Defying the Lycan King (Kira and Derek) novel Chapter 3

Chapter 3: A Contest of Wills

"What?!" Kira burst out before she could stop the word from escaping. Over her dead body.

Her father met her outburst with a flat, emotionless stare. "It is not a topic for discussion."

Tears burned at the corners of her eyes. He had already stolen so much from her: her birthright, her freedom, any real voice in the pack. But this one thing, her right to choose her own happiness and the person she would share her life with, belonged to her alone. It had to.

"I refuse it," she said through clenched teeth. "I know the King wants your heir, and I am not that heir. If you force me, I will tell him you are only deceiving him."

Fury flashed in his eyes like lightning. He stepped out from behind his desk in one swift motion and struck her with the back of his hand. Her head snapped to the side. The metallic taste of blood filled her mouth as her teeth sliced into the side of her tongue.

"You dare defy me?" he snarled. "Your father and your Alpha? For twenty years, I have suffered the affliction of your existence. I will suffer no more."

The words cut deeper than any slap ever could. She was not supposed to let them hurt her, but they did, sharply and painfully. To him, her very existence was a burden, something to be endured. She wanted to scream that it was not her fault her mother had died giving birth to her. She had not even drawn her first breath before her mother was gone.

But before she could speak, her father raised his voice. "Gammas!"

Two of them swept into the room, muscles tense and ready for his command. "Take her to the dungeons immediately," he said, dismissing her without so much as a glance.

"What? Why?" Kira asked, confusion and fear twisting together in her chest as she looked at him.

The gammas seized her arms and dragged her away. The entire pack watched in silence as she was pulled through the corridors like a common criminal. Her father followed at a calm, unhurried pace. Once they reached the cold stone cells beneath the pack house, he ordered the gammas to bind her face down to a rough wooden bench. Then he took a long leather whip from the wall.

"You will marry the King," he said, his voice strangely gentle, almost as if he were trying to comfort her.

"I will not marry him," she answered, holding on to her defiance with everything she had left.

The whip cracked across her back. Pain exploded through her body, and she cried out. Yet her father simply repeated the same words, and she forced out her own in reply: "I will not marry him."

It became a silent battle of wills, his against hers. She refused to let him take the last thing she still owned without a fight.

By the tenth lash, she was sobbing openly, tears streaming down her face, but she would not break. Her back felt as though it were on fire.

By the fifteenth lash, her whole body shook uncontrollably, and warm blood soaked through her dress. Perhaps death would be kinder than giving in. All her life, she had dreamed of finding a true mate, someone who would love her the way she had never been loved as a child. She had never imagined being forced into an arranged marriage. It was so bitterly unfair.

On the twentieth lash, her voice cracked, barely more than a whisper through tears and exhaustion.

"What is so difficult to obey?" her father hissed, frustration sharpening his tone.

He raised the whip again, clearly prepared to continue until she either agreed or stopped breathing. In that moment, something inside her gave way.

"I will marry him," she whispered, the words so faint they were almost lost in the damp air of the cell.

He let the whip fall to the floor with a dull thud. "Shouldn’t have taken you this long," he snarled. "Now listen. You are my heir, and you are not forced into this. You understand the price for peace, and you are willing to pay it for your people. Do you understand?"

She nodded, sniffing back fresh tears.

He turned and walked out of the cell without another look. She heard his voice through the bars, speaking to the gammas outside.

The next day...

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