Brian walked down the length of the brightly lit corridor of his father’s wing, without hurrying, his footsteps echoing against the floor.

He reached the door at the end, knocked once out of habit rather than courtesy, and pushed it open. The scene that greeted him made his stomach turn.

His father, Crane, lay sprawled naked across the large bed, eyes half-closed in pleasure. One woman knelt between his thighs, her head moving up and down as she took him into her mouth. The other woman pressed soft kisses across his chest, her hands roaming freely. Soft moans of pleasure filled the room.

Brian closed the door softly and stood by it. Always the same, he thought. While the kingdom shifts beneath our feet, he’s drowning in flesh.

Crane’s eyes flickered open at the sound of the door, but he didn’t look startled; he looked bored. "Brian," he rumbled. "You’re back."

"I need to speak with you, Father," Brian said in a clipped voice.

Crane let out a long sigh, patted the thigh of the woman near his chest and gestured toward the door. "You’ve been good girls. Out. Both of you."

The girls scrambled off the bed, grabbing their scattered dresses and slipping them on as they hurried past Brian without meeting his eyes. The door clicked shut behind them.

Crane rose from the bed, unhurried, and reached for the robe draped over the armchair. He shrugged it on, running a hand through his greying hair.

"Whatever you want to say had better be more important than what I was enjoying. My morning was going perfectly."

Brian remained silent, watching his father walk toward a mahogany credenza by the window. Crane’s indifference was infuriating. It was as if the world wasn’t on the brink of a change.

"How was your trip?" Crane asked casually.

He pulled out a bottle and two glasses, then crossed to the sofa and settled into it, setting everything on the low table in front of him. "Sit, for goodness’ sake. You look like you’ve swallowed a sword."

"I just returned to the news that the Council has reached a decision," Brian said. He did not sit. "They’ve agreed to crown Derek as the official King of Dravengard, Father."

Crane poured drinks into the glasses and did not look up.

"I know," he said.

Brian stared at him. "That’s all you have to say?"

"Sit down, Brian."

"You were in that Council meeting! You sit among the elders! Why did you let them hand him the crown without a fight?"

Crane looked up, his gaze sharp and piercing. "Are you going to keep shouting, or are you going to sit down like a man who understands how power actually works?"

Brian crossed the room and dropped into the seat across from his father. He took the glass but left it untouched on the arm of the chair. 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Crane leaned back, swirling his drink slowly. "There are rules to how this works. A crown on Derek’s head changes nothing about the end result. The end result is still you sitting on that throne. It has always been you." He took a sip. "The crown is a formality. What comes after it is what matters."

Brian said nothing. He looked at his father for a long moment, then raised the glass and drank.

Crane watched him over the rim of his own glass. He let the silence sit for a moment, comfortable with it the way powerful men often were.

"Enough about the crown. Now, tell me about the werewolf girl," he said.

Brian’s jaw tightened. "What werewolf girl?"

Crane laughed. It was a short sound, genuine in the way his laughter rarely was. "Don’t insult me. I’ve known you your whole life." He tilted his head. "The Queen. Derek’s little wife. You’ve been watching her since the wedding. You think I haven’t noticed?"

Brian set his glass down and opened his mouth.

"Don’t," Crane said, still smiling. "I’m not judging you. I understand it completely."

The smile faded into something quieter and darker. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and looked at his son with the stripped-back expression of a man speaking only to someone who already knew the worst of him.

"You know what our problem is? Those bitches, they don’t see us. They see the title, the power, the man at the top. Derek has it, so Derek is what she wants."

He exhaled slowly. "That’s why the throne matters, Brian. Not for the politics of it, but for what it gives you access to. So you can finally get that bitch where you want her."

His voice dropped further. "That bitch, Natalie Wolfe, was the same. Beautiful, untouchable, looked through me every time I walked into a room."

Something ugly moved briefly across his face and was gone. "She never got a taste of my cock until her death. She was always so high and mighty, looking down at everyone who wasn’t her King."

He straightened up and looked at his son directly. "Make sure you don’t make the same mistake I did. Make sure that girl gets a taste of yours."

Brian looked at his father.

He had heard him say cruel things before. He had grown up in the school of it. But there was something in hearing him speak about Derek’s mother, the casual contempt of it, the way he folded her into his grievances like she was a possession that had been unfairly assigned elsewhere, that landed somewhere Brian did not expect.

***

Lydia’s face changed. Her eyes welled with tears instantly, and she looked down at the table for a moment before looking back up.

"I knew this day would come," she said, and her voice was quieter than it had been.

"I’m glad it has. I’m glad you can remember." She exhaled slowly. "I couldn’t watch him do it, Kira. Whatever I am, whatever I have done, I could not sit there and watch a man destroy his own child. I’m a mother. I know what it is to look at a child and feel responsible for them."

She reached across the table and covered Kira’s hand with her own. "I couldn’t save you from everything. But I saved you where I could."

Kira did not pull her hand away. She sat with it, and thought about how much she wanted to believe it and how complicated belief had become.

"You were cruel to me," Kira said. Not as an accusation. Just a fact being put on the table between them.

"I know." Lydia’s voice dropped. "I know I was. Your father is the Alpha. What he wanted, I did, because it was the only way I had any influence over him at all. If I opposed him openly, he would have sent me away, and then there would have been no one."

She squeezed Kira’s hand. "I am sorry. I am deeply, genuinely sorry for every moment of it. I have carried that with me every single day."

Her voice sounded so sincere, so full of regret. It did not sound rehearsed. It sounded like the truth, or at least a version of it, and Kira sat with the discomfort of not being able to fully separate the two.

She did not forgive her. She did not say no either.

"I want to know about my mother," Kira said.

Lydia’s expression shifted. Something moved across it quickly, a flash of something unguarded, before she collected herself. "Why are you asking about her?"

"Because she was my mother," Kira said simply. "Because every record of her has been erased. Because I have spent my entire life not knowing who she was. And because if you want my forgiveness, that is what it costs." She looked at her steadily. "Did she cheat on Rolf? Is that true?"

Lydia was quiet for a moment. Then she nodded slowly, her fingers still wrapped around Kira’s hand on the table. "Yes," she said. "It’s true. She fell in love with someone else. She couldn’t help it." She looked at Kira carefully. "But you have to promise me you won’t fall apart when I tell you the rest."

Kira said nothing, just held her gaze.

Lydia leaned forward, her voice dropping to barely above a whisper across the small table.

"Rolf found out about the affair," she said. "He couldn’t bear it. You have to understand what it did to him, the humiliation of it, the rage." She paused. "He didn’t let her live with it, Kira. He couldn’t."

Kira frowned. "What do you mean?"

Lydia’s hand tightened around hers.

"He killed your mother," she whispered. "Rolf strangled her to death."