Chapter 5: The Flicker
The quiet of the King's private wing was a deceitful thing. It was late—the hour before dawn when the moon was at its highest point, painting the Silvercrest courtyards in hues of sterile blue and deep shadow. I should have been in my war room, reviewing the movements of the Western packs or preparing for the council meeting that would inevitably demand Kaira's execution. Instead, I was standing sentinel in my own bedchamber, watching my mate sleep.
I hadn't slept. I hadn't dared.
She lay tucked into the massive canopy bed, a fragile disturbance in the regal order of the room. She was wearing one of my softer under-tunics, swallowed by the wool and silk. The clean linens only highlighted the dark smudges under her eyes and the gaunt angles of her jaw.
"If you had found her sooner, Alpha," Fenrir lamented, his voice a heavy, frustrated growl in the back of my skull. "If we had been faster, the shadows would not have taken hold."
I fought back the self-recrimination. We had searched diligently. The secret of Kaira Blackthorn had been buried deeper than any royal grave. Now that she was here, the instinct to guard her was so overpowering it was almost debilitating. My kingly duties felt trivial compared to the singular task of protecting this broken, haunted woman.
I had ordered two of my most trusted Royal Guards, sworn to the Lunar Mark, to stand outside the solid oak door. Draven was positioned just down the hall, his senses acute even in rest. Yet, the sense of dread I carried felt heavier than any steel shield.
It was the feeling of a clock ticking toward an unknown explosion. She wasn't safe because she was the danger, or rather, what was tethered to her was. The Echo slept when Kaira was unconscious, but I could feel its cold, residual malice—a psychic residue that chilled the air around her. It was a predator waiting for the host to grow strong enough to serve as a proper vehicle.
I ran a hand through my already messy dark hair, walking over to the fireplace. The embers were low. I crouched, preparing to add more wood, savoring the mindless distraction of the task, when it happened.
It wasn't a sound or a scent—it was a presence. A psychic spike, cold and foreign, that bypassed all my outer defenses and went straight for the target. It was the scent of ozone and synthetic musk, utterly devoid of wolf, of magic, of anything natural.
Fenrir roared instantly. INTRUDER! MATE DANGER!
I was across the room before the thought could finish. I didn't reach for the ceremonial dagger I kept on the mantel; my hands became weapons. My speed was absolute. I covered the distance between the hearth and the bed in a single, blurring stride, throwing myself over Kaira just as the first shot was fired.
The noise was deafening in the heavy silence—a specialized, suppressed sound, not a gunshot, but something designed to pierce a wolf's hide.
CRACK-HISSS.
A searing pain erupted in my back, just below the ridge of my shoulder blade. The impact threw me forward, my body a shield of muscle and bone over Kaira. The scent of ozone and something metallic—not blood, but silver—instantly filled the air.
"Guards! Alarm!" I roared, the command ripping from my throat, raw and utterly feral.
But my mind was already racing. This wasn't a blunder; this was professional. They hadn't tried to breach the door; they'd infiltrated the room itself. I could now see the source: a narrow, disused ventilation shaft high up near the ceiling, typically used for emergency smoke evacuation. The assassin had used a highly specialized weapon designed to deliver a concentrated charge of silver directly into the target.
I felt the silver working its way into my muscles, the familiar, deep ache of the poison—pain that was magnified a hundredfold because my focus was entirely on the mate-bond.
Kaira was instantly awake beneath me, rigid with terror.
"Chaos! Freedom! NOW!" The Echo shrieked, fueled by the violence.
The attacker was quick, an unnatural blur in dark, non-reflective material, already rappelling down from the shaft. He carried another weapon, a heavy-gauge silver net meant to paralyze a full Alpha.
I rolled off Kaira, ignoring the fire in my back. My vision was already sharpening, the golden glow of Fenrir taking full control. The King was gone; only the primal guardian remained.
"Stay down, Kaira!" I barked, my voice a deep, resonant growl that vibrated with dominance.
The assassin was closing in. I didn't waste time with formalities. My strategy was pure brute force.
The assassin swung a silver-tipped baton. I intercepted the blow with my forearm, the silver burning deep, but I barely registered it. I grabbed the man's wrist, my fingers closing with the force of a vice, and snapped the bone with a sickening crack.
The assassin gasped, his body fluid and trained, attempting to recover and draw a second blade. But I was on him.
