Chapter 25: The Real Kai

Kai’s composure lasted just a tad longer than he had anticipated. He wanted to sit still, smile and pretend like everything was okay, but the truth was that things weren’t okay. He couldn’t pretend anymore, and he could no longer keep the torrents of emotions bubbling inside him down. Finally something inside him snapped.

He did not walk after Dexter, he went after him.

The corridor outside the formal wing was long and high-ceilinged, lined with old portraits that had watched generations of carefully managed power. Dexter’s silver hair caught the light ahead, already halfway to the turn that would take him toward the residential halls. Kai’s longer stride closed the distance in seconds. He did not call out again. He simply reached, closed a hand around his brother’s shoulder, and slammed him hard enough into the stone wall that the impact echoed.

Dexter’s breath left him in a sharp, startled sound.

For a heartbeat the youngest prince only stared, pale eyes wide, the usual careful composure shattered by pure shock. In all their years Kai had never put hands on either of them in anger, control was the eldest’s religion. Even at their worst, even when Aaron’s temper destroyed furniture, Kai remained the still point. The one who corrected, and never raised a fist because he never needed to.

Now that still point had broken.

Dexter recovered enough to shove back, both hands bracing against Kai’s chest. The difference in strength was immediate and humiliating. Kai barely moved. He crowded closer, forearm across Dexter’s collarbone, pinning him to the cold stone with the full, controlled weight of a dominant Alpha who had spent a lifetime learning exactly how much force was required.

"What do you think you’re doing?" Kai’s voice was low, rough, stripped of every courtly cadence. It was almost unrecognizable. "Standing up in front of allied packs and declaring a completed claim on a blood-debt omega like you’re making a romantic speech? Do you have any idea what you just handed Father? What you just handed every Alpha sitting at that table who is already calculating how unstable this house looks?"

Dexter’s pulse hammered visibly at his throat. He never thought he’d experience that feeling, but for the first time ever, he was afraid. He shoved again, uselessly.

"Get off me—"

"Answer the question." Kai’s forearm pressed harder. "Why are you acting like you cannot think straight? You’ve been stepping out of line lately, but this—" he gestured sharply toward the closed council doors "—this is open defiance in front of witnesses. Are you trying to force Father’s hand? Are you trying to get that omega killed after all?"

Something hot and long-suppressed flared in Dexter’s eyes.

"You’re the one who can’t think," he shot back, voice rising. "You’re the one who sits there smiling while they push you around. You follow every order, every political convenience, every ’for the good of the pack’ script they hand you without ever asking whether the script is worth the cost. Isn’t it exhausting? Trying to be perfect all the time?"

Kai felt his rage boil over. Was this what his brothers really thought of him? Of course it seemed that way to them, they wouldn’t get it.

"You know nothing." The words came out nearly as a snarl. "Everything I have done, every alliance I have held together with my bare hands, every time I swallowed what I wanted so that peace would prevail and you and Aaron still had a house left to fight inside of, has been for this family. For the pack. I will not risk all of it because the moon decided to play a joke on three heirs and a slave. I will not watch this territory fracture because you decided your pride and your claim matter more than the lives that depend on stability."

Dexter laughed, the sound was sharp, disbelieving, almost wild.

"This isn’t about the omega," he said. "This is about being pushed. About being told where to stand, what to claim, who to mate, how much of yourself you’re allowed to keep. You think I walked out of that hall for romance? I walked out because I am tired of being moved around the board like the spare piece that still has some political value left to squeeze."

Kai’s forearm flexed. For a moment the pressure bordered on dangerous.

"You don’t understand anything," he said, quieter now, and somehow more cutting. "You’re young. You’re naïve. You still think defiance is the same thing as freedom. You think walking out of a room changes the shape of the cage. It doesn’t. It only makes the next set of bars tighter for everyone."

Dexter’s voice dropped to match his, raw and shaking with more than just the physical restraint.

"You’re the naïve one," he said. "You’re so busy living the life Father planned, the life the northern packs expect, that you can’t see you’re never going to be free. You’re going to spend the rest of your life being the perfect first heir, marrying the correct Luna, smiling at the correct tables, and calling it duty while the parts of you that still want something else slowly go quiet. At least when I drown, I’ll know I chose the water."

There was a brief silence after Dexter finished his sentence. Kai stared at his youngest brother. and for a moment he genuinely felt like letting himself go and punching the boy square in the face.

That was when Aaron appeared at the far end of the corridor.

The second prince took in the scene in a single glance, and just like Dexter, he was filled with utter shock. Was that really Kai pinning their youngest brother to the wall? This was a sight Aaron never imagined he’d ever witness.

He stopped dead in his tracks, trying to understand what could have possibly led to this outcome.

Sensing Aaron’s presence, Kai’s head turned. He glared at the second son with a stare that wasn’t exactly friendly, before finally regaining his usual composure.

The pressure of his forearm eased. Then it lifted entirely. He stepped back from Dexter in one controlled movement, straightened his sleeves, and basically just acted like he wasn’t a second away from punching his younger brother.

Dexter remained against the wall for a second longer, breathing hard, the imprint of Kai’s hold still ghosted across his collarbone.

Kai adjusted his cuff with hands that were not entirely steady. When he spoke, the courtly calm had returned, but it sat wrong on him, like a coat pulled on over open wounds.

"This conversation is finished."

He turned and walked toward the junction, past Aaron, close enough that their shoulders nearly brushed. He did not look at either brother again..

Aaron stared at the empty corridor, then at Dexter who was equally just recovering.

"What the hell did I just walk into?"

Dexter didn’t answer immediately, not because he wanted to, but because he too was trying to find how to describe what had just happened. In a way he felt happy, accomplished even. It was nice to know that under all that perfect mask, the real Kai was still alive.

After a minute stretch of silence, Dexter finally decided to give an answer that he was confident in.

"I don’t know, I honestly do not know.."