Chapter 13 CHAPTER 13
Kira's POV
I barely made it ten steps from the throne room before my vision went red.
How dare he.
My nails bit into my palms hard enough to draw blood as I stalked through the corridors, servants scattering like roaches when they saw my face. Smart. Anyone stupid enough to get in my way right now would lose more than their job.
Dmitri just punished me. For her.
That pathetic, trembling little nothing.
Dmitri had almost killed me for her.
A century. A gods-damned century I'd stood by his side. Through the madness. Through the blood. Through the screaming, endless nights when his Lycan had taken over completely and he'd needed an outlet before he tore the entire palace apart.
I'd given him my body. Let him use me. Hurt me. Break me.
Because I loved him.
Because I thought—I knew—that eventually, he would see. That once the madness passed, once he came back to himself, he would realize what I'd sacrificed. What I'd endured.
For him. Always for him.
And how did he repay that devotion?
By humiliating me before some pathetic slave. Threatening me with death. Because of her.
My hands shook as I reached my chambers. The doors—hand-carved mahogany, gilded with gold, a gift from Dmitri himself after the first decade of my service—felt like a mockery now.
Service. That's all it had ever been to him, wasn't it?
I shoved the doors open hard enough that they slammed against the walls. The sound echoed through my suite—my expansive, glorious suite with its silk drapes and imported furniture and view of the gardens.
All the trappings of power. Of status. Of being the King's favored... what?
Not his lover. Never his lover.
His convenience.
The door slammed shut behind me, and the sound unlocked something feral in my chest.
"FUCK!" The scream tore out of me, raw and jagged.
I grabbed the nearest thing—a crystal vase worth more than most people's houses—and hurled it at the wall. It exploded into a thousand glittering pieces.
Not enough.
The gilded mirror went next. Then the lamp. The chair. Everything within reach became a target for the rage boiling through my veins.
Smash. Crash. Shatter.
Each sound was a release. A tiny fracture in the pressure building in my skull.
I could feel my Lycan rising, desperate to break free. To shift. To destroy.
But even through the fury, even through the betrayal burning like acid in my gut, I knew better.
Dmitri's words echoed in my head, cold and absolute: "Touch her again, and I'll remove your spine through your throat."
He would do it. I knew he would.
I'd seen him do worse for less.
And if I shifted now, if I let my rage consume me completely, he would know. Would sense it. Would come here and make good on every threat he'd ever made.
So I held back. Barely. My bones ached with the need to break and reform, but I held back.
The room was destroyed. Furniture overturned. Glass everywhere. Silk curtains ripped from their rods.
And it still wasn't enough.
I sank to the floor amid the wreckage, my chest heaving, my throat raw from screaming.
"A century," I whispered to the empty room. "A hundred years."
I'd been twenty-three when the Great Disaster happened. When Dmitri had lost his mate and children. When he'd descended into madness and become more beast than man.
I'd watched him tear through the palace. Watched him kill soldiers, servants, anyone unlucky enough to cross his path during an episode.
And I'd stepped forward anyway.
Offered myself. My body. Whatever he needed to keep the beast at bay.
Because even then—even when he was covered in blood and barely coherent—I'd loved him.
I'd loved him when he'd fucked me with no gentleness, no care, treating me like meat.
I'd loved him when he'd screamed another woman's name above me.
I'd loved him when he'd forgotten my face the moment he was done.
I'd told myself it would change. That once the madness passed, once he healed, he would see me. Really see me.
That the girl who'd given everything would finally get something back.
But the madness never fully passed. And he never looked at me as anything more than a tool.
Yes, he'd given me status. Power. A position in his court that most would kill for.
But never the one thing I actually wanted.
His love.
His heart.
His choice.
And now this... this girl. This nobody. This powerless, pathetic little slave had waltzed into the throne room and captured his attention in a way I never had.
I'd seen his eyes when he looked at her.
Seen the way his entire body had gone rigid at her tear-filled gaze.
Seen the rage that had overtaken him when he heard I had struck her—not the mindless fury of the Lycan, but something focused. Directed. Protective.
For her.
A broken sob tore from my throat before I could stop it.
"What does she have?" I whispered, tears streaming down my face. "What the fuck does that pathetic thing have that I don't?"
I'd fought for him. Bled for him. Endured things that would have broken anyone else.
