Old Secrets

KYRIL

Kyril could barely hear his own thoughts.

Everyone in the pack boardroom was yelling. It was heated and for good reason.

Two lycans and three werewolves had been injured in Zion’s attack, one of them on the brink of death.

Whether Jon would live or die was still uncertain. Emotions were running high, and so far, Kyril’s best efforts to calm them had failed.

“He needs to pay for what he did!” Michael shouted. “Our Beta could die because of that demon.”

“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” Crystal said hesitantly.

The Faes were always trying to be positive, often to an irritating degree. But right now Kyril was thankful for their voices of restraint.

“Here’s a conclusion for you,” Rhea hissed. “My mate, Chris, is comatose right now. Because of ~him~. Because of Zion.”

“And?! What would you have us do?” Alex asked, exasperated.

“Simple,” Rhea said, eyes as cold as ice. “Execute him.”

The room exploded all over again into frenzied disagreement.

Kyril couldn’t take it anymore. He slammed his fist against the table.

“QUIET!” he roared. “What we do with Zion is not up for discussion. That is for me, your alpha, to decide. Is that clear?”

Everyone went deathly quiet. But Rhea did not look satisfied with this response. She narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms.

“And when will we know what you’ve decided?” Rhea asked, a hint of challenge in her tone that Kyril didn’t like.

He growled. “After I have interrogated him.”

Kyril then stood up and left the boardroom.

Lilac

Kyril.

Lilac

I know you’re busy.

Kyril

What is it, my love?

Kyril

Are you okay?

Lilac

I want to talk to you.

Kyril

I’m sorry I yelled. It wasn’t your fault.

Lilac

It’s not about that.

Kyril

Well?

Kyril

What then?

Lilac

Where are you?

Lilac

I want to do this in person.

Kyril

I’m about to see Zion.

Kyril

Should I come to you first?

Lilac

No, I don’t want to get in the way.

Kyril

Tell me where you are.

Lilac

I’m with your parents in their chambers.

Kyril

I’m coming right now.

Lilac

Lilac couldn’t believe what she was about to ask Kyril. She’d never been so nervous in her life.

Confrontation didn’t come easily to someone like her. She preferred stuffing her head into a book and pretending that the outside world didn’t exist.

But when the outside world was ~literally~ threatening her life, what choice did she have?

She needed to know the truth about Kyril’s past, about what really happened between him and Zion. And why Zion was obsessed with harming her.

The second Kyril stepped into the bedroom, he must have read her mind because his face sagged with despair and self-disgust.

It killed her to see her mate so despondent.

Marcus and Rosalyn quickly took their leave, seeing that this was going to be a conversation between mates.

When they were alone, Lilac wondered if she was pushing too much.

“Kyril, wait,” Lilac began. “We can forget it. It’s not—”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s time, Lilac. Sit down.”

They both sat on the bed, and Lilac held her breath, waiting for her mate to begin.

She knew she was asking him to relive the worst moment in his life. It wasn’t going to be easy.

But she hoped Kyril understood that nothing he said was going to change the way she felt about him. Nothing could change the fact that he was her mate.

Wasn’t he?

KYRIL

“It all began when I was twenty-five years old,” Kyril said, voice shaky. “I began to feel this...this itch. Because I had no mate, because I was alone, I began to see myself as...a monster. A monster incapable of love.”

Kyril saw the heartbroken look in Lilac’s eyes and wished he could shut her out.

Seeing her reactions was proving to be worse than telling the story. How she reacted to the whole truth would determine their future together.

He’d heard rumors of mates being separated by what was called a “peripetia,” a turning point, an act so unforgivable that nothing could ever be the same.

He continued, clearing his throat, looking away so as not to meet Lilac’s eyes. “The longer I searched for love, the more elusive it became. And the loneliness...it began to consume my soul, eat away at my sanity.”

Kyril could feel Lilac’s eyes boring into him. Still, he wouldn’t look at her. Not until he’d said the worst of it.

“At twenty-nine, the itch of insanity, it grew...and grew. Eventually, I was so overcome by the feeling...the verge of going feral...that I sought out the king’s help. Every full moon, when it was at its worst, King Angus had guards restrain me in chains.”