I drove him back against the heavy wooden wall, pinning him with my weight, my mouth already open, ready to tear out his throat. The need to protect Kaira was a physical, blood-soaked hunger that was pushing me past the limits of human control.
"Who sent you?" I snarled, my teeth bared inches from his face.
The man merely sneered, his eyes glazed with fanaticism. "The Territories will not be ruled by a monster's consort, King Varyn."
Before I could demand more, the assassin bit down on a capsule hidden in his molar. Instantaneous death. Clean. Untraceable. Sent by someone who planned for failure.
I shoved the dead weight away, the rage still burning a violent hole in my chest. The scent of silver, human blood, and ozone was thick in the air.
And then, I heard it.
It wasn't the hiss of The Echo. It wasn't my growl.
It was a sound like wind chimes catching a strong breeze—a clean, resonant ping in the psychic space we shared.
I turned back to the bed, my muscles trembling from the silver poison and the abrupt, brutal shift back from Fenrir.
Kaira was sitting up, staring wide-eyed at the corpse on the floor. Her body was still shaking, but her expression was different. The perpetual, empty terror was gone, replaced by a momentary, searing focus.
And her eyes—her wolf eyes, which I had never seen—were finally visible.
They weren't the ice-blue of a strong pack wolf or the gold of my own power. They were an astonishing, crystalline silver. A deep, living silver that mirrored the moonlight outside, vibrant and shockingly beautiful.
And in that silver gaze, Fenrir saw a flash of pure, terrified recognition. Not just of the man who saved her, but of the wolf who saved her.
"Fenrir," a voice whispered in the shared connection, brief and high, like a single, taut violin string snapping. It was Lyra. Her wolf.
It lasted maybe two seconds. Then, the silver light receded, the recognition was sucked away, and the fear returned, blanketing her features again. Her eyes reverted to the dull, shadowed brown I had come to know, and the silence inside her mind slammed shut, leaving only the cold emptiness that always signaled The Echo's dormancy.
I stood there, bleeding silver-tainted blood onto the royal carpet, staring at the woman who had just recognized my wolf and then erased the memory a heartbeat later.
The door finally burst open, revealing Draven and the two guards, weapons drawn.
"Your Majesty! What in the—?" Draven stopped, surveying the scene: the dead, anonymous assassin, the silver damage to the wall, the blood on my back, and Kaira, huddled in the massive bed, staring into the middle distance.
"A professional," I said, my voice heavy with controlled fury. "Highly trained. Tried to deliver a lethal dose of silver. Failed."
Draven's gaze settled on Kaira, and his suspicion was instantaneous. "And she is unharmed?"
"She is untouched," I confirmed. I stepped toward the bed, ignoring the pain. I sat beside her, shielding her with my bulk, and placed a hand on the back of her head, pulling her gently toward my side.
She didn't flinch this time. She only leaned into the residual scent of danger and protection I carried, seeking the safety of the shield, even if the shield was her King.
I looked at Draven, the seriousness of the situation etched onto my face. "He called her a 'monster's consort.' This was not a random attack. Someone knew she was here. Someone knows what she is."
Draven's eyes narrowed, connecting the attack to the old prophecy that had frightened the courts for centuries. "If the enemy factions know her identity, Your Majesty, the Council will demand an immediate action. They will see her as a foreign weapon."
"Then we must ensure the Council never sees her clearly," I stated, my resolve hardening. "Get the healers. And Draven, find the source of this assassin. I want to know whose throne this strike came from."
I looked down at Kaira, her head heavy against my thigh. Her small, frail form offered no hint of the immense power she held—the Echo that sought chaos, and the silver wolf that had just flickered awake to whisper my name.
She is worth the destruction she might bring, I thought, the realization settling into my bones like cold steel.
I was the Lunar King, sworn to protect the Northern Territories. But my mate, broken and haunted, had just become my new, singular kingdom. And I would burn the entire world down to ensure her safety. I would begin by destroying the person who had tried to take her from me.
The pain from the silver was a constant reminder of the stakes. I focused on that pain, using it to anchor the strategic mind of the King, just in case the frantic Alpha took over.
Lyra. Just the thought of her name, the name of the wolf I'd heard for a split second, was a dangerous distraction.
I would have to wait for the next crisis. But now, I knew one terrifying truth: her wolf was still in there. And when it was ready, it would speak again.