Defying the Lycan King

"Shh." The hand over her mouth stayed firm. "I’ll let go the moment you promise not to scream."

Kira’s whole body went slack.

She knew that voice. She hadn’t sensed him come in, hadn’t caught a single footstep or breath, but she’d know that voice anywhere and at any hour. She stopped fighting and lay still under his weight until the shuddering had drained out of her limbs.

Slowly, Braxton lifted his palm away.

The second she was free of him, Kira twisted round and drove her fist straight into his abdomen.

Braxton let out a strangled groan and shot off the mattress, doubling over with one arm wrapped around his middle. "Right," he wheezed. "I suppose I had that coming."

Kira sat up, glaring daggers at him through the dark. "What are you doing here, you traitor?" she said through gritted teeth.

He straightened with some effort, one eyebrow lifting, a flicker of amusement finding its way into his eyes. "So you actually believed all that theatre in front of your stepmother earlier."

Her eyes narrowed. She didn’t move an inch closer to him. "If you’re not one of them, then how did you get in here?"

Braxton shrugged and began to pace the small room. "Same way you did." He turned on his heel to face her, and every trace of amusement had gone out of him now. "What in the goddess’s name were you thinking, pulling a stunt like that?"

Kira shifted on the mattress and looked away from him, dragging the blanket higher over her knees. She still didn’t believe he was who he claimed to be. Not for a second.

"I did what felt right," she said quietly. "I knew none of you would ever let me do this. But somebody had to find out what we’re actually up against, and the only way in was to let them bring me in." Her jaw set. "I was sick of watching people die when I’m the one they came for."

"And you decided this was the way to go about it? You’re freaking pregnant." Braxton’s voice dropped. "Your reasons are noble, Kira. Your methods are not."

She said nothing.

Instead she watched him move, cataloguing him the way she’d catalogued every corridor in this place. The walk was right. The way he pushed his hand through his hair when he was frustrated was right. But so was everything about Viktor, right up until it wasn’t, and she’d learned that lesson the hard way.

Maybe they’d sent him in here to pick through her head. Maybe there was nothing of her brother left in that body at all.

"What was your father’s name?" she asked.

Braxton stopped pacing, brows drawing together in confusion. Then it landed, and he let out a short laugh.

"You think I’m an Umbra."

She didn’t answer.

He laughed again, quieter this time, and spread his hands. "All right. Let’s see what I can dredge up. My father’s name was Ethan Westwood. He was mated to Claire Ironfang, who at the time was married to that power-hungry bastard Rolf Thornclaw. Claire was the true heir to the Ironfang pack, which her greedy husband renamed Moonfang the moment he got his hands on—"

"That’s enough."

"I could give you the whole family history if you’d like. Dates and everything."

"Why are you here, Braxton?" Her voice hardened. "You can’t seriously expect me to trust a word out of your mouth after what I stood through in that throne room today."

"That’s rich, coming from you." He rounded on her properly now. "You’ve driven every single person who loves you half mad by vanishing into thin air and leaving behind a note. A note, Kira. What did you imagine that would do? Did you think a bit of paper would settle everybody down nicely?"

Kira kept her mouth shut.

She’d admitted it to herself more than once since she’d got here, in the small hours when there was nothing else to do but think. It had been reckless. She just refused to regret it entirely.

She’d sat with it and thought about it for a moment, and pictured Derek’s face when he found that paper, and her mother’s, and Nana’s. She’d concluded it wasn’t the best decision.

That didn’t mean she wanted to hear it out loud.

"Sometimes you drive me fucking insane!" Braxton said through his teeth, pacing again. "It’s a genuine mystery to me how you’ve survived this long, being as impulsive as you are."

"I’m not impulsive."

"You absolutely are." He shot her a look. "I knew you’d pull something like this. I’ve been waiting for it."

Kira’s brows knitted together.

"Yes," he said. "I’ve only had a few weeks with you, Kira, but I can read you like a book left open on a table. You took Mum’s temperament, all that fire and no brakes. I took Dad’s, quiet and watchful nature."

He stopped in front of her, hands fisted on his hips. "Which is why I knew a night like this was coming, and why I made an alliance with Lydia long before it did. I let her believe I was hers."

"For how long?"

"For as long as you’ve had Viktor sitting across a desk from you." He exhaled slowly. "Viktor wasn’t always an Umbra, by the way. He was a real man, and they killed him during those two days you kept complaining you couldn’t reach him. He was the easiest way to get to you."

Kira’s stomach turned over.

"I’ve never set foot in this place before tonight," Braxton went on. "Lydia and I have only ever spoken on the phone. But I had to risk all of it to get in here and see for myself that you were still breathing."

Kira studied him in the dark for a long moment.

"What about Derek?" she asked at last. "Does he know you’re here? How is he?"

Braxton gave her a flat look. "How do you think he is? Do you imagine he’d be standing here as calmly as I am if he knew where you were?" He shook his head. "He’s going out of his mind, Kira. Properly out of his mind."

She let out a slow breath and dropped her head.

"And what possessed you to hand Lydia the Lycans’ weakness?"

"They were going to slit Nana’s throat in front of the entire table," Kira said, calm as anything. "I couldn’t let that happen. I needed to give them something big enough to make them stop."

Braxton was quiet a moment. "Well. That’s one clever thing you’ve managed in all of this, at least."

Her head snapped up and she glared at him. "Don’t you dare. You were the one who put her in here in the first place. I’d have found what I came for and been gone by now."

"Giving her up was the only door I had." He crossed the room and sat down on the edge of the mattress beside her, close enough that she could feel the warmth of him. "Listen to me. I’ve been studying the connection between the Umbras and the Nexus for a long while now."

He rubbed a hand over his face.

"Dad was working on it before he died. I picked it up where he left off. He used to tell me it was my job to protect my sister, because a Nexus might be the strongest thing walking this earth, but she’s also the most fragile."

Kira stared at him, wanting badly to believe him, refusing to let herself.

"How did you get in here?" she asked. "How did you get past the guards? There are four on this corridor alone."

"Because I made this." He reached into his trouser pocket and produced a small glass vial, holding it up between two fingers so it caught the faint light. "It makes me invisible. To all of them. That’s why you never heard me come in."

He turned the vial slowly.

"I’ve learned a great deal tonight already."

"Have you seen the Shadow King?"

Braxton shook his head. "Not yet." His voice dropped. "But I’ve seen enough to know these Umbras are a legion, Kira. Not a pack. Not an army. A legion. Wiping them out isn’t something you’re going to manage on your own, no matter what you are."

"I’ve always known that." She pulled her knees up. "It’s the whole reason I came."

Kira opened her mouth, then closed it again.

She’d nearly told him. Nearly handed over the one real thing she’d worked out since she got here, that every Umbra in this stronghold hung off a single tether running back to the Shadow King, and that was why not one of them had a thought of their own in their skull.

They stepped into dead men’s bodies knowing nothing about the lives they’d stolen, carrying only a few borrowed scraps of memory, and everything else came down the wire from him.

She swallowed it back down.

She could feel that familiar warmth sitting between them, the same pull she’d felt every time he’d walked into a room since the day they met. It didn’t matter. She wasn’t ready to hand him anything yet.

"Part of why I came here was to find a way to get Nana out," she said instead. "But with what Lydia’s got planned for tomorrow, I think she’s safer where she is."

"What’s her plan?"