Chapter 236: The Only Beautiful Thing
Kira wondered why she hadn’t caught his scent when he came.
She let out a deep breath and glanced around, not in fear, but genuinely puzzled, trying to work out how on earth Derek had gotten into the Crystal Moon packhouse and found his way to her here in the garden, of all places, without a single warning prickle along her senses.
Derek just stood there, saying nothing at all.
Kira finally found her voice and cleared her throat to get rid of the nervous squeak. "How did you get in here? And why could I not perceive you?"
"Braxton let me in," Derek said. "And I masked my scent."
"What are you doing here, Derek?"
"I came to see you."
"I explicitly told you at the council building that I would speak to you when I am ready," Kira said, her voice cooling. "And I am clearly not ready."
Deciding that looking at his handsome face was doing terrible things to her resolve, she attempted to side-step his frame to walk away and leave him standing there among the roses.
But Derek reached out, and his arm came to rest gently across her stomach, wedging her in place, stopping her without force.
The moment his arm made contact with her body, an electric jolt of tingling shot up Kira’s spine. Her lycan, Lux, let out a very loud, happy cheer in her head, which Kira immediately suppressed with embarrassment.
She glared up at him with all the fury she could muster.
"I’m sorry, Kira," Derek said. "For everything."
"I’m sorry too," Kira replied taking a step back. "But that doesn’t change a single thing."
She tried to leave again. This time he reached out and grabbed her wrist. He did not squeeze hard enough to bruise, but he held her tightly enough to ensure she could not just wiggle away.
"I couldn’t just sit and wait," he said quietly. "Knowing that I’d hurt you. I couldn’t do it, Kira."
Kira only stared at him for a long, long moment, saying nothing.
Then, she sighed and said, "You have ten minutes."
***
A few seconds later, the two of them sat on a bench in the garden.
Kira had her arms crossed tightly over her chest, staring straight ahead at a perfectly ordinary bush, and sitting as far away from Derek as the physical length of the bench would allow.
The main problem was that she could still feel the intense warmth radiating from his body.
Every primal instinct in her body was urging her to close that gap, to lean into him, to bury herself in that warmth she had missed more than she’d ever admit. Lux practically purred at the nearness of him. But Kira held herself perfectly still, using every ounce of her mental willpower to remain completely detached.
Derek cleared his throat, looking uncomfortable with the forced distance.
"How have you been?" he finally asked after a few moments of silence.
She did not turn her head. "I’m fine, as you can see."
Derek nodded and fell silent for a moment, staring down at his own shoes. Then, he let out a heavy sigh.
"I know a simple ’sorry’ is never going to undo what I did to you. I know I completely ruined things."
He slowly tilted his head up, looking into the darkening evening sky, and for a while he said nothing more. When he finally spoke again, his voice was lower, quieter than she’d ever heard it.
"From the very first day I saw you," he said, "at that riverbank in Moonfang, I knew you were special to me. Somehow. Even then."
Kira kept her gaze locked forward, but her ears picked up every single vibration of his voice. She said nothing, letting him speak.
"I remember seeing that rogue wolf stalking you from the bushes," Derek went on. "And I told myself werewolves weren’t my concern, that it had nothing to do with me. That the smart thing, the right thing for a Lycan, was to walk away and let nature take its course."
He turned his head to look at her profile. "But even with all that internal prejudice, I couldn’t leave you. And that exact feeling was the real reason why I refused to return you to Moonfang, even after I discovered you weren’t the real Chloe.
Kira’s eyebrows twitched, but she remained silent.
"My plan was cruel," Derek continued, "I meant to take Rolf’s only heir in the name of marriage. Bind her with a clause about producing a son within a year, even though I knew full well how nearly impossible that was, especially since the father is the one who determines the sex of a child anyway."
He drew a slow breath. "The whole point was the year itself. Twelve months to mentally and emotionally torment Rolf’s daughter. To wound him where it would hurt him most. That was why I wrote in the open marriage clause, and then made it as difficult as I possibly could for you to ever actually see another man."
Kira sighed. "And if this heir did somehow give you a son?"
"Then I’d have killed her anyway," Derek said flatly, "and used the boy to lay claim to the werewolf territories."
Kira let out a very long sigh, finally turning her head to give him a look. "Wow," she muttered. "You really had every single bit of it planned out, didn’t you? You were a total villain."
Derek met her gaze, unblinking.
"Yes," he admitted. "I wanted to kill several birds with one stone. Marry a werewolf I could never, ever fall for, get Nana to hand me back my throne, and take my revenge on Rolf, all at once."
He paused, and something shifted in his voice. "But every part of that plan fell apart the moment you walked into it."
He turned away from her.
"I found myself losing my grip on myself. On my own anger, which had been the one steady thing in my life for years. The more time I spent with you, the more I realised I couldn’t even bring myself to harm Rolf or the werewolves anymore."
Kira’s throat tightened, but she looked away from him.
"I was full of darkness," Derek said. "Cold, bitter darkness, for so many years I’d forgotten there was anything else. And then, slowly, you became my light. You brought so much of it into my life. So much happiness. More than I knew what to do with."
His hands curled into fists on his knees. "And because I was too stubborn to just let go of the lingering darkness inside me, I ruined all of it. I ruined the best thing I’d ever been given, and I hurt you doing it."
He was quiet for a beat.
"I never truly believed you’d betrayed me," he confessed. "Not really. Not deep down. But in that blinding anger, some twisted part of me wanted you to feel exactly the pain I was feeling. So I said those things; those cruel, unforgivable things. Not because I meant a word of them, but because my sick, broken mind wanted to watch you hurt the way I was hurting."
Kira quietly wiped away a stray tear that had escaped and was rolling down her cheek. She took a deep breath, steadying herself, and when she spoke, her voice came out low and broken.
"Then I suppose you succeeded," she said. "Because you hurt me so much, Derek. More than anyone else ever has. You truly broke me into pieces."
Derek turned fully to her now, his eyes anguished, his hands twitching as if he wanted to reach out and hold her, but he forcefully kept them to himself.
"I’m so sorry, Kira. I don’t deserve your forgiveness, and I’m not asking for it. But I need you to know how truly sorry I am."
Kira wiped her eyes again, sniffed, and drew in another steadying breath. When she spoke, her voice was calmer, and there was a quiet strength in it.
"You don’t have to carry all the blame yourself," she said. "I played my own part in this. I looked out for myself so much throughout our marriage that I hid a great many things from you. Things that circled right back around and hurt me in the end."
She finally turned to look at him. "We never trusted each other enough to let one another into the deepest parts of ourselves. And no matter what happens now, Derek, I’m afraid things can never be the same between us."
Derek’s expression flickered, but he said nothing.
"I’m glad the whole truth finally came out," Kira went on. "I am. But we’re on different paths now. Our contract is over now anyway—you tore the papers up yourself."
A small, bitter smile touched her lips. "And the only beautiful thing that ever came out of that marriage..." She rested her hand gently against her stomach. "Is your seed, growing inside me."
Derek’s entire body went rigid. His eyes widened, and for a moment he simply stared at her, completely frozen.
"You..." His voice came out rough. "You’re pregnant?"
Kira nodded, and let out a soft, bitter little chuckle.
"I suppose," she said, "I fulfilled my part of the contract after all."
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