Chapter 12 The Tyrant’s Shadow
12\. The Tyrant’s Shadow
The thing about waking up in a tyrant’s fortress is that you never quite know what version of “normal” you’re going to get. One morning you’re spoon-fed fruit like an oversized toddler, the next you’re dragged into something resembling medieval war prep. Spoiler alert: I got both.
First, the shirt. Yes, still his. Apparently, Lucian’s idea of “letting me dress myself” was tossing another one of his ridiculous silk shirts at me, the sleeves dangling past my fingers like I was cosplaying a child in dad’s clothes. The servants noticed. Oh, boy, did they notice.
Everywhere I went, heads bowed and eyes flicked up, wide and twitchy, as if they’d spotted a deer casually strolling into a wolf den. To be fair, that’s basically what I was—a very confused deer wrapped in an alpha’s laundry.
“Do they always look at me like I’ve just committed high treason?” I muttered as I trailed after Lucian down the echoing corridor.
“Yes,” he said simply, not even bothering to glance at me. His cloak swept behind him like the world’s most dramatic stage curtain.
“Cool, love that for me.” I quickened my steps to keep up. “Though, side note, maybe if you stopped glaring at them like they’d spilled soup on your throne, they’d relax a little.”
He cut me a sidelong look, silver eyes gleaming. “Fear keeps them loyal.”
“Fear also gives ulcers,” I shot back. “Trust me, I read a BuzzFeed article once.”
He didn’t respond, which meant I won. That’s how arguments worked with Lucian: if he went silent, I counted it as a personal victory and added it to my invisible scoreboard. Current tally: Keira, 7. Tyrant Alpha, 4. (Okay, 4.5 if we counted last night, but that was a different kind of game entirely.)
Breakfast itself had been a rerun of yesterday: me reaching for food, him intercepting, me making sarcastic comments about being under the reign of Fruit Tyranny. At one point, he even cut my bread for me. Cut it. With a knife. Like I was auditioning for a spot in a medieval daycare.
“You do realize I have teeth, right?” I told him.
“They’re small,” he replied, deadpan.
Small. As if I were some hamster he’d adopted.
After the Breakfast Olympics, he announced we were heading to a council meeting. Which sounded boring. And ominous. Like when your boss says, We need to talk. Only in this case, the boss had fangs and an army.
“You don’t need to attend,” Lucian said as he strapped on his armor, the leather groaning like it was also afraid of him.
“Yeah, well,” I said, flopping onto a nearby chair, “you also said I didn’t need to argue with you about portion-controlled fruit, and look how that turned out.”
He narrowed his eyes. “You won’t understand half of what is said.”
“Perfect,” I chirped. “I’ll just sit there quietly, looking mysterious. Adds to my brand.”
“What brand?”
“Keira: Chaos Goblin Edition. You should try it sometime.”
For one terrifying second, I thought he might actually forbid me. But then something flickered in his expression—curiosity, maybe—and he jerked his chin toward the door.
“Fine,” he said. “Stay close. And do not speak unless spoken to.”
I gasped, clutching my chest like he’d stabbed me. “You just quoted my high school math teacher. Wow. Full circle moment.”
He growled low in his throat and swept out, leaving me scampering after him like a sarcastic shadow.
The council chamber was exactly what you’d expect from a tyrant: high ceilings, dark stone walls, banners heavy with wolf insignias. Torches sputtered dramatically because apparently even fire had to brood here.
The councilors—seven men and two women, all in various stages of silver hair and scowls—sat around a long oak table. When Lucian entered, they shot to their feet so fast it looked choreographed. If someone had cued music, I’d have thought I’d walked into a Broadway production of Dictator: The Musical.
I took my assigned seat slightly behind Lucian, which made me feel like a very underqualified secretary at a board meeting. Except instead of laptops and coffee cups, the table was cluttered with maps, wax seals, and daggers. Because why not.
The meeting started with troop reports. One general droned on about border patrols, another about food rations. Lucian listened, face carved from stone, occasionally interjecting with questions so sharp they sliced through the room’s oxygen supply.
I, meanwhile, was fighting off a yawn and taking mental notes. The vibe was office meeting from hell.
