Defying the Lycan King

His name left her lips like a plea. Tears welled instantly and spilled over.

Brian’s mouth curved into the faintest smile even as more blood spilled across his teeth. His eyes, already growing glassy, found hers.

Kira lifted her head. Rolf still stood only a few steps away, one hand locked around the hilt of the sword buried in Brian’s chest, breathing hard, his ruined face slack with the particular confusion of a man whose plan has gone somewhere he didn’t send it.

"Do you know," Kira said, and her voice came out strangely flat, "that’s the first time in my entire life you’ve ever said my name?"

Rolf blinked at her.

"Not once." She could hear her own heartbeat. "have you called me by name." She took a step forward. "And the very first time you use it, it’s to kill me with."

Rolf’s grip shifted on the hilt, and he began to pull the sword back out of Brian’s chest.

Kira’s eyes went white.

She didn’t decide to move. She had no memory of crossing the ground, no awareness of her own legs, nothing between one heartbeat and the next except a rush of light through every vein she had.

She hit him before the blade cleared Brian’s ribs. One strike. That was all it took.

Rolf Thornclaw’s head left his shoulders and went rolling away across the black and white marble, and his body stayed upright for a full second longer, hands still gripping the sword, before it dropped.

Kira was already turning back.

Derek had gathered Brian into his arms, supporting his head and shoulders.

Kira dropped to her knees beside them and pressed both hands hard over the gaping wound in Brian’s chest. Blood welled between her fingers, soaking her palms and wrists.

"Hold on." Her voice was shaking. "Brian, hold on."

Around them several Lycans closed ranks, forming a living shield. They met every Umbra that tried to approach with teeth and claws, keeping the space around the three of them clear.

Derek’s face was carved from stone, but his voice fractured when he spoke.

"How." He swallowed. "How are you even here?"

Brian tried to answer. A fresh rush of blood spilled from his mouth.

"I didn’t ask that for you to answer," Derek said. "Someone get him out of here." Derek’s head snapped up, scanning the ring of Lycans around them. "Now. I want him out of this room, I want a healer—"

"No need," Brian rasped. The words were thick and wet. His hand had come up, weakly, and settled against his cousin’s forearm. "Heard the guards talking outside my room." A deep breath. "I broke out and tracked you guys." He chuckled. "Never was much good at sitting still, was I."

Brian’s laugh turned into a cough that brought up more blood than sound.

Kira’s tears were falling onto her own hands now.

"Why?" She could barely get the word out. "Why would you do that? You could have stayed back."

Brian’s eyes moved to her, and they were softer than she’d ever seen them.

"At least... this is one noble thing I’ve done in my life." He breathed, badly.

"That’s not—"

"And what’s the alternative?" His voice was fading now, thinning at the edges. "Going back to that room? Living out a life where not one person on this earth would notice if I stopped?" His mouth curved, resigned rather than bitter. "Perhaps I’ll be better loved dead than I ever managed alive. Wouldn’t be hard."

Kira pressed harder against his chest and felt the blood keep coming.

Brian coughed again, turned his head, and looked up at Derek.

"We were never... the best of friends, you and I," he said. "But...I’m going to ask you for something anyway."

"Ask."

"My son." Brian’s fingers tightened weakly on his arm. "Ralph."

Derek’s jaw worked.

"Take him," Brian said. "Raise him. Sandra will hand him over the moment you ask, she’d give an arm to have him be yours instead of mine." Another wet laugh, more air than sound. "She’s never once let me near the boy."

"Brian—"

"Don’t let him turn out like me." His eyes had begun to lose focus, and he blinked hard, fighting to hold on to the thread. "That’s all I’m asking. Love him so much he never has to go looking for it in the wrong places."

"He’ll be loved," Derek said roughly. "You have my word."

Brian’s breath rattled.

"I need to say the other thing."

"You don’t. Just stop talking," Kira cried. "It’s clearly hurting you."

"I do." His eyes came back into focus with visible effort. "Sandra. I’m sorry. There’s no justification and I’m not going to insult you by inventing one."

He stopped, breathed, went on. "That first night... with her was truly a mistake. I was blind drunk and I’d have taken it back the next morning if I could."

His face twisted. "But I...kept going, and that wasn’t a mistake. That was spite. Every day of it was spite, because you had everything good and I couldn’t stand it."

Derek’s hand had gone to the back of his cousin’s head, cradling it.

"I’m sorry," Brian said. "For all of it. The whole miserable lot."

"I know."

Brian’s gaze drifted, and found Kira. Something softer entered what remained of his expression.

"And you."

She couldn’t answer. She just shook her head, tears running off her chin.

"I did love you," he said. "Not the way you thought." A faint, tired smile. "You healed something. I don’t know how, but you healed me. You made me sit down and actually look at myself for the first time in years, and I hated what I found, and I still couldn’t stop looking."

His breathing was very shallow now. "I’m grateful you came to Dravengard."

Kira bent her head over his chest, sobbing openly.

He drew one last, rattling breath. "You both... You have my blessing. For whatever it’s worth from a man like me."

"It’s worth a great deal," Derek said.

Brian’s mouth moved as though he meant to answer.

Then his chest rose once more with effort and never rose again.

His eyes stayed open, but the light drained from his eyes until they were empty.

Derek knelt there for a long moment with his cousin’s weight in his arms and the whole war roaring on a few feet away. Then he lifted one hand and drew Brian’s eyelids gently closed.

Connor. His voice down the link was steady in a way his mouth hadn’t been. Ballroom, eastern side. I need you to take Brian out of here and put him somewhere secure.

There was a pause.

Brian?

Yes.

Another pause, longer.

On my way.

We’ll give him proper burial, Derek added. With full rites, when this is all over.

Kira sat back on her heels and cried without making any sound at all, her bloody hands hanging useless in her lap.

Inside her, Lux was quiet for a long moment.

He had it in him, you know, the beast said at last, and her voice had gone heavy. A heaviness that Kira had never heard before. Redemption. It was there. He just left it very late to reach for it.

I know.

Most of them never reach at all.

Kira pressed the heels of her palms against her eyes, smearing blood across her own face.

Derek reached out and pulled her to him, ans wrapped his arm around her, consoling her. She breathed until her chest stopped shaking.

Then she lifted her head and looked out past the ring of Lycans still holding the line around them.

The ballroom was exactly as it had been. Umbras were still pouring through the far doors, still swarming, still tearing into the Lycans by the balustrade and the ones fighting near the stairs.

None of them had collapsed when Rolf died.

She turned to Derek, voice raw

"Rolf wasn’t the Shadow King." She gestured at the body lying twenty feet away, and at the head that had come to rest further off. "The Umbras are still standing."

Derek followed her gaze out across the fighting. "They’re all still standing."

"Every single one. Not one tether so much as flickered." She wiped her face with the back of her wrist. "We didn’t find out who it truly. Braxton and I thought he was the one after Lydia revealed she was his queen."

"Because it’s Jake."

They both looked up. Connor had reached them, dropping into a crouch beside Brian’s body, his face grim and his hands already moving to lift him.

"It’s Jake," he repeated. "Rolf’s Beta. I overheard it just before the whole war broke out. Lydia and Jake has been playing Rolf all along."

He looked between them. "I never got the chance to say it before this whole thing. He is in a room filled with jars."

Kira met Derek’s glowing amber eyes. "That must be the room Nana spoke about."

"Then that’s where we’re going," Derek said. "We find Jake."

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