Chapter 156: Blood and Doubt
Back inside the palace living room, Kira paced back and forth, past the window, pausing to look out into the black, then turning and starting again.
She could hear the howls of lycans from a distance. She caught her reflection on the window, looking back at her, pale and worried, the knife still gripped in one hand.
Declan stood near the wall with his arms folded across his chest, watching her in silence.
Nana and the other women were gathered by the corner of the room, speaking in low, careful voices, the children pressed close against them.
Kira walked her circuit again, and again, pretending not to see that Declan was watching her every move.
When she couldn’t take it any longer, she finally stopped and turned around to face him directly.
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
Declan did not pretend not to understand. He straightened up. "Like what?"
"Like that. The way you always look at me." She kept her voice low, out of respect for the frightened people across the room, but it had an edge to it now.
"Is it my blood you hate? Or is there some other reason you’ve decided to despise me?"
Declan snorted softly. "Hate is a strong word, Your Highness. I don’t hate you."
Kira crossed her arms, mirroring his posture. "Then what is it?"
He studied her for a moment before he answered. "There’s a difference between hating someone and not trusting them."
"So that’s it." Kira’s eyebrows shot up. "You think I’m involved in some grand plot to kill the King or something?"
Declan shrugged, entirely unbothered. "It wouldn’t surprise me. Wolves have a habit of arriving in sheep’s clothing."
The words stung like a slap. Kira felt heat rush to her face, but she lifted her chin and met his eyes head-on.
"Bold of you," she said, "to decide exactly who I am without ever once bothering to know me."
"What else is there to know?" Declan’s voice stayed level, which somehow made it worse. "When your very first act in front of us was a deception."
"I never deceived anyone." Her voice rose slightly and she pulled it back down. "Derek and Rolf had an agreement. He wanted a Moonfang heir for his arrangement. He got one. I am Moonfang. I wasn’t the one who gave him another daughter."
Declan let out a quiet, sarcastic laugh.
"You signed that contract knowing full well you were not Chloe," he said.
"You travelled here, into Dravengard, into the heart of this pack, under her name, and let everyone believe you were someone you were not."
He tilted his head. "So tell me honestly, Your Highness. After all of that, do you still stand there and call yourself innocent in all of it?"
Kira bit her lip hard. She found, to her frustration, that she had nothing ready to say. Because the bones of what he had said were true, however unfair the shape he had bent them into.
Declan nodded slowly, as though her silence had confirmed something he had always known.
"That’s what I thought," he said. "So don’t act wounded when you are treated with suspicion. You earned the first stone of it yourself."
He unfolded his arms. "Derek may be blinded by whatever it is you do to him. But I will not stand by and watch my friend be destroyed a second time by a werewolf. Dravengard has never been a place where your kind is welcome, and one wedding has not changed that."
He turned and walked out into the dark to scan the grounds, leaving her standing there.
Kira stood frozen for a moment before she let out a long, slow breath.
She crossed the room and lowered herself onto the small isolated sofa set apart from the others, away from Nana and the women and the children, and she sat there alone with Declan’s words turning over and over in her head.
Was that how all of them saw her?
She had shown the whole pack what kind of queen she intended to be. And still. Did every Lycan in Dravengard look at her and see nothing but Rolf Thornclaw’s daughter, planted in their King’s home, waiting for the right moment to betray them all?
The thought made her chest ache. She had fought so hard to prove herself, to show them she wasn’t her father’s pawn. And yet one conversation with Declan had her questioning everything all over again.
Each time she decided to blend in, someone was always there to remind her that she was an outsider.
She was still lost in her thoughts when the main doors burst open with a loud bang.
Derek came through it at speed, and Kira was on her feet before she had thought about it. He had Kai on his back, limp and unmoving, one of Kai’s arms hanging loose over Derek’s shoulder, and Derek was covered in blood, his own and his cousin’s, his face stripped of everything but raw, undisguised fear.
"Get a doctor!" he roared into the house. "Now! Move!"
The room exploded into motion.
Derek carried Kai toward the stairs, taking them fast, and Nana was already hurrying after him with her skirts gathered in one hand.
Declan came back through the door at a run and went up behind them. Two of the women peeled away to help.
Voices overlapped, sharp and urgent, calling for the healer, for cloths, for hot water.
Kira moved forward, automatically, ready to follow, but her feet faltered halfway across the room. Declan’s words rang loudly in her head again.
Dravengard has never been a place where your kind is welcome, and one wedding has not changed that.
She stood there frozen, suddenly feeling like an outsider in her own home.
Kai was hurt. Kai, who had made her laugh more than almost anyone. Kai, who had never questioned her sincerity. She wanted to go up those stairs. Every part of her wanted to be useful, to help, to be near.
But he had gotten that blow from the werewolves. Her presence would only remind them of what had befallen them.
So she stood where she was, in the emptying room, and watched everyone else rush to help, and did not move.
She was still standing there when the front door opened again and a voice spoke behind her.
"Your Highness."
Kira turned, startled.
Connor stood in the doorway. He was filthy, streaked head to foot in dirt and blood, exhaustion hanging off every line of him. But he was upright, and he was alive, and when he saw her face he managed a small, tired smile.
"I’m sorry," he said. "I didn’t mean to startle you." He stepped inside. "It’s over. For tonight, at least. We’ve pushed them back. The grounds are secure."
Kira’s breath left her in a long rush of relief. At least that. At least the danger at the gates had passed.
Connor’s eyes moved across the chaos still unfolding on the staircase, the voices upstairs.
"What’s happened?" Kira asked. "What’s wrong with Kai?"
Connor’s smile faded as he watched her face. He looked again toward the stairs, toward the blood Derek had tracked across the floor.
"He took a fatal blow," he said quietly. "Out there. He lost so much blood. So much of it."
