It had been five days since they had returned from Snow Crest, and Kira had seen Derek for a grand total of roughly fifty minutes, split across five separate days.

Since their return to Dravengard, Derek had effectively become a very busy, very stressed ghost. He was always either heading into the war council or coming out of it. By the time he returned, she was long asleep.

The Umbra attack at Snow Crest had not just shaken the packs’ confidence; it had cracked open a series of uncomfortable questions about border security, internal intelligence, and exactly how those creatures had managed to embed themselves inside a senior Alpha’s household without a single person noticing.

There were no more sightings after that night, no trails, no further movement, and somehow that was worse than the alternative. Silence from an enemy was never good news. Derek was doubling security, triple-checking borders, and having meetings upon meetings with both his court and the alphas of the seven Western packs under his rule.

For Kira, this translated into being trapped. What made it properly irritating was that his absence had done nothing to reduce his presence everywhere else. If anything, the man had multiplied. She now had three additional bodyguards trailing her every move, in addition to Connor, who remained, dependable and reasonable.

But now there was also a tall woman named Petra who stood outside her bathroom door, a stoic man called Brent who appeared on the balcony whenever she stepped into the garden, and a third one whose name she had genuinely given up trying to remember because he was always just there, at the edge of her vision, being watchful.

"Honestly, Petra, if I go to the loo, do you need to check the plumbing for assassins first?" Kira grumbled one afternoon as she paced the length of the palace library.

Petra, standing stoically by the door, didn’t even crack a smile. "His Grace is merely ensuring your safety, Your Highness. The threat hasn’t vanished just because it’s gone quiet."

Kira sighed, flopping onto the chair. She knew why he was doing it, but it didn’t make the constant surveillance any less irritating. She was never used to being followed and watched and the sensation of eyes on her back made her want to climb out of a window.

The only time she actually felt Derek’s physical presence was in the dead of night. He would slip into bed beside her in the early hours of the morning, and by the time she woke up, the sheets on his side were already cool.

She hated to admit it, but she missed him. Even the brooding, grumpy version of him was better than this hollow silence.

It wasn’t just the guards. The entire palace seemed to be acting... weird. Suddenly, more maids were buzzing around her than ever before. Mara her personal maid had turned into a hovering shadow, constantly asking if she felt faint, or if she needed a cushion, or if she’d like her feet rubbed.

"Mara, I’m twenty, not eighty," Kira pointed out when the maid tried to help her up from a chair for the third time that morning.

"The King’s orders, Your Highness," Mara said with a quick dip of her head. "He was very firm that you aren’t to overexert yourself."

Then there was the food situation, which Kira had noticed on the third day. Usually, Ishita prepared whatever was on the menu for the day. Now, the head cook approached her before every meal like she was preparing a feast for a visiting deity.

"What are you craving today, Your Highness?" Ishita asked, notepad at the ready.

"I don’t know," Kira said, feeling a bit overwhelmed. "Maybe some pasta? Or some of those spicy wings? Actually, a salad sounds nice. Bring whatever you made."

Ishita had gone away and returned with all three meals prepared.

"Wait, Ishita, no! I only want one," Kira called after her.

"The King’s orders, Your Highness! He said the Queen is to have whatever she desires, in whatever quantity she desires it."

Kira whipped out her phone and fired off a text to Derek at that moment.

Are you trying to fatten me up for a winter sacrifice? Why is Ishita making three different lunches for one person?

The reply came ten minutes later:

You are my Queen. You should be comfortable. Eat what you like.

She had stared at that text for a long time, and then she had put the phone face down on the table and said nothing more about it. But she was suspicious. This felt like more than just "Queen treatment."

Kira had not been to The Central since she returned, and her private tutor had been coming to the palace. She had been only planning her charity event from her new tablet with Amanda.

Connor had explained that the last five days had been genuinely brutal. That Derek was managing the fallout of the Snow Crest attack across multiple fronts simultaneously, handling both pack matters and the wider political consequences, and running on very little rest.

By the fifth evening, boredom had turned into something more purposeful. Kira looked around the kitchen, looked at Ishita and the younger maids as they hurried about.

"I’m cooking tonight," she announced.

Ishita looked like she was about to have a heart attack. "Your Highness—"

"I’m not asking." She was already tying an apron. "You can help or you can watch, but I am standing at this stove, and that is settled."

"Please, the King would have my head!"

"I’ll tell him I held you at knifepoint with a spatula," Kira said, gently but firmly nudging the cook away from the stove. "Take a break. I’m bored, I’m hungry, and I’m making dinner."

Ishita helped, to her credit, though she did it with the energy of someone who knew how to pick her battles, and within two hours the kitchen smelled extraordinary.

Kira packed a portion of everything into covered dishes, put them on a tray with a note she had written on a folded napkin, and carried it down to Derek’s study.

She knew he would come there after court, so she set it down on the low coffee table near his desk, and sat on the leather couch to wait. But the warmth of the fireplace and the exhaustion of her "over-guarded" week finally won. She curled up, pulling her knees to her chest, and fell fast asleep.