And she'd done nothing.
Just stood there with her big, terrified eyes and her trembling hands, and somehow, somehow, she'd done what I couldn't in a hundred years.
She'd made him care.
The tears came harder now, ugly and choking. I pressed my forehead to the cold floor, surrounded by the wreckage of my rage, and wept.
For the years I'd wasted. For the love that was never returned. For the naive girl I'd been who thought devotion would be enough.
But beneath the grief, beneath the pain, something else stirred.
Something darker.
Rage.
Not the hot, explosive fury from before. This was cold. Calculated. Dangerous.
I lifted my head, wiping the tears from my face with shaking hands.
"What makes you special?" I whispered, the question directed at the girl who wasn't here. Who had no idea she'd just become the center of my universe in the worst possible way.
I would find out.
I had to find out.
Because if I understood what Dmitri saw in her—what drew him to her when he'd never once looked at me that way—then maybe I could...
What? Become it? Copy it? Destroy it?
I didn't know yet.
But I would figure it out.
I'd sacrificed too much. Endured too much. Loved too much to let some nobody steal everything from me now.
Dmitri was mine. He just didn't know it yet.
And I would do whatever it took—whatever it took—to make him see that.
Even if it meant destroying the girl who'd somehow accomplished in minutes what I couldn't in a century.
Even if it meant crossing lines I'd never thought I'd cross.
Even if it meant becoming the monster I'd always tried not to be.
I pushed myself to my feet, glass crunching beneath my boots. My reflection stared back at me from a shard of the broken mirror—wild-eyed, tear-stained, unhinged.
"Enjoy your reprieve, little slave," I whispered to the empty room. "Because I'm going to find out exactly what you are. What you mean to him."
A cold smile curved my lips.
"And then I'm going to make you wish Dmitri had left you in the dungeons to rot."
\---
I needed air.
The room was suffocating—thick with the stench of my own desperation and the glittering remains of my rage. Every breath tasted like copper and salt, blood and tears, and I couldn't stay here another second surrounded by the evidence of my breakdown.
I had to get out. Clear my head. Think.
Figure out my next move before I did something that would get me killed.
I took a deep breath, steadying myself against the doorframe. My hands were still shaking, adrenaline singing through my veins like poison. The Lycan beneath my skin prowled and snarled, unsatisfied with the destruction I'd wrought, hungry for more.
But I couldn't give in. Not now. Not when Dmitri's threat still hung over me like an executioner's blade.
I needed to be smart about this.
I smoothed down my hair, wiped the last traces of tears from my cheeks, and forced my expression into something resembling composure. The servants would need to clean this mess, and I couldn't have them gossiping about how the King's favored had lost her mind over some slave girl.
I reached for the door handle, ready to summon the maids, ready to put on the mask I'd worn for a century—
And that's when I saw him.
Kastiel.
Dmitri's Beta stood at the end of the corridor, his tall frame silhouetted against the window's light as he spoke with a cluster of guards. His dark hair was pulled back, his jaw set in that perpetually serious expression he wore like armor.
Kastiel. The only person in this gods-forsaken palace who might actually understand.
The only one who'd been there almost as long as I had. Who'd watched Dmitri's descent. Who'd helped pull him back from the edge more times than either of us could count.
Before I could think better of it, before the rational part of my brain could stop me, I was moving.
"Kastiel." My voice cut through the corridor like a blade.
He turned, his ice-blue eyes finding mine immediately. I watched his expression shift—saw the moment he took in my disheveled appearance, the wildness still clinging to my edges, the barely-contained chaos radiating from my skin.
The guards beside him went silent, their conversation dying mid-sentence.
"Kastiel," I said again, my voice steadier this time. Harder. "I need to speak with you."
His eyes flicked to the guards, then back to me. There was something in his gaze—concern, maybe, or wariness. He'd known me long enough to recognize when I was dangerous.
And right now, I was a lit fuse looking for something to burn.
"Now," I added, leaving no room for argument.
Because if anyone could help me understand what the hell was happening—if anyone could give me insight into Dmitri's sudden obsession with that girl—it would be him.
And I would use every resource at my disposal, call in every favor, exploit every connection I had.
Whatever it took to get back what was mine.
Kastiel dismissed the guards with a subtle gesture, his eyes never leaving my face.