"So, how are you?"

Kai’s voice was easy and casual, the way it always was, but Kira caught the look he gave her sideways as they walked. He was checking on her, not just asking.

They were alone in the hospital gardens now. Jessica had ducked off to find a restroom a few minutes ago, and the gammas were keeping their usual respectful distance, some behind them, some scanning ahead.

"I’m fine," Kira said.

She reached a bench beneath one of the trees and lowered herself onto it carefully, the cast on her leg sticking out in front of her. Kai sat down beside her, stretched his long legs out, and was quiet for a long moment.

Then he turned his head and looked at her.

"I know you’re still mad at him."

Kira shook her head. She did not bother to argue. She just looked ahead at the path and said nothing.

Kai shifted closer, nudging her gently with his shoulder. "Come on, Your Highness. You can talk to me. I know the messy dynamics of your marriage better than most."

Kira let out a long breath and stared at her cast.

"I don’t know how to feel about any of it," she said finally. "Some days I feel like I’m actually getting somewhere with him... and then other days I feel like I’m right back at the beginning, like I’m still just the outsider he married for revenge." She turned the corner of her cast over with her good foot. "It’s exhausting."

Kai winced. "That bad, huh?"

Kira gave a small, tired shrug.

Kai leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "Why won’t you just hear him out?"

Kira turned to look at him with narrowed eyes. "Did he put you up to this?"

"Yes." Kai grinned, not even trying to deny it.

She let out a short laugh. "At least you’re honest about it."

"I figured lying to you would be a waste of both our time." He shrugged. "But I’m also here because I hate seeing you both like this."

"He’s been losing his mind since you woke up and refused to see him. Dr Adah keeps telling him to give you space, but the man looks like he’s about to climb the walls."

Kira looked at her hands. "I don’t want to see him," she said quietly. "I don’t want to speak to him."

Kai shifted on the bench so he was angled more toward her. "Listen to me for a minute. I’m not telling you this because I’m trying to make excuses for him. I’m telling you because you deserve to know what actually happened, so you can decide for yourself what to do with it.

"Derek is a lot of things. He’s stubborn, he’s difficult, and he has the emotional range of a brick wall on most days. But he’s a man of his word. When he promises something, he means it. He doesn’t go back on it."

Kira wrung her fingers together in her lap and did not respond.

"Ruby was wearing an aphrodisiac that night," Kai said. "It kind of enchants whoever it’s aimed at. And she’s been using it on him for years."

Kira’s head turned sharply.

"Yeah," Kai nodded. "Not just that night. He didn’t know either. None of us did. We all just thought she had her weird flowery scent thing going on. He only put it together the day she pushed you down the stairs, when Leo recoiled from her completely, and he finally clocked what it meant. I told you he was blindsided."

Kira let out a dry, incredulous laugh. "I can’t believe she went to such terrifying lengths to keep him," she said, after a moment.

Kai shrugged. "She feels entitled to Dravengard. People just didn’t want to see it. And honestly? I don’t even think this is about Derek at the core. Ruby is obsessed with power. She wants the throne. She wants the title. She wants the position. Derek’s just the route to it. If she could have gotten that throne another way, she would have."

He looked at her properly then.

"Hear him out. That’s all I’m asking. You don’t have to forgive him, you don’t have to take him back into the room, but at least let him say what he came to say."

Kira bit her lower lip and didn’t answer.

Kai looked ahead for a while, as silence settled between them.

"You know he loves you, right?" he asked, breaking the silence.

She stared at him. The words sat in the air between them and refused to settle anywhere comfortable. Her first instinct was to dismiss it, the second was to laugh, the third was to feel something in her chest that she immediately put a lid on.

"I doubt that," she said. Her voice came out flatter than she meant it to. "We’re getting along. That’s all it is. I won’t let myself believe anything else. Especially not after what my father did to his people. There’s too much underneath this for it to ever be what people want it to be."

Kai was quiet for a beat. Then he said, more carefully now, "He’s made mistakes. I’m not going to pretend he hasn’t. He’s done things in anger that I’m not sure he’ll ever fully forgive himself for."

"But since you came into his life, something has shifted. I see it. Nana sees it. Declan sees it. Even Leo is different. The whole bloody palace is different. You walked in and brought light into a heart that hadn’t had any in a very long time. That’s not nothing."

Kira looked out across the garden, at other patients walking past, enjoying their mid-morning walk.

Kai sighed heavily.

"Things are not always what they seem with him," he said, more quietly now. "Derek didn’t have it easy after his parents died. His mother especially. He went mute for two whole years. Wouldn’t speak to anyone, not even Nana. He nearly went feral."

Kira looked at him. "That bad?" 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

Kai nodded. "This was the reason his autonomy to his throne was challenged in the first place." He paused for a moment. "He blamed himself for not being able to save her from those men, even though he was a child when it happened, and there was nothing he could have done.

"And then Jasper died saving him, and he blamed himself for that too. It was the darkest time this pack has ever had, and Derek carried all of it alone, because he wouldn’t let any of us close enough to help him. He made some terrible decisions during that period. Things that are best left for him to say."

Kira turned slowly to look at him.

"But why are you telling me all of this?"

Kai met her eyes. "Because whatever happens from here," he said, "whatever direction this goes, you should know that Derek loves you. Even if he’s terrible at showing it."