Riegthar POV

"Ry, we can’t," I said, the words heavy and hollow as they left my mouth. It was a family rule to not kill blood, blood stick together always.

"Right now, it’s kill or be killed. None of our family rules apply right now," she shot back, her voice carrying a chillingly absolute finality that made her sound like a complete stranger.

Ari slowly helped her sit down in the chair next to me. The moment she settled, I couldn’t stop my eyes from darting to her neck and chest. Even with the loose braids framing her face, the dark, bruising marks left by the wolf were entirely visible against her skin. A wave of sharp disgust and intense irritation flared hot in my chest.

"You couldn’t cover that shit up before coming to see me?" I snapped, gesturing aggressively toward her collarbone.

Ry didn’t even flinch. She just turned her head, her eyes locking onto mine.

"And couldn’t you have given me a proper notice, and perhaps not tell my husband that you used to give me baths as a child?"

I rolled my eyes, leaning back. I couldn’t help the thoughts racing through my mind. I hated Yue-Senn. I absolutely hated him. I believed with every fiber of my being that the man somehow had a hand in all of this, he is a manipulative, calculating liar who possessed the exact same terrifying bloodlust that defined our mother.

It utterly infuriated me that my little sister had fallen in love with a monster like that, and worse, that she wa to bring a child into this godforsaken world with him.

She snapped her fingers sharply right in front of my face, breaking my train of thought.

"Hey. Are you okay with going to the East tomorrow?" she demanded, her focus shifting back to the urgency at hand. "We can use one of the teleportation crystals I received as wedding gifts to get us past the border."

"Even if we go, we need a plan, Ry," I argued, my voice tense.

"The moment we step foot on that soil, they will most likely attack."

Before she could answer, the meeting room door swung open. Yue-Senn walked in. He was fully dressed in a tailored, all-black suit with an insufferable smirk plastered across his face. He didn’t say a word to me. He walked straight over to our side of the table, bent down, and effortlessly scooped Ry up into his arms.

"What are you doing?" she questioned, startled as her hands instinctively came up to hit his chest. Ignoring her completely, he carried her across the room to the large couch on the opposite side. He sat down heavily and pulled her straight into his lap.

This man is actively trying to get on my last goddamn nerve.

I thought to myself, my jaw clenching so hard it ached.

"Why are you doing this all of a sudden?" Ry whispered, her face flushing as she held eye contact with him.

Yue-Senn merely smirked, leaning in close to press his lips against her ear, whispering something that made her eyes widen.

"You are an ass," she muttered, forcing a fake smile through her blushing cheeks. She shoved against his broad chest and forcefully scooted off his lap, resetting herself to sit firmly on the cushions right next to him. She cleared her throat, turning her sharp gaze back to me.

"As I was saying... I have a plan."

Yue-Senn tilted his head, resting his arm along the back of the couch behind her.

"Do you mind sharing with the class, darling?"

"I can’t do that," Ry said flatly.

"Ry, this is absolutely not the time to be hiding secrets," I interjected, slamming my hand lightly against the table.

"If we are marching straight into unknown territory, we need to be on the same team."

"We are on the same team," she countered, her voice dropping. "But if I tell either of you, you will both try to stop me. For this plan to work effectively, you both need to remain completely oblivious."

I let out a harsh breath, rubbing my palms aggressively over my face. The irony was suffocating.

"Now I finally understand how you feel, Ry. Watching the people you care about hide everything from you."

"Do you? Do you really?" she mocked, a bitter smile cutting across her lips.

"Because my entire life has been hidden from me—including right now."

Hearing the raw pain in her voice, I shook my head, the weight of the secrets I carried pressing down on my chest like a ton of bricks. I looked at her, truly looked at her, and the guilt almost choked me.

"Do you really want to know everything, Ry? Can you even handle it?"

Ry didn’t hesitate. She looked across the room at Ari and gave her a firm, slow nod. I knew exactly what that gesture meant, it was her silent cue to Ari to be completely ready to restrain her if her emotions caused her magic to lose control.

I glanced at Yue-Senn. The wolf king looked utterly unbothered by the rising tension, sitting back with an arrogant calmness, as if he already knew every single hidden truth and was simply waiting for the grand illusion to unravel.

"Go ahead, big boy," Yue-Senn gestured with his hand, his eyes glinting with a dangerous amusement.

"Tell your sister." I snapped, my gaze locking onto him.

"Fuck you, you manipulative dick."

"Oh, is someone a little pissy this morning?" he smirked.

"Both of you, enough!" Ry yelled, her voice echoing off the stone walls as she stood up halfway.

