Defying the Lycan King

Derek stood in front of the columbarium with Kira beside him. The stone wall held the ashes of his parents, quiet and still under the afternoon light. He rested one hand on the cool surface and remained silent for a moment.

"Right," he said at last. "Mother. Father."

He cleared his throat, and looked sideways at Kira and she dazzled him with a bright smile.

"This is Kira," he said. "My wife. You’d have liked her, which is unfortunate, because she’d have taken your side in everything and I’d never have won an argument in this house again."

Kira laughed under her breath.

"She’s carrying my pups. Yes, two of them." He reached over and took her hand. "So you’re both grandparents, and you might as well know now that they’ll be trouble. Their mother walked into the Shadow King’s fortress on purpose."

"Derek."

"They should know what they’re dealing with."

Then his voice changed, and the joke went out of it.

"I remember how you two were," he said quietly. "I didn’t understand it as a boy. I thought all couples were like that." His thumb moved over Kira’s knuckles. "They’re not. I’ve seen enough of them now to know how rare it was."

Kira’s swallowed hard.

"I love her the way you loved each other," Derek said. "I want you to know that. It’s the same thing, and I never thought I’d have it." He looked at the urns. "I’ll look after her. I’ll look after all three of them. That’s my promise, and you know my word is my bond."

Kira leaned into his side and rested her head against his arm.

"They’d have loved you," he said.

"You don’t know that."

"I do, actually. Mum had terrible taste in people. She’d have adored you."

Kira shot him a mock glare, and elbowed him in the ribs. Derek laughed and pulled her into his arms.

"Don’t mind me. They would have adored you. You’re too cute not to be adored."

They left the columbarium and started the drive toward Moonfang, where Claire had already moved in, and had assumed her Alpha position.

The trip to Moonfang took four hours, and they spent most of it talking about sweet nothings.

Names, mostly. Derek suggested three kids names, and Kira rejected all of them on the grounds that they sounded like ancient generals. Kira suggested two and Derek said one of them belonged to a horse he’d owned as a boy.

"You named a horse that?"

"He was a very dignified horse."

"We’re not naming our daughter after a horse, Derek."

"He won things though," he said with a shrug and a lopsided grin.

She laughed at that, and he watched her do it out of the corner of his eye and thought, not for the first time that week, that he had very nearly lost this.

Then the conversation turned, and Kira’s voice grew more serious.

"I don’t know what to do about Scott and Chloe," Kira said.

Derek’s expression shifted. "What’s there to decide?"

"They’re still in the Ironfang pack house." She looked out of the window. "I was going to ask Mum to keep them. Let them stay, give them rooms and food, but watch them properly."

"No."

"Why?" she asked glancing at him.

"Because it’s simple." Derek changed gear. "Kira, those two have nothing left. Everything they thought they were, everything they were promised, went up in a council hall."

"That’s exactly why I feel sorry for them."

"I know. That’s the problem."

Kira turned fulling to look at him.

"They’re not going to try anything this month," he said. "Or this year, probably. But they’re young, and they’ve got nothing else to do with the rest of their lives except think about how they lost it. And who they lost it to." He glanced across. "You. You’re the face of it. However fair it was, however true, it was you standing there when it happened."

Kira said nothing.

"If you’re going to be merciful, be merciful and exile them." Derek’s voice was steady. "Let them go away from the pack and find other things to do with their lives."

"That feels cruel."

"It’s the opposite of cruel. It’s self preservation." He shrugged. "If they do come back for revenge one day, they’ll have to fight their way in from the outside, and we’ll see them coming a mile off. Keep them in that house and one morning they’ll pull the rug from under you."

Kira turned back to the window.

She hated that it made sense. That was the trouble with Derek. He was just working out where the danger was and saying it out loud, and she was the one who kept wanting the world to be softer than it was.

"Let me think about it," she said.

Derek nodded and left it alone.

***

At Crescent Moon, Jessica was in Tan’s room, where Angelica was seated, attending to her son.

"I’ll only be gone a few hours." She had her bag over one shoulder and her car keys already in her hand. "I’m heading to Aethewulf Centralis to finish a few things, I won’t be long. I’ll be home before dark."

Angelica had planned to go with her, but Tan still could not walk properly after the war. She looked apologetic. "I’m sorry I couldn’t come with you."

"It’s all right," Jessica told her, and pressed a light kiss to her forehead. "Stay with him. I’ll be fine."

