Kai stepped forward. "But Derek, I already told you the reason she went to meet—"
"Stay the fuck out of this, Kai, before I have you charged with treason!" Derek snapped, his furious eyes darting to his cousin like two loaded pistols. "Or do you imagine I didn’t know that you smuggled your pathetic little lover out of Dravengard at the very height of all this? Right under my nose?"
Kai stared at him, bewildered, and struck silent with disbelief.
"Derek," Kira called, her voice cracking. "I only went to see Lydia to get information about my mother. That’s all. I swear it to you."
Derek’s eyes snapped back to her. He raised one brow.
"And drugging my entire security detail to do it?"
Kira’s stomach flipped. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She looked completely caught out, her silence speaking volumes to everyone in the room.
"And your wedding ring," Derek went on, his voice dropping to something colder, "with the little listening chip tucked inside it. The one feeding everything we discussed straight back to your father."
"What?" Nana whispered, her head snapping toward Derek. "What is going on here? What on earth is all this?"
Kira’s brows pulled together. "My wedding ring?"
"The very one you so conveniently slipped off your finger before you left," Derek said. "Remember? So that I would carry it right into my war council and hand your camp everything they needed to set their trap."
Kira started to fire back, to tell him she had no idea what he was talking about. But the words died in her throat as a memory surfaced, sudden and sickening.
That day, at the restaurant with Lydia. The woman had reached across the table, covering Kira’s hand with her own, holding it there a moment longer. And Kira recalled that she hadn’t pulled her hand away, thinking it was just a strange gesture of maternal affection. That must be exactly when Lydia had attached whatever chip he was talking about.
"Goddess," Kira whispered, her voice breaking as the horrifying realisation washed over her. Her hands began to tremble violently, and she rubbed them over her face, trying to block out the sheer stupidity of her past self. "Oh, goddess."
Derek watched her intently, taking her sudden panic as a complete confession of guilt.
She lowered her hands and turned to him. "Trust me, Derek, I—"
"Trust you?" Derek spat. "I would sooner put my hand in a meat grinder than trust a single word that comes out of anything born in Moonfang."
The world felt like it was tilting on its axis as Kira saw the unfiltered hate burning in his eyes. She felt her heart tear completely apart, an invisible knot choking her throat until she could barely breathe.
"You don’t mean that," she whispered, her voice small, desperately clinging to any shred of the man who had held her in the dark. "Derek, you don’t mean that."
"You must be truly delusional," Derek said, stalking toward her, "if you think any of this is a joke." His voice dropped low and vicious. "Did you honestly believe I loved you? You? A weak, wolfless little runt?"
Kira gasped aloud as hot, stinging tears finally welled in her eyes and spilled down her cheeks. And without warning, Rolf’s cruel words came flooding back to torture her mind, echoing in perfect harmony with the king’s insults.
But here’s the truth. You’re not capable of being loved. No one loves you, and no one ever will. You’re weak. You’re pathetic. You’re a runt.
Hearing the same old nightmare from the man she loved was too much.
"Derek, that’s enough! Stop this madness this instant!" Nana stepped forward.
"Stay!" Derek barked at Nana, his amber eyes glowing with an unhinged light. "The fuck out of this!"
Nana’s hand shot out, delivering a loud, ringing slap right across Derek’s face.
"How dare you speak to me like that!"
But Derek did not flinch. His head barely moved from the impact, his jaw locking tight as he stared down at his grandmother.
Nana stared up at him, her own eyes wet now, but her voice was hard as stone. "You’re a cruel bastard, Derek. You’ve let this darkness eat you alive. And here I thought you had healed. I should never have."
Derek let out a loud, cruel laugh that sent shivers down Kai’s spine. "You say that to me? You? When you’re the very one who would never let me rest. All your endless nonsense about marriage. Writing your stupid little clauses, forcing me to take a wife before I could sit on a throne that was mine by blood to begin with."
He turned back to Kira, his lip curling. "That is the only reason this pathetic werewolf girl ever got close enough to imagine I could feel something for her kind. After what her wretched father did to my people. After what they took from me."
He exhaled. "You thought the contract was ever about giving me a son? Does it make sense to you that I specifically demanded a son? It was a trap. Now, we’re even."
Pain coursed through Kira’s whole body. She was shaking now, uncontrollably, tears streaming down her cheeks, and she did not bother to wipe a single one of them away. She just stood there, letting the heavy blows of his words break whatever was left of her spirit.
Derek came closer still, until he was looking directly into her eyes.
"I told you, from the very beginning, that I would destroy everyone who belonged to Rolf," he said. "It was the only thing that kept me breathing through the worst of it. The only thing. And as for that stupid little sister of yours, Chloe, she is going to receive every last drop of my wrath."
His voice was almost gentle now, which made it worse. "It’s truly unfortunate that you let yourself believe, even for a moment, that I, Derek Wolfe, would ever forget my vengeance. For you, of all people."
And something broke open inside Kira.
Something she could not hold back, could not control, could not survive intact. She looked at him through all of it, through all the suffocating pain that was currently threatening to crumple her straight to the ground, she looked up at him and let out a breathless, broken laugh.
"Well," she said, her voice shaking but clear. "You wasted all that hatred on the wrong girl, Your Grace. Because I was never Rolf’s daughter."
Derek frowned, confusion flickering across his cold face.
Kira drew a shaking breath, and the ghost of something rose up in her, that old habit, that defiant little scoreboard she kept to survive the people who tried to break her.
"Pathetic Kira: 0," she whispered. "Monster King Derek: 100." A broken sound escaped her. "You won."
Before Derek could say a single word, a scream tore out of Kira’s throat.
A pain unlike anything she had ever felt slammed into her, doubling her over, dropping her to her knees on the floor.
"Kira?" Derek called and started toward her, but stopped short.
The pain ripped through her entire being, white-hot and merciless, and she cried out in agony. And then white fur began to sprout along her arms.
It happened so fast. Her clothes tore at the seams. Her bones cracked and reshaped beneath her skin with loud pops, and the next scream she attempted came out as a deep, echoing howl that shook the glass windows.
And where the wolfless runt had knelt only seconds before, a magnificent white Lycan now stood, tall and gleaming, her silver eyes glowing with a feral light.
The white beast took one swift glance back at the stunned faces in the room, turned on her paws, and bolted straight out of the door.