Kira didn’t reply. She kept walking.

Derek fell into step beside her. "Fine. We’ll walk together then." He reached for her hand.

She yanked it back. "I don’t want to walk with you. Go away."

"I can’t do that." His voice was even. "You’re my wife. I’m not leaving you out here at this hour."

She glanced at him sideways. "It’s all fake, and no one’s watching. You don’t need to play nice. I know you’re not."

Something sharp moved through Derek’s chest at that. The guilt wasn’t only about those words, though those were bad enough. It was larger and older than that, sitting somewhere beneath his ribs and refusing to be reasoned away.

"The coronation has been brought forward," he said. "We can’t keep fighting until then."

"Well," Kira said pleasantly, "you should have thought about that before opening your mouth."

He went quiet for a moment. "Those words were cruel. I didn’t mean them." He cleared his throat. "You win. Sweet Kira: 100. Me: 90. Happy now?"

Kira gave him a withering look, then had to bite her lower lip very hard to stop the corner of her mouth from betraying her. "Who gave you that generous ninety?"

He shrugged. "I have my methods."

"I’m not accepting that tally. It’s rigged."

"Says the woman who was keeping a secret tally without my knowledge or consent." He raised an eyebrow. "I’d argue my score has been well over a hundred since the first week of this marriage."

She turned her face away quickly so he wouldn’t see how her lips curved. "I’m still not getting in that car."

He reached out and caught her hand again, his palm warm against her cold fingers. "It’s freezing out here. What are you, the Snow Queen?"

She tried to pull free, but his grip tightened on her wrist. She narrowed her eyes at him. "Let go."

He looked at her with something between exasperation and fondness. "You’re too stubborn to admit you’re cold."

"I learnt from the best," she said, and kept walking.

Derek stopped abruptly, forcing her to halt too. For a second he simply looked at her, then released her wrist. With a quiet sigh, he shrugged off his jacket and draped it over her shoulders.

The warmth settled around her immediately, carrying his faint, clean scent of citrus. For one unguarded moment, she almost let herself stay in it.

Then she shrugged it off. "I don’t need your jacket."

She jogged a few steps ahead.

"Are you really that proud?" he asked, catching up easily. "Come on, let’s just get in the car and go home. It’s cold."

"If you’re cold, get in the car. I’m not getting in because I have already told that car to go to hell, and I intend to walk home. I won’t go back on my word."

He stared at her in disbelief. "Really?"

"Yes, really. Next time you’ll think twice before saying such things to me." She quickened her pace, leaving him behind once more.

"Well, that’s because you drive me crazy!" he called after her, jogging to catch up again.

"And yet, here you are," she said, without turning around.

He glanced over his shoulder and realised they had walked far enough that the car was no longer in sight. They had turned into a quieter residential street lined with glowing lampposts.

Kira had her phone out with the map app glowing in her palm.

"Are you genuinely planning to walk all the way back to Dravengard?"

"Was I smiling when I said it?" she replied without looking up.

Derek reached out, caught her wrist, and tugged her back toward him. His arms slid around her waist, drawing her flush against his chest.

Her heart slammed against her ribs as his amber eyes searched her face beneath the golden pool of the streetlamp.

The light caught every line of him, and what she saw there wasn’t the cold king or the man who had said those words that morning. It was something stripped back and real, and it was considerably harder to be angry at than anything else he might have offered her.

"I’m sorry I hurt your feelings," he said. His voice was low and rough at the edges, the way it got when he was saying something that cost him something. "I should have understood what my absence meant to you that night. I should have acknowledged it instead of explaining it away. Let’s go home and get some sleep now."

Her heart was so loud she was certain he could hear it. She nodded, not entirely sure when she decided to, but she did.

Something in his face shifted, opening into that slow, warm smile that he so rarely let out into the world. He leaned his forehead against hers; the contact was gentle and stayed there for a moment.

"There you are," he murmured, and leaned down, capturing her lips with his.

It started softly, an offering rather than a demand, and then it deepened, and Kira’s hands found the front of his shirt without her brain having any involvement in the decision. His arms tightened around her, and the kiss became something hungrier, a man who had been holding himself at careful distance for too long finally deciding not to.

Her legs went entirely unreliable beneath her and she was grateful for his arms wrapped around her.

She slowly closed her eyes, as her entire body surrendered to him. Something moved through her body that she didn’t have a name for.

It started somewhere low and spread outward, and underneath it was something stranger still, a sensation like a thread inside her pulled taut and straining toward him, looking for somewhere to connect. It was alive in a way nothing had ever felt quite alive before.

Derek made a low sound in his chest at the same moment, his arms pulling her closer. She could feel his hardness pressing against her abdomen, and electricity shot straight through her core. Her entire body shuddered, involuntary and completely beyond her control.

Derek pulled back, eyes open and searching her face. "Are you alright?"

Kira was now as red as a tomato. She opened her mouth to say something, but no words came out. She breathed out through her nose and simply nodded.

He looked at her for a moment longer, then stepped back, giving her room to breathe, which was generous of him given that the breathing was not going particularly well.

He held out his hand. "Are we alright?"

Kira smiled and slipped her hand into his. "Yes, we’re."

"Good. Let’s go home." He turned back the way they’d come.

"How are we getting home, though?" she asked.

He turned and gave her a mischievous smile. "You’re lucky my beast likes you, Queen Kira." He was already reaching for his shirt buttons. "Leo has been wanting to meet you properly for a while."

Kira barely had time to process those words before the shift began.

In no time, a massive, seven-foot beast was towering where Derek had been. His amber eyes glowed with an otherworldly light, and his fur was as black as midnight sky.

Kira smiled, awed by the magnificent beats.

"Hello, Leo. We finally meet properly."