the second half of the 20th century, and a female heir that everyone had been looking forward to was born. However, bad luck also came with the birth of a new life. The weak and sickly female mother died of an amniotic fluid embolism. The husband who married into the family raised his daughter alone until she was six years old and then also passed away.

At this point, the Garcia family only had one member left, the young lady who was my mother.

“So my maternal grandfather and grandmother passed away when you were young?” I was a little sad that I didn’t get to see these family members.

My mother had long since let go of her parents’ deaths. She said softly, “I was still very young when they left, and I don’t have much of an impression of them now. It was the nanny who raised me. She was a mixed-race woman saved by your great-grandmother when she was studying abroad. By the time I turned sixteen, she was already too old and passed away quietly in her sleep.”

At the age of sixteen, my mother began to live alone. Fortunately, the life of disguising her identity to study human society made her mature early and rational, so she was not easily confused by this world. When she was twenty, my mother came to North America to study at a university in a Lycan pack. It was there that she met my father.

Back then, my father was only a Prince, in his twenties, the prime of his youth. My father fell in love with my mother at a university fellowship party at first sight. The wonderful chemistry easily made my father forget the rules of ‘fated mate’, and he started a fierce pursuit of my mother.

There was nothing much to say about the details. I suspected my mother was too embarrassed to tell me about her love history. When she was twenty-six, she finally agreed to my father’s proposal.

However, before they could officially step into the hall of marriage, the war between the wolves and the witches began. My grandparents passed away in the war, one after another, and my young father had to take on the heavy responsibility. My mother also became the Queen overnight.