The door swung open on its hinges slowly, and Viktor strolled in with a smirk already sitting comfortably on his face.
Kira pushed herself up against the headboard and looked at him. That was all. There was no gasp, scrambling backwards, or wide-eyed horror. She simply sat there and watched him walk in like he’d come to deliver a room service order.
Viktor stopped a few feet from the bed, one eyebrow lifting. "No screaming? No tears? I have to say, I’m a little disappointed. I’d prepared for at least some dramatics."
"Sorry to ruin your afternoon," Kira said, shifting to get comfortable.
"You’re not even surprised to see me."
"Should I be?" She tilted her head. "You kidnapped me, Viktor. You’re hardly going to send someone else in to do the small talk."
He let out a low chuckle, and something about the sound made her skin crawl. It wasn’t his laugh.
"I always hope for the best in people," she went on, examining her nails as though the conversation bored her. "I do. It’s a terrible habit and I can’t seem to shake it. But nothing really surprises me anymore."
That much was true, though not in the way she wanted him to hear it.
Because sitting there, looking at that face, she felt something twist low in her chest. She’d sat across a table from Viktor for months. She’d let him tutor her, laughed at his awful jokes, taken the biscuits he’d smuggled in when the lessons ran long. She’d defended him more than once when Derek’s eyes narrowed at the mention of his name.
Whoever was wearing that skin now, it wasn’t him. She was almost certain the real Viktor had stopped existing a long time ago, and she’d been too busy being kind to notice.
He was going to be the first person she killed. She’d already decided that. But not yet. Not until she knew exactly what these people were, how they moved, and where the soft parts were. So she stayed exactly where she was, small and tired-looking against the pillows, letting him think he’d already won.
Viktor pulled the chair from the corner and dropped into it, one ankle crossing over his knee, arms spread wide across the back like the whole room belonged to him. He’d never sat like that. Viktor had been all careful posture and folded hands.
"You know, I always liked you," he said. "Genuinely. Most of them are so tedious. All that shrieking and begging. You just sit there and stare at me like I’m a maths problem."
"You’re not that complicated."
"Ouch." He grinned, entirely unbothered. "There it is. That mouth. I did wonder how long it would take."
Kira exhaled through her nose. "Can we cut the crap? Tell me why I’m here."
"Oh, come on." He spread his hands. "You already know why you’re here. You’ve known for months, even if you were pretending otherwise. Everything’s set. The preparations are finished. You’ll be meeting the Shadow King very soon."
"Good," Kira said. "I’m looking forward to it."
Viktor’s grin faltered for half a second before he covered it. "That’s an odd thing to say for a woman who’s lost every scrap of power she ever had. Bit confident, don’t you think?"
Kira smiled at him, sweet as anything.
"It’s honestly quite funny," she said, "how you spent all that time in a room with me and still don’t know the first thing about who I am." She held his gaze. "You’ll find out soon enough."
Something flickered behind his eyes. Not fear exactly, but a small, irritated crack in all that swagger. He recovered fast, standing and straightening his jacket.
"Well. In the meantime," he said, "we’re having lunch. And you’ll be eating properly, none of this picking at it business. You’re eating for three now, after all."
Kira’s hand moved to her stomach before she could stop it.
Viktor caught it and smiled. "The maids will be in shortly to get you ready."
He walked out, and the door clicked shut behind him.
Kira stared at it for a long moment. Then she let out a slow, shaky breath and pressed her palm flat against her belly.
Four days, she told herself. Four days and I’m out of here. All three of us.
***
The maids worked in silence, which suited Kira fine, because it meant she could listen instead.
The two of them were both young, and careful. Neither had met her eyes once since walking in.
They dressed her in something soft and dark green, fastened it at the back, and one of them reached up towards her ears to remove her earrings. But Kira caught her wrist, and gently stop her.
"Not those," she said.
The maid froze. "We were told to change them, my lady."
"I know." Kira let go of her wrist and touched the small stones at her ears, her thumb brushing over the setting. "But my husband gave me these. They’re the only thing I have left of him in this place."
The girl’s hands hovered uncertainly.
"Please," Kira said quietly, and let everything she’d been holding back sit in her eyes. She didn’t have to fake much. The homesickness was real enough, and so was the ache. "It’s just a pair of earrings. Let me keep something."
The two maids looked at one another. Then the older one gave a small nod, stepped back, and gestured towards the door without saying a word.
Kira followed them out, and let the smallest breath of relief slip past her lips.
The corridor beyond was long and dim, lit by lamps set too far apart, throwing more shadow than light across the stone. Kira walked between the two maids with her hands folded in front of her and her head slightly lowered, the picture of a woman who’d given up.
Behind her lowered lashes, her eyes never stopped moving.
Three turns from the bedroom. A staircase on the left with fourteen steps, she counted them. Two guards at the top, another two at the bottom. A window at the far end of the second corridor, sealed shut, glass thick and dark. Doors on the right, four of them, all closed. The smell of damp stone and something metallic underneath it.
She filed every piece of it away, neat and orderly.
The dining hall opened up ahead of them, and Kira lifted her head properly for the first time.
The table was already laid, long and gleaming, set with more care than she’d expected. Several people sat around it, talking quietly among themselves, cutlery clinking, glasses being filled. It looked like any high table in any pack house she’d ever walked into.
That was what unsettled her most.
The Shadow King’s powers had been bound for years. Bound by Maurice himself. And yet this place ran like a machine, staffed and fed and coordinated, every person in it moving with the ease of a pack that had never once stopped functioning.
Somebody had kept this running the entire time. Somebody had kept it fed.
Then her eyes moved along the faces at the table, and her steps slowed.
She knew that man. The one on the left, greying at the temples, laughing at something his neighbour had said. She’d seen him in Moonfang, standing at the back of the training grounds. And the woman beside him, she’d served at the pack house. Kira had passed her in the corridors a hundred times. Two seats down, another face she recognised. Then another.
Her stomach turned over slowly.
They hadn’t been werewolves. All those years she’d spent in Moonfang surrounded by people who’d looked straight through her, and they’d been Umbras the entire time, wearing borrowed faces and scents.
That was why nobody in that pack had ever known a single thing about her mother. Not because they’d forgotten but because they’d never known her at all. They never had any memories.
The ones who might have remembered Claire had been quietly replaced, one by one.
Kira kept her face perfectly still, her hands loose at her sides, and let one of the maids guide her towards a chair near the head of the table.
Then the far door opened. Kira looked up, and froze.