Defying the Lycan King (Kira and Derek) novel Chapter 156

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.

Was that how all of them saw her?

Dravengard has never been a place where your kind is welcome, and one wedding has not changed that.

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