You know that one guy in a meeting who loves hearing himself talk? Yeah, General Staghelm. He was three slides into his metaphorical PowerPoint about grain distribution when Lucian cut him off with a single word:
“Wrong.”
The general visibly shrank. “My lord?”
Lucian leaned forward, claws tapping the table like a ticking clock. “You forgot to factor in the southern villages. They will starve by winter if supplies are not redirected.”
“Oh, I—”
Lucian didn’t let him finish. “Incompetence costs lives.”
The room froze. Then, with a small gesture, Lucian dismissed the man entirely. Two guards hauled him out like yesterday’s trash.
I sat there, wide-eyed, thinking: Wow. And I thought my old boss was brutal for rejecting my coffee budget request.
As the meeting dragged on, I noticed a pattern: Lucian didn’t trust anyone. Every report, every suggestion, he cross-examined like a defense attorney in a courtroom drama. He memorized numbers, tested them against maps, demanded proof.
It wasn’t leadership. It was micromanagement on steroids.
I leaned slightly toward him and whispered, “You do realize you’re treating them like toddlers with scissors, right?”
His eyes flicked to me, sharp. “They need oversight.”
“Yeah, but if you don’t let anyone actually do their job, you’ll die of stress before they die of starvation.”
His jaw flexed, but he didn’t argue. Which meant I was right. Again.
Keira: 8. Tyrant: still 4.5.
After three hours of maps and doom forecasts, the meeting finally adjourned. The councilors filed out, bowing low. I stretched, groaning like my spine had aged fifty years.
“I think I just developed arthritis,” I muttered, trailing after Lucian.
He ignored me, of course, already deep in discussion with one of his captains.
That’s when I heard it—two councilors lingering behind, voices low but not low enough.
“…the past repeats itself,” one whispered. “He sees betrayal everywhere because of what was done to him.”
“Careful,” the other hissed. “Walls have ears.”
My ears perked up like a nosy raccoon. Done to him? Betrayal? Past repeats? Excuse me? Was this the foreshadowing siren going off?
If my memory was right, in the story Blood Moon Requiem, Lucian was portrayed as a mad man without any tragic reasons to pity him. The reason why Team Roria aka the fans of Aria x Rowan was beyond mad was how cruel Lucian killed Rowan's family as the heroine backstory.
I slowed my steps, pretending to fuss with my too-long sleeve.
“…his brother,” one of them murmured. “Never forget. Once betrayed, always suspicious.”
My heart stuttered. Brother? Lucian had a brother? That was not in the book. At least not in the version I read.
Before I could lean any closer, Lucian’s shadow loomed. He’d turned, gaze slicing through me.
“Keira.” His voice was silk over steel. “Stay close.”
I jerked upright, guilty as sin. “Oh—yep. Totally. Not eavesdropping. Just… appreciating the architecture.” But wait, what? He called me by my real name? Does this mean he believes me?
“Aria Quinn,” nevermind I might just misheard him. His eyes narrowed, sharp enough to cut stone. For a moment, I thought he’d press me. Demand what I’d heard. But instead, he just swept forward again, cloak trailing like a storm cloud.
I exhaled slowly, my mind racing.
Lucian’s paranoia. His obsession with control. His claws constantly hovering over everyone and everything.
And now—betrayal. A brother.
I’d stumbled onto something. Something big.
And for the first time since landing in this world, I realized: the Tyrant Alpha wasn’t just scary. He was haunted.
That night, as I stood on the moonlit balcony outside his chambers, staring at the fortress lights flickering below, I replayed the whispers over and over.
A brother. Betrayal. A past he couldn’t let go.
Lucian joined me, silent as always, his presence wrapping around me like heat. He didn’t touch me, but his shadow fell across mine.
“Why do you look at me that way?” he asked suddenly.
I swallowed, pulse skipping. “What way?”
“Like you’ve uncovered something you shouldn’t.”
His gaze pinned me, silver burning with something fierce and unreadable. For a second, I thought he might confess everything right there under the moonlight.
Instead, he leaned down, lips brushing my ear.
“Careful, little wolf,” he murmured. “Curiosity can get you killed.”
And before I could react, before I could ask about brothers or betrayal or the ghosts that haunted his eyes, he kissed me—hard, claiming, silencing every question in a single, devastating sweep of his mouth.