Chapter 163: Love Makes Men Blind
Kira walked down the corridor of the medical centre holding Maya’s hand, the little girl skipping along beside her.
She seemed all happy and more bubbly after Kira had given her a grand tour of the estate. Kira found herself smiling at the girl’s happiness.
They had come to visit Sasha and Jerry, and Kira had given her blood sample to see if it really could help the boy.
Maya had refused to be left behind, and so here they were, the two of them, making their way toward the nurses’ station.
She was almost there when she caught the voices. She slowed down without meaning to.
The nurses were clustered behind the station, heads bent together, and they did not see her coming.
"...all I’m saying is the timing is strange," one of them murmured. "Eight years, not a single breach. Then she arrives, and suddenly the Umbras walk straight into the palace? You can’t tell me that’s nothing."
"You think the Queen is selling information to her father?"
"I think the King is too in love to see what’s in front of him. Everyone’s saying it. He won’t investigate her properly because he can’t bear to. Love makes men blind, and a blind king is a dangerous thing."
"You’re right. But maybe she’s playing him. Werewolves are sneaky like that."
"You should be careful saying that." Another voice said.
"And I don’t believe it, honestly. Have you seen the way she is? She freed Milo for his sick child. She gave Sasha mercy when she had every right not to. Does that sound like a woman plotting to murder a king who loves her? She’s too kind for that. Far too kind."
"Kind is exactly what a clever spy would look like."
"Or she’s just kind and the king loves her like that."
The first nurse laughed bitterly. "Love makes men blind. Mark my words, she’ll be the reason we all end up dead."
Kira’s stomach twisted. She felt Maya’s hand tighten in hers. She looked at the girl who was giving her warm look.
They really think I’m a traitor, she thought, a hot flush of anger and hurt rising in her chest.
She couldn’t listen anymore. She stepped forward, making sure her footsteps were loud enough to be heard.
The nurses froze mid-sentence, when they saw her, then scattered like startled birds, knocking into one another in their hurry to look busy, their faces flooding crimson. One after another they dropped into hasty bows.
"Your Highness."
"Your Highness, it’s good to see—"
Kira dropped the file she had come to deliver onto the counter without a word. Her expression stayed calm, but inside she was fuming.
She turned and walked away, head high, leaving the nurses glancing at each other in pure horror.
One of them whispered, "Do you think she heard us?"
The nurse who had defended her earlier groaned. "Of course she heard us, you fool. She wasn’t deaf."
Another slapped a hand over her own mouth. "This mouth. This wretched mouth of mine. I knew it would get me into trouble one day."
"We’re all going to be reassigned to cleaning duty."
Kira did not slow down. She kept her composure all the way out of the building, and only let her shoulders drop once she was clear of it.
She looked at Maya. "Are you alright?"
Maya nodded and smiled at her.
Kira smiled back as she pulled out her phone and dialled Jessica.
"I’m going to call my best friend to come. You will love her very much."
The phone rang three times before her best friend answered.
Before Kira could say a word, Jessica’s voice came through, thick with tears.
"Ki..." Jessica cried. "Kira, my family’s gone. We’ve fled Moonfang."
Kira stopped dead in her tracks. "What? What do you mean fled? What happened?"
Jessica sniffed hard. "It’s Alpha Rolf." Jessica’s voice shook.
"He found out somehow. That I’d been to Dravengard. He’s accusing us, my whole family, of passing information to the Lycans. He sent gammas to kill us, Kira. To kill us, but Luna Lydia secretly warned my mum. So, we ran. We’re on the run."
Kira’s stomach turned to ice, then to fire. "He wants you dead just because you came to see me? Why would he want to eliminate you just because you came here?"
There was a pause on the line, then Jessica sniffed.
"Do you remember," she said quietly, "what I told you a while ago? About the rumours? That Alpha Rolf has a habit of getting rid of people who ask too many questions about your mother?"
She drew a shaky breath. "This is how he buries things, Kira. Anyone who gets too close to something he doesn’t want found, they disappear."
The memory came back to Kira all at once. It still had to do with her mother. Apparently, many people in the pack knew he murdered her mother, and still had the effrontory to blame her for it all these years.
The thought came with a rage so clean and so total that it frightened her slightly. She wanted nothing more in that moment than to find Rolf Thornclaw and wrap her hands around his throat and squeeze until every buried truth came spilling out of him.
She breathed through it.
"Where are you right now?" she asked. "Are you safe?"
"The Central. There’s a small guesthouse. We’re keeping our heads down for now."
Kira’s mind raced. She wanted to bring them straight to Dravengard, all of them, immediately.
But she knew exactly how that would look. A werewolf family fleeing Moonfang, arriving at the palace just after the Umbra breach, with the entire court already whispering that she was a spy for her father. She couldn’t try that, and wouldn’t force Derek’s hand.
She thought hard, fast.
"Listen to me," she said. "I’m going to speak to Derek. I’ll ask him to let your parents stay at Snow Crest for now. It’s safe, and it keeps them out of the worst of this."
She didn’t know how much this plan would work, but needed to do something.
"And you, you come to Dravengard. I’ll vouch for you. With my life if I have to."
Because Kai needed her. Kira did not say that part yet.
"But it can’t happen until after the coronation," she went on. "Tomorrow. Can your family stay low just until tomorrow? Can you manage that?"
"Yes." Jessica’s voice steadied with relief. "Yes, we can do that. Ki, thank you. Goddess, thank you. I don’t know what we’d have done."
"It’s nothing," Kira said, waving her hand.
There was a small pause.
"Why did you call me, actually?" Jessica asked. "Before all this. You called me first."
Kira hesitated.
"I think you should come to Dravengard," she said softly. "Kai really does need you right now."
***
"Rolf has left Moonfang. Taken his whole family with him."
Bruce’s face filled the screen of the tablet propped on the long table, his voice clipped and serious.
Derek paced the length of the hall, his mind already moving through formations, possibilities, contingencies. Declan and Connor stood nearby, listening.
"We’re still tracking him," Bruce continued. "He’s moving, but he’s moving carefully. I’ll report every shift the moment it happens."
"And the Umbras?" Derek asked.
"Confirmed. Rolf is working with them. I’ve no doubt left about that." Bruce shook his head. "What I can’t tell you is how. How he managed to bring shadow shifters under his control, or what he’s promised them. That part I haven’t cracked."
"Keep watching," Derek said. "Stay on him. But Bruce, if it gets dangerous, if your position is compromised, you come home. I’d rather have you alive than embedded."
Bruce nodded, and the call ended.
For a moment no one spoke.
Then Declan exhaled heavily and folded his arms. "This is starting to look like a systematic dismantling."
Connor nodded slowly. "I’m beginning to think that Kai’s fatal blow wasn’t chance. Out of everyone on that field, they went for him. Someone wanted his intelligence out of the picture before whatever comes next."
Derek thought exactly the same thing. He did not say it aloud.
"They could be planning something for the coronation," Declan said. He looked at Derek. "Do you want to shift the date after all? Buy ourselves time?"
Derek stopped pacing and turned to the men.
"Think about it," he said. "Whoever planned that attack, whoever sent the Umbras straight to the heart of this palace, what was the goal? Not to kill me. They had a clear run and they went elsewhere. The goal was disruption. Fear. To rattle us badly enough that we’d stop the coronation ourselves."
He looked between his two men.
"They want the crowning not to happen. That is the entire point of all of it."
His voice hardened. "So, it will happen exactly as planned. We do not give them the one thing they crossed every line to stop."
