Chapter 226: A Month of Silence
Chapter 226: A Month of Silence
A Month Later...
"The only logical way forward is to tender a formal apology to the werewolves," one elderly wolf suggested.
"I don’t think that’s necessary at all," another countered. "Yes, Crane pinned a heinous thing on them eight years ago. We all know that now. But let’s be honest with ourselves, the werewolves are a suspicious lot at the best of times. Why should we bend our knees to them?"
They were gathered in the council hall, the elder wolves seated around the great table, debating Crane’s crimes. Crimes which Derek had finally laid bare before them, after weeks of gathering gruelling, painstaking evidence against his uncle. The truth was out now. There was no putting it back.
After four long weeks of emotional numbness and grief, Derek had forced himself to start functioning again. He had thrown himself headfirst back into the work, into duty and council and strategy, anything at all to keep from feeling the ache that had taken up permanent residence in his chest.
He had searched for Kira, tirelessly and endlessly. But it was as though she had vanished off the face of the earth, leaving no trace, no scent, no whisper of where she’d gone.
And with every single day that passed, Derek felt Leo shrinking inside him, growing quieter, dimmer, more withdrawn, a beast mourning a loss it could not undo.
He trained harder now than he ever had in his life, pouring his guilt and his regret into his body until it screamed. He spent hours in the private gym, wallowing in his deep regret and punching heavy bags until his knuckles bled, even as he presented a solid, unshakeable front to the world outside.
"The question here isn’t about whether they’re a suspicious lot," the first elder pressed on. "It’s about doing what is right. We wronged them, publicly. For years. We should at the very least give them the benefit of the doubt now."
"But even if we accused and blamed them wrongly all this time," another elder said, "the werewolves still breached our security not long ago. They killed our people, and are in line with the Umbras. That happened. We can’t simply forget it."
"And we have been killing them for years," said a female elder quietly. "Let us not pretend our hands are clean."
The elders erupted into argument. Several of them, the female elders among them, advocated firmly for a formal apology to the werewolves, and for the removal of the heavy taxes and harsh border restrictions Dravengard had long imposed on them.
Through all of it, Derek sat in silence, listening.
"My problems with Rolf remain strictly with Rolf," Derek’s deep, booming voice suddenly cut through the noise, silencing the entire room instantly.
He didn’t yell, but the sheer command in his tone made several elders jump in their seats. He looked around the table with those cold eyes.
"This isn’t about bending our knees to them. The difference between the Shadow King and myself is a simple one. I know when I am wrong, and I am willing to acknowledge it." He drew a breath. "I will tender a public apology to the werewolves. And I will take every step necessary to right the wrongs we have done to them."
He rose from his chair.
"Arrange a meeting with the werewolf council as soon as possible," he said. "We need to admit to our mistakes, openly and without excuse. This meeting is ended."
He walked out of the hall, leaving the elders whispering amongst themselves in his wake.
Once outside, he turned to Declan on his right. "Have you managed to send out the invitations to the Alphas of the West, for the meeting?"
"I’ll see to it today," Declan said.
Derek turned to Connor on his other side. "Any news of the Queen? Any leads at all?"
Connor shook his head. "Nothing yet, Your Grace. I’m sorry."
Derek said nothing. He only nodded once, his jaw tight, and walked on.
***
Jessica pulled her hoodie up over her head, walking with a quick, nervous stride toward the quiet lawn behind the campus library, cursing herself for forgetting to take her scent suppressants today.
It had been a month now. A whole month since she and her family had gone into hiding. A month since she had last heard the voice of her best friend, or her mate, or anyone at all from Dravengard. A month of silence, and fear, and aching.
Every day she came to campus in disguise, dosed with scent suppressants to mask who she truly was, so that Kai would never catch her scent in the air. And every day she saw him. He came without fail, sat outside the gates, searched the faces of the students. And every day she hid from him, slipping into shadows and side doors, no matter how much it tore at her to do it.
She loved Kai. Goddess, she loved him so much it hurt to breathe sometimes. But she had her family to protect. And the truth, the hard, cold truth she could not shake, was that she was terrified. Terrified of Derek. Of what he would do to her, to her parents, to all of them, considering they were werewolves, considering the years of ruthless cruelty the Lycan King had rained down on her kind.
But she could not bear the silence any longer.
After a full month, she had finally taken the risk. She had bought a new device, a cheap, clean phone, to slip her SIM card into and reach out to Kira at last. For a month she had called Kira’s line every single day from public phone booths, and every single time, the same thing. It was always switched off.
She sat down on a bench in the small lawn behind the library, hidden from view. With shaking fingers, she opened the back of the new phone, slotted her SIM card inside, and powered it on.
With a racing heart, she quickly went to her contacts and dialled Kira’s private number one more time, praying to the moon goddess that it would finally ring.
***
Meanwhile, out in the main university parking lot, Kai was currently sitting in the driver’s seat of his car, staring blankly through the windshield at the sea of students walking in and out of the campus gates.
He had done this every day for a month. And despite everyone —his mother, Tan, even his friends—telling him, gently and then not so gently, to give it up, to let her go, Kai had flatly refused.
He called Jessica’s line every day. And he still had not spoken a single word to Derek since the day he’d walked out, not even after quietly helping the man track down Crane. His fury at his cousin still burned, banked but not extinguished.
As he sat there in the quiet car, bored and tapping his fingers restlessly against his knees, staring out at nothing, his phone pinged.
He glanced down lazily at the device resting on the centre console and let out a small huff, naturally thinking it was another one of Alicia’s annoying, persistent text messages asking him to come over for dinner.
But the moment his eyes actually scanned the notification on the lock screen, his eyes widened to the size of saucers. His heart leapt right into his throat, and he snatched the phone up so fast he nearly dropped it onto the floorboards.
The security notification tracker he had secretly set up weeks ago was flashing bright green. It explicitly showed that Jessica’s SIM card was finally active and online.
"Oh, goddess..." Kai breathed out, his voice a ragged whisper as his entire body sat up straight in the leather seat.
He opened the live digital notification with fumbling fingers, to read the active cellular tower data. The map pinged instantly, revealing a bright red dot hovering right over the university grounds. Specifically, the quiet garden space right behind the campus library.
"Oh, damn you, Jessica," he choked out, half a laugh and half a sob breaking out of him. "Damn you."
He threw open the car door and half fell out of the vehicle, and then he was running, sprinting across the campus, not even sparing a glance back to see whether he’d locked the car behind him.