Defying the Lycan King (Kira and Derek) novel Chapter 152

Chapter 152: Sinister

The look in Brian’s eyes turned Kira’s stomach.

It always did. There was something in the way he looked at her that made her skin want to crawl off her body and find somewhere cleaner to be.

She lifted her chin, fixed her gaze straight ahead, and moved to walk past him without giving him so much as a word.

Brian’s hand shot out and caught her arm.

"Not so fast."

He pulled her back, and before she could right herself he had pinned her to the wall, one arm braced beside her head, his body crowding in close enough that she had nowhere left to go. He leaned in until his face was almost touching hers.

Kira’s knee came up fast, aimed straight for straight for his groin.

Brian shifted his hips and blocked it without even looking down, pressing her harder into the wall with his weight.

"Do you think I’m a fool?" he murmured, smiling. "I’ve been watching you long enough to know exactly what you’ll do before you do it."

Kira shoved against his chest. He did not move an inch.

"Get your filthy hands off me," she hissed.

"And where," Brian said pleasantly, glancing down the empty corridor, "is your usual little flock of guards today? All those big, serious men who follow you everywhere. How careless of you to misplace them."

She said nothing. She pushed again. He held.

"Tell me." His voice dropped, almost intimate. "Did you receive my little token? When you were in the hospital."

Kira went still.

The flowers. The lilies. The note tucked between the stems that had read so strangely the second time.

I counted every stair you fell down.

Brian watched the understanding move across her face and his smile widened, delighted with himself.

"Go to hell," she spat. "And take your flowers with you. Burn to ashes while you’re at it."

"Feisty." He said it like a man tasting something he enjoyed. "Goddess, I do love that about you."

He leaned in closer, and Kira turned her face away from him.

"I’ll give you credit where it’s due," he went on. "That business with Ruby was very impressive. The whole pack is talking about it. Their clever new queen, untangling all of Ruby’s little webs."

He tilted his head. "But you should be careful, my love. You made enemies that day. Killing Ruby pleased some people and it offended others. Powerful others. You’d do well to watch your back."

Kira’s breath was coming fast and uneven now, her chest heaving with the effort of struggling against a body that simply would not give.

"Stop fighting me," Brian said.

"Why," Kira said slowly, "would I know anything about a werewolf attack?"

Brian looked at her for a long moment. Then he reached up and brushed a loose strand of hair from her cheek, gentle, almost tender, and it made her want to be sick.

"Soon, my love," he said softly. "Soon you’ll understand all of it. But for now?" His hand lingered against her face. "Keep a close eye on your pretty little friend. Dravengard is not a safe place for her at all."

As if the world itself had been waiting for the cue, Kira’s phone buzzed in her hand.

She glanced down. Jessica’s name lit up the screen.

Brian’s smile spread slowly. He stepped back at last, releasing her, lifting both hands in a small mocking gesture of surrender.

Kira pushed off the wall and answered the call, already walking, already putting distance between herself and him.

"Jessica?"

"Kira, where are you?" Jessica’s voice was tight, wrong, stripped of its usual brightness. "Listen to me. Kai just told me I need to leave Dravengard. Now. Today. He says it isn’t safe here anymore, not for me."

Kira’s steps slowed.

She turned around.

Brian was still standing there at the other end of the corridor, his hands in his pockets, watching her. And he was smiling at her, slow and sinister, like a man who already knew how every part of this was going to end.