"She’s finally here," Derek said, his voice dropping like a block of ice right into the middle of Kai and Declan’s argument.
The two men snapped their mouths shut and turned to face Derek.
Kai’s eyes went wide. "Who? Kira’s here?"
Derek didn’t answer. He simply lowered himself back into his seat behind the desk, his face a careful, unreadable mask.
Kai stared at him for a heartbeat, then took two quick steps back, turned, and strode for the door. "I need to stop her," he said, and was gone.
As the door swung shut behind Kai, Declan crossed to the desk and braced his hands on the edge of it.
"Don’t you think you’re making a mistake?" he asked quietly.
Derek looked up at him, his eyes flat and cold. "The only mistake I ever made," he said, "was believing something good could come out of Moonfang. And then being foolish enough to stray from my original plan because of it. I’m simply correcting both errors at once."
Before Declan could say another word, the door burst open.
Nana came sweeping in like a storm, Crane following close at her heels.
"What is this nonsense I am hearing, Derek?!" Nana demanded.
***
Meanwhile, downstairs, Kira stood frozen in the entrance hall.
Her heart slammed against her ribs so hard she thought it might crack them open. A pain lanced through her chest, so raw and so sudden that it felt physical, like a blade slid clean between her ribs. And through it all, Brian’s voice came rushing back to her, every cruel word she had refused to believe.
And for what it’s worth, Derek doesn’t love you. Whatever you’ve let yourself believe. His plan, from the very beginning, was to marry the Moonfang heir and to kill her after a year if she failed to give him a son.
She had called him delusional. She had called him a liar. And now she stood in the middle of a hall being decorated for the very wedding he had warned her about.
Mara looked at her, pity swimming in her eyes. "Your Highness? Is there anything I can do? Anything at all?"
Kira blinked and shook her head slowly. "No," she managed. "No, I’m fine, Mara. Thank you. I’m fine."
Mara hesitated, then dipped her head. "I have to go and help the others. I’m so sorry, Your Highness." And she hurried away into the bustle.
The moment she was gone, Kai came rushing down the stairs and spotted Kira standing rooted by the entrance.
"Kira!" He hurried over to her. "Kira, thank the goddess. You’re alright." His eyes raked over her, taking in the exhaustion, the state of her. "What happened to you? Where did you go? We’ve been searching everywhere—"
But Kira had seen the unease written all over him, the tightness in his shoulders, the dread in his eyes.
"Is it true?" she asked.
Kai’s brow furrowed. "Is what true?"
"You know exactly what." Her voice was low and tight. "Don’t you dare play ignorant with me, Kai. Not you."
Kai exhaled heavily and dragged a hand down his face. "Kira... nothing is the way it seems right now. I swear it."
"So he plans to kill me after a year," she said. "Is that it? Marry me, use me, and dispose of me when I’ve served my purpose?"
Kai shoved his fingers back through his hair, his silence its own kind of answer.
"You know what?" Kira said, her jaw setting. "I’ll get my answers from him directly."
"No. Kira—" Kai reached for her. "You need to rest. You’ve been through goddess knows what. Let yourself recover, and we’ll talk about all of this later, properly—"
But Kira was no longer listening. She was already moving, already climbing the stairs two at a time, and Kai scrambled after her, still pleading.
"Kira, please, just freshen up first, you don’t want to do this right now—"
***
Upstairs, Nana planted herself in front of Derek’s desk.
"Tell me I heard wrong," she demanded.
"You heard exactly right," Derek said calmly. "Chloe is the true heir of Moonfang. She always was. And she is precisely who I set out to marry in the first place, before all of this. I’m only putting things back the way they were always meant to be."
Crane stepped forward. "Derek, this doesn’t make any sense. You can’t simply—"
A low, dangerous growl rolled out of Derek’s chest, cutting him off. "Don’t you dare stand in front of me and lecture me about what makes sense," he said. "Not you, of all people."
And just then, the door flew open, and Kira burst in, Kai right on her heels. Derek’s eyes went to her at once, snapping to her like iron to a magnet.
Kira stopped a few feet inside, her chest heaving, and glared at him with everything she had.
"Is it true?" she demanded. "Is it true that you’re going to marry Chloe Thornclaw? Is it true you’ve planned all along to kill me after a year and take her instead? Is that what this whole marriage has been about, from the very start?" Her voice cracked and rose. "Answer me, Derek!"
"Yes," Derek barked. "It’s true."
He looked at the woman he had spent months sleeping next to, and with a voice that was terrifyingly calm and chillingly cold, he said, "This is what this entire marriage has always been about. She is the true heir of Moonfang, after all. Chloe was the first one I got married to, remember?"
"Derek!" Nana yelled, rounding on him. "What in the goddess’s name has come over you?"
Kira’s heart shattered inside her chest. But she did not look away. She stared him down, square in the eye, anger and heartbreak and confusion all warring inside her at once. Tears stung hot behind her eyes, but she refused, absolutely refused, to let a single one fall.
"How could you do this?" she whispered.
Derek’s mouth curved into something cruel. "How could I not? This marriage was never real, Kira. You said so yourself, more than once. It was all for the throne. Remember?"
Nana’s head turned between the two of them, her face creasing in growing confusion.
Kira drew in a shaking breath. "You," she said, "are a betrayer."
Derek let out a cold, humourless chuckle. "Bold," he said. "Very bold. To stand there in front of me and use that word, betrayer."
Kira’s eyes narrowed. "I would never betray you. Never."
Derek waved a hand, dismissing her words like smoke. "I’ve heard that same pathetic lie fall out of your mouth more times than I can count," he said. "And yet. You went sneaking behind my back to meet your stepmother. Selling her information, feeding it straight to dear Daddy Rolf."
Kira blinked. And something began to dawn on her.
Her eyes darted to Nana, who was staring at her now, the confusion on the old woman’s face curdling into something else. Something like doubt.
"What is he talking about, Kira?" Nana asked slowly.
Kira looked around the room. At Derek’s cold fury. At Crane’s judgmental eyes. At Declan’s grim silence. At Kai’s helpless dread. At Nana’s dawning doubt.
Every single pair of eyes was fixed on her, and in that instant, she understood, with clarity, that her secret meeting with Lydia was already out. It was all out. And every one of them had interpreted it in exactly the way she had always feared they would.
"I..." Her voice came out small and unsteady. She swallowed hard. "I promise you. I promise. This isn’t what it looks like."