"You should have somebody with you."

"Yeah, one of the gammas is taking me. Bye."

"Bye, my love," Angelica said.

She walked out to the car, already dialling Kai’s number. He picked up on the second ring. She told him where she was going and that she would call again once she was on the way back. Kai sounded distracted — he was at the office sorting through papers that had piled up while everything else was happening — but he told her to be safe and that he would see her later.

***

Alicia had not left her room all day. She sat cross-legged on the bed while her best friend Yvonne listened.

"She actually did it," Alicia said. "And she wanted me in a room with him afterwards."

Yvonne’s eyes had gone very wide. "And you didn’t."

"Of course I didn’t." Alicia pressed her palms against her eyes. "That’s the worst part. I watched him lift that glass and half of me was praying he’d drink it."

"Alicia."

"I know. I know." She dropped her hands. "I’ve been beside that man since we were children. Nobody was there longer than me. And then she turns up out of nowhere and it’s done, just like that, and everyone acts like I should be pleased for them."

"That’s fair," Yvonne said carefully. "That you’re angry. It’s completely fair."

"But?"

"But you’re going to do the right thing anyway." Yvonne shrugged. "And good things come to people who wait. They just take longer than anybody wants."

Alicia laughed, wetly. "I don’t want to be a good person about this. I wish that girl would just vanish off the face of the earth and stop existing in front of me." She reached for a cushion and hugged it. "It hurts to see them together. But if I hurt her, I will be hurting Kai.

***

The phone rang late that evening and jerked Alicia awake. She fumbled for it in the dark, squinting at the screen. Nearly nine.

"Yvonne?"

"You told me you weren’t going to hurt her." Yvonne’s voice was strange, thin. "You said it to my face this afternoon."

Alicia sat up. "What are you talking about?"

"Put the news on."

Alicia got out of bed with the phone still pressed to her ear and walked out into the living room. Her mother was already there, sitting on the sofa with a glass of wine, humming under her breath.

Valerie never watched the news. Alicia had known that her entire life. Her mother thought news was for boring old people, and she had said so at least four hundred times. She was watching it now.

On the television, a stretch of bridge had been closed off. Blue lights swept across the barrier where a section had been torn away. The reporter was talking about a car that had gone over the edge on the road back from Aethewulf Centralis, and that recovery teams were at the scene.

The name of the passenger made Alicia’s blood turn cold.

"Mum." Her voice came out wrong. "What did you do?"

Valerie turned her head slowly and looked at her over the rim of her glass.

"Why," she said, "would you ask me a question like that, instead of being glad the girl is out of your way?"

Alicia stared at her. She could not move for a moment. She simply stood there in the doorway with her mother’s face lit blue by the television, and something inside her went out like a lamp. Then she turned and walked back to her room.

She was crying before she reached it, hard, ugly crying that she could not stop, her whole body shaking as she sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled up Kai’s number with hands that would not keep still.

It rang once.

"Alicia?"

"Kai." She could barely get it out. "Kai, where are you?"

"I’ve just pulled into the drive." He sounded confused. "Alicia, what’s happened? Are you all right?"

She was sobbing now, gulping air, trying to force the words into a shape he could understand.

"It’s... it’s...," she gasped. "Kai, I think... I... my Mum—"

Her bedroom door flew open, and Valerie crossed the room in three strides, tore the phone out of her daughter’s hand and threw it against the wall, and it exploded into pieces. She glared at Alicia who sat there sobbing.

"What did you think you’re doing?"

In the driveway at Crescent Moon pack house, Kai pulled the phone from his ear and frowned at the screen. The call had ended abruptly. He tried it again and it went nowhere. He climbed out of the car, still looking down at it, and only glanced up as he shut the door.

His mother was standing on the terrace.

"Mum?" He walked towards the steps. "Everything all right? Alicia just rang me in absolute pieces and I couldn’t make out a word of it." He got to the bottom step before he saw her face properly.

Angelica was crying. Kai stopped.

"What is it?" Something cold went through him. "Is it Tan? Mum, is Tan all right?"

Angelica shook her head. Her mouth moved twice before anything came out. "It’s Jessica," she said. "There was an accident. On the way back from Aethewulf, a few minutes ago." She was shaking. "The car went off the bridge, Kai."

Kai stood there.

He did not move. He did not speak. He simply looked up at his mother with a completely blank face, as though he were waiting for the rest of a sentence that had already finished.

THE END

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