"I am seriously starting to think you two might be in love with each other! Should I just leave the goddamn room so you two can fuck and get it over with?!"

"Hell no!" The words tore from both my throat and Yue-Senn’s in perfect, overlapping unison. We both instantly snapped our heads away, thoroughly disgusted, completely avoiding each other’s eyes.

I cleared my throat, forcing the anger back down as I locked my gaze onto my sister.

"I know your memories are incomplete, Ry. So we are going to start from the very beginning. And this is through my eyes, okay?"

She slowly nodded, settling back into her seat.

"As you know, Mother is from the realm of dragons and wild beasts," I began, the memories flashing vividly behind my eyes the cold nights in the palace, the suffocating aura of the throne room.

"Our mother is not like us, Ry. She possesses a raw, untamed bloodlust. She is violent, and at times, it genuinely seems like she lacks human emotions entirely. In the ancient texts, it is written that true dragons have no capacity for love, they will willingly kill their own young children if they find them to be weak."

"Why are you telling me this?" Ry interrupted, her fingers twisting into the fabric of her dress.

"How is any of this related to us?"

"Wait. I am getting there," I said, taking a breath. "When Mother first broke through the portal into this world, she was the first of her kind to do so without being formally summoned by a blood mage or a summoner.

She slaughtered hundreds of people just trying to stabilize her power, and she had an incredibly brutal time trying to shift into her human form. At the exact same time, our father was an absolute outcast in the Elf Kingdom.

Because of his mage blood and his distinct features, he was treated like a pest. He was a lone wanderer, with both of his parents completely refusing to claim him, leaving him with no kingdom to belong to. And in that isolation... he met our mother."

Ry’s breath hitched, her face going entirely pale. "What are you saying, Riegthar? Are you telling me that the West Kingdom was never ours to begin with?"

She tried to stand up, but her legs instantly gave out. She stumbled backward, but Yue-Senn’s reflexes kicked in seamlessly. He caught her firmly by the waist and gently guided her back down into the cushions.

"Our parents are not in love, Ry," I revealed, the truth cutting through the room like a cold blade. "Their entire relationship has never been about affection it is entirely about power. They slaughtered the previous King and Queen of the West Kingdom, and they took that throne by pure, unyielding force."

"How..." Ry whispered, her lower lip trembling as she stared at me in horror. "How could you possibly know this?"

"Because I heard them talking when I was a child," I confessed, the memory of crouching behind the heavy study curtains flashing in my mind.

"At first, I didn’t understand the weight of the words. But they kept massive secrets from each other, their dynamic was entirely odd. Before the great war, Mother was actually able to travel back and forth between this world and her beasts’ realm. Sometimes she would vanish for days, weeks, or even years at a time. Time passes entirely differently in that realm."

Ry sat there frozen, the devastating realization shattering her reality.

"My whole life was a lie. It was all a fabricated lie... and for what?" Slowly, her head turned, her wide eyes locking onto the calm profile of the man sitting next to her.

"Yue-Senn... why are you not surprised? Why are you not even shocked by this?"

Yue-Senn didn’t blink. He kept his gaze fixed ahead.

"Everyone has dark secrets that they keep hidden from the world, Ry. I am no man to judge. I have immense blood on my own hands, and secrets of my own that I wouldn’t ever want anyone knowing."

As he spoke the words, his eyes glowed with a faint, dangerous light. A sudden, breathless laugh tore from Ry’s throat but it wasn’t a sound of amusement. It was sharp, broken, and terrifyingly unhinged. Her own eyes began to light up.

"So you’re just like them," she laughed, the sound sending a shiver down my spine.

"Everyone thinks it’s so much better to keep me completely in the dark."

"It’s not like that, Ry," Yue-Senn responded, his voice dropping into a low, cautious tone as he felt the shift in his seat.

"There are some things in this world that are truly best left alone."

"I understand," she said.

A sweet, terrifying smile stretched across her lips. The moment the smile formed, the temperature in the meeting room began to spike. The air grew sweltering, the intense heat radiating directly from her skin. Ari instantly took a panicked step forward, her hands glowing with magic, but Ry casually raised her hand, halting her.

"I am perfectly fine," Ry whispered.

The glow in her eyes slowly dimmed back to normal and the temperature returned, but the pleasant, serene smile remained fixed on her face. It was completely unnatural.

Looking at her expression, a cold dread seized my chest she looked exactly like our mother right before a slaughter. Completely, unhinged.

"Continue, dear brother," her voice dripping with a terrifyingly sweet malice. "I would absolutely love to know more."