Defying the Lycan King (Kira and Derek) novel Chapter 148

Chapter 148: The Leash

FLASHBACK

"He is a hybrid."

Kira’s eyes narrowed. "A hybrid? What do you mean by that?"

Sasha blew her nose into the napkin and sniffled. She had nothing left to lose now. If Kira could show her mercy in the lowest moment of her life, then there was no harm in telling her the rest.

She was going to prison regardless. And if there was a single person in this pack with enough compassion to look after her son once she was gone, it would be the woman sitting across from her.

"My parents forced me into a loveless marriage at twenty," Sasha said. "Even though I was already bound to someone else."

Kira’s eyes widened, just slightly. This sounded far too much like her own story.

"My husband was a promising gamma. Good family, plenty of money, the right fit on paper. But I never loved him, and he knew it. So he hit me. Then he blamed me for making him do it."

"He used to tell me I was nothing, that I should be grateful, that he was the one who saved me from being nothing."

Sasha tilted her head back and stared at the ceiling, blinking rapidly to keep the tears at bay.

"So I started seeing my soulbond again. In secret."

"Why wouldn’t your parents accept your soulbond?" Kira asked gently. "Was he poor? Low ranking?" She knew all too well how seriously shifter society took hierarchy and status.

Sasha let out a bitter little laugh. "I wish it had been something that simple. That would not have been a problem at all." She paused. "My soulbond was a werewolf."

Kira worked very hard to keep her jaw where it was. "A werewolf?"

Sasha nodded. "The kindest man I have ever known. But with the blood feud between our kinds, there was no world where we could be together openly. So I had a secret affair with him. I am not proud of it. But it was the only thing keeping me sane in that marriage."

She wiped her eyes again.

"No one would have cared if I tried to confide in them. King Derek was too consumed by rage and revenge back then to think straight about anything. He wanted to drag every werewolf alive through hell. That was him at his worst. He was a killing machine in those years. I couldn’t come forward, and I was far too frightened to elope."

Kira said nothing. She only watched her.

"When Nolan, my husband, found out about the affair, he said he would kill me and the child I was carrying. I fell apart. I couldn’t think. So I went to Ruby and I confided in her, and I asked her for a poison. Something to stop Nolan."

Sasha’s voice was flat now, hollowed out. "She gave me something. Nolan dropped dead in the middle of a raid. They called it a heart attack."

She drew in a shaking breath.

"A few months after Nolan died, the border patrol caught my soulbond near our borders. King Derek tore him apart on the spot. No questions. No pause."

Her shoulders were trembling with quiet sobs now. "He had only come because he was worried about me. That was all. He just wanted to know I was safe."

Kira exhaled slowly, letting the full, terrible shape of the story settle over her. And finally she understood. She understood exactly why Sasha had been Ruby’s puppet for so long. Ruby had been holding all of this over her head the entire time.

"Three months after Jerry was born, he developed this rare blood condition," Sasha continued. "I think it is my punishment from the goddess. But if she wanted to punish someone, it should have been me. Not him. He never did anything to anyone."

"We could start an outreach," Kira said. "I will champion it myself. There must be hybrids across Aethelwulf Centralis who would be willing to donate blood."

Sasha shook her head.

"Listen to me." Kira leaned forward. "If you genuinely want to be free of all of this, then you need to come to the tribunal tomorrow and tell your story yourself. Out loud. In front of everyone. Once it is spoken, no one can ever use it to control you again."

Sasha didn’t reply; she only kept sobbing.

Kira sat back a little. "So you held a grudge against the King," she said carefully after a moment’s pause. "And you decided to stop him from having an heir of his own."

Sasha’s head came up, her brows drawn together. "No. I never held it against him. I tried to. Goddess knows I tried. But I couldn’t, because I understood him."

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