Defying the Lycan King (Kira and Derek) novel Chapter 167

Chapter 167: The Hand That Fed You

An Hour Earlier...

"How does that bastard still have the nerve to go ahead with the coronation? After everything?"

Crane paced the length of his room, like a man who had swallowed a hornet’s nest.

Brian sat slumped in an armchair, watching his father’s frantic pacing with the tired expression of someone who had seen this show too many times. He didn’t say a word. He just waited for the storm to pass.

Crane reached the window and stopped, looking down at the courtyard where the guests had begun to arrive.

Alphas and high-ranking Lycans, their cars rolling in one after another, doors opening, finery spilling out across the steps. The whole of the upper tier of Lycan society, gathering to watch his nephew take a crown.

"Think, Brian. Think!" Crane snapped, turning sharply. "Why are you suddenly so nonchalant about him being crowned?"

Brian sighed. "Father, you’ve been the one acting nonchalant about the coronation. Why the sudden panic now?"

Crane turned from the window. "That was before I learned the truth. Before I knew the real reason that bastard married a werewolf girl."

He had learned it from Ruby. She had mind-linked him during her trial, desperate, spilling everything she knew about Derek and the queen’s marriage, begging him to use it to divert attention from her own case.

Crane had listened to every word. And then he had done nothing for Ruby at all. He had filed it away, neatly, for himself.

A Lycan in love with his wife was a vulnerable thing. That was the weapon Crane had been quietly building toward all this time.

But the truth Ruby had handed him changed the shape of everything, and now he was faced with two possibilities and no way yet to tell them apart.

Either Derek had genuinely fallen for the girl and abandoned his original plan entirely.

Or Derek was still committed to that plan, and the love was nothing but a performance to keep everyone, Crane included, looking the wrong way.

Crane needed to know which Derek he was dealing with before the crown touched his head.

Because a crowned king was a very different animal from a regent. The moment Derek was officially King of Dravengard, his position became legally untouchable, and every door Crane still had open would slam shut at once.

Trying to stall the coronation hadn’t been about stopping it. It had been about buying time. Time to confirm which man he was facing, and to position himself accordingly, before that window closed for good.

But Derek had not fallen for that trap, and it infuriated Crane more than anything.

"Then why not simply tell Nana and the others about his original plan?" Brian’s voice dragged him out of his thoughts. "Expose it, instead of these schemes that keep collapsing one after another?"

Crane rounded on him with a glare. "Because you are, as ever, stupid and weak." His voice dripped contempt.

"Do you imagine Derek and that old mother of mine wouldn’t find a way to twist it, to explain it away, to crown him regardless?

"Have you forgotten what happened eight years ago? When they kicked you off the throne just because Derek started speaking again? Why do you think they won’t make another excuse this time?"

He turned to the window again.

"And then, the moment the crown is his, he turns and crushes everyone who dared move against him. We do not show our hand while he can still punish us for it."

He shook his head in disgust. "Use your brain. Just once."

Brian sighed and leaned back. "Then leave him be, Father. Maybe this is simply fate. Maybe the throne was never meant for you, or for me. Maybe it was always meant to be his."

Crane crossed the room in three strides, seized Brian by the collar, and hauled him up out of the chair.

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