The knock comes after midnight.But I’m keep sitting on my mattress, staring at the wall.

The barrier is broken. Soon I’ll leave for the Lycan court. Soon I’ll become someone I don’t know how to be.

Soon I’ll walk into a palace where my own twin wants me dead.

The knock comes again, softer this time. I know who it is before I open the door. His scent reaches me through the wood—pine and steel and something warmer. Something that makes Mira stir restlessly in my mind with a hunger I refuse to name.

Malik stands in the dim hallway, still in his training leathers, jaw tight and eyes shadowed. For a moment we just stare at each other. Then I step aside.

He enters my closet of a room—he has to duck slightly to avoid hitting his head on the low ceiling. This is what I’ve been living in while he slept in proper quarters. While he trained with the warriors.

While he knew.

I close the door and lean against it. My hands shaking when he starts, “Kira…”

“You knew.” The words rip from my throat, barely above a whisper. “All this time… you knew what I was.”

His jaw clenches, that muscle jumping in a way that shouldn’t make my stomach flip. He doesn’t deny it. Doesn’t try to soften it with excuses or pretty words.

“Yes,” he says simply.

The single word lands like a physical blow. I already knew—saw it in his eyes when he caught me, in the way he wasn’t surprised when the King recognized me.

But hearing him confirm it while standing this close, while I can smell the leather and sweat and him—it’s torture.

“How long?” My voice breaks. “How long have you known I was a princess while I scrubbed floors at your feet?”

Something dangerous flashes in his eyes at that. His hands curl into fists, biceps straining against his leathers. “Since you were eleven.”

The air leaves my lungs. He takes another step forward, and now there’s nowhere to run. I’m trapped between his body and the door, drowning in his scent.

“Your mother came to me.” His voice is rough, each word pulled from somewhere deep and painful. “Well, your adoptive mother. Nessa.”

Nessa. The woman who raised me, who died when I was twelve. Who always smelled like sage and wood smoke, even at the end. My chest aches with missing her.

Oh, Moon Goddess above, I miss that.

“She was dying,” Malik continues, eyes fixed anywhere but my face. “She had maybe weeks left, and you… you were weaker than anyone.” His jaw works. “She found me in when I become an Enforcer and told me everything.”

“And you just… believed her?”

“She told me about the royal seal on your body.”

His gaze finally lifts to mine, and there’s something raw he doesn’t let out.

“She made me swear a blood oath right there, as payment for saving my mother from treachery accusation years before. To protect you without ever revealing your identity. From anyone. Including you.”

A blood oath. Unbreakable. Binding until death or release.

“So you became Gamma.” My voice sounds hollow. “Rose through the ranks. All to stay close to me.”

“Yes.”

“And when Theron rejected me? When everyone treated me like shit on their shoe.” My voice cracks. “You just watched?”

“I did what the oath allowed.” The words are flat, controlled. “Stopped Corel. Found you at the border. Made sure the worst didn’t happen.” His jaw clenches. “That’s all I could do.”

“So noble of you,” The words taste bitter. “Should I thank you? Get on my knees?”

His pupils blow wide at that, a growl rumbling deep in his chest before he catches himself. The sound makes Mira practically purr.

I know I’m being unreasonable and possibly ungrateful. Know that he was as much of a victim of the situation as I was.

Except he was allowed to become something. And he did.

Partially for my sake.

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