Just the memory alone was enough to make Kyril shiver.

The pain he would inflict upon himself to keep his lycan at bay. The scars that still covered his body to this day.

Every lash of the whip was a distraction. Every scar a reminder of his humanity.

Life was worth holding on to, so long as he could still feel. Pain, heartbreak, love, without these he would have been nothing but an animal.

“One night,” he continued, “my lycan escaped. Its mutiny against my body overtook me, making me black out, destroying everything in its path, crying and howling for its mate. But its howls were in vain.”

Finally, Kyril looked at Lilac. “If I had found you, Lilac...none of this might have happened.”

“What happened, Kyril?” Lilac pressed. “It’s okay. You can tell me.”

Kyril closed his eyes. The memory was too painful. “When I awoke the next morning, I was told that, in my feral state, I’d killed someone. An innocent woman.”

When Kyril opened his eyes, he could see the recognition dawn on Lilac’s face.

“That woman was Zion’s mate, Serena. I killed her. I broke my brother’s heart. He jumped off a cliff that day, and...and I’ve had to live with their deaths on my conscience ever since.”

Lilac was speechless, and Kyril understood why. This act of evil was so profound it could mean the end of their mating bond.

Questions were swirling through Lilac’s mind.

~But Zion, he’s...he’s…~

“I don’t know how,” Kyril admitted. “My guess is that when he hit those rocks, a part of him, the decent man I knew and loved, died. And the demon was all that was left.”

~What about…~ Kyril could feel that Lilac’s mind was still spinning…~Why Serena of all people?~

“She was the only one who dared to try and soothe me,” Kyril answered. “She was the most powerful witch I’ve ever known. And she thought...somehow she could get through to me. To calm my Lycan and bring me back. Instead…”

~So Zion isn’t...he isn’t…~

“No,” Kyril nodded. “Zion isn’t evil, Lilac. He’s broken. And I’m the one who broke him. I deserve his wrath. I deserve to be hated. You see, ~I~ am the true monster.”

Kyril looked away, eyes brimming with self-hating tears. He knew he didn’t deserve a love as pure and honest as Lilac’s.

She was finally going to understand that.

She was going to leave him.

Wasn’t she?

Lilac

Lilac had never heard a story so terrible in her life.

She’d read countless novels, filled with grisly murders and unmistakable cruelty. But none of them had prepared her for the shock of this revelation.

This was real life. Kyril’s real life. And what he’d done was...unforgivable, it was true.

And yet…

When she looked at this beautiful beast of a man before her, she didn’t see the evil, she didn’t see the ugly. She saw a soul in torment.

She saw a man who’d lost control, whose wolf had made a terrible mistake, who was a victim himself to the feral trespasser who had invaded his body…

The only culprit of this crime was nature.

Still, Lilac could see that it made no difference to her mate.

The claws that had cut and slashed, the lycan that had ended Serena’s life, they still belonged to ~him~. And as long as Kyril lived, he would take responsibility for that.

Lilac knew there were no words she could possibly say that would ever heal the damage.

There was no way to convince her mate his soul was pure, that this terrible act wasn’t really him.

So Lilac decided to do the next best thing. To tell him ~her~ truth.

“Kyril,” she began. “I need to tell you something.”

“I understand, Lilac,” he said. “You don’t need to explain. If you can’t be with me…”

“No!” Lilac shouted, and Kyril blinked, surprised. “Can you honestly not read my mind right now?”

“When it’s important...I didn’t think I should…”

“Kyril,” she said more forcefully than she’d ever said anything in her life. “Read my mind. Right now.”

His jaw slackened as he entered her thoughts.

“Lilac...but…”

“It’s true, Kyril,” Lilac said, tears in her eyes. “Nothing in the world will change the way I feel about you. If anything, knowing the truth only makes it clearer. You’re not just my mate. You’re my destiny.”

And then Lilac took Kyril’s face in her hands and kissed him with more passion than she knew she was capable of.

And, at last, Lilac said the words she’d been wanting to say since she’d first laid eyes on the lycan.

“I love you, Kyril.”