Defying the Lycan King-Chapter 47: Somnara Bloom

"Tell me you found something worth my time," Derek said, his voice gravelly as he strode into his study, exhaustion weighing heavily on his shoulders.

The room was already crowded. His Beta, Declan, stood near the desk with Kai and Connor. A fourth man, shadowed and silent, waited in the corner.

Derek was bone-tired. He had spent the entire day at one of his flagship energy dams after engineers reported "suspicious activity" on-site. He had been trekking through mud and machinery all day, only making it back to the palace as the sun began to dip. Earlier that morning, after Kira had refused to speak further on the matter, he had sent Declan to Aethelwulf to dig for information.

Declan stepped forward, holding a plain envelope. His expression was grim. Just like Derek promised Kira, he was getting to the root of her claims.

"I’m afraid the Queen was telling the truth."

Derek’s hand hovered over the envelope, before he tore it open. The sound of ripping paper was loud in the quiet room.

"She was admitted to a human clinic in Aethelwulf. Her friend checked her in using her maiden name instead of her married one. That’s why we never received any alerts from the hospitals."

Derek sank into his leather chair, his eyes scanning the medical report. The human doctor had listed an "unknown substance" in her system, but the breakdown of the toxins all pointed clearly to Somnara Bloom. It was a rare flower with a sweet, floral scent and a soothing effect that induced a long, deep sleep in small doses. In excess, however, it caused dizziness, violent nausea, and eventually heart shutdown if not treated quickly.

Derek let out a slow, heavy sigh. Only Lycans truly knew this flower and its dangerous properties. Kira hadn’t been lying after all. That night, when she had tried so desperately to explain herself, her confusion and inability to articulate had been the lingering effects of the poison.

"That’s not all," Connor said softly.

Derek looked up at him, still simmering with anger. He was furious with Connor for letting Kira slip away from the palace the day before and had been seriously considering suspending the gamma for a while.

"You know me, Your Grace," Connor continued, shifting his weight. "I don’t oversleep, not even when I’m drunk. But how convenient was it that I overslept and felt like absolute shit when I woke up? You wouldn’t speak to me, so I didn’t bring it up then."

""And," Kai added, stepping forward and placing a tablet on the desk. "I managed to bypass the encryption on her phone. The data is messy, but the text logs are clear. She was telling the truth about the SOS from her friend. And as for the timing of the ceremony..." Kai paused, a cynical smirk playing on his lips. "Ruby sent her the wrong time. The log shows four o’clock, plain as day."

Derek’s eyes narrowed dangerously. "So Ruby sent her the wrong time indeed?"

Kai nodded, a faint smirk tugging at his lips. "Not exactly surprising, is it?"

Derek shot him a sharp look but said nothing. He simply stared at the screen in front of him, jaw tight. "We can’t jump to conclusions yet," Declan said carefully. "We need solid evidence before we accuse anyone."

""What about the maid who served her the tea?" Derek asked. "Has anyone found anything on her?"

All three men shook their heads.

Derek pushed the tablet away, rose to his feet, and walked over to the tall window overlooking the palace grounds. The late afternoon light cast long shadows across the lawns. "I will deal with Ruby for this," he said, his voice low and cold. "No one rests until we find out exactly who dared to poison the queen."

"Yes, Your Grace," they replied in unison.

"Right then," Kai said, turning his attention away from the desk. He looked toward the man who had been standing silently in the shadows of the corner. "What have you got for us?"

The investigator stepped forward, placing a thick manila envelope on the polished oak table. Kai flicked a glance towards Derek.

"Report," Derek said curtly, not turning from the window. His gaze remained fixed somewhere beyond the glass, distant and distracted by something else.

The investigator cleared his throat. "I still couldn’t dig up a thing on the Queen’s mother, Your Grace. No one will speak her name. Every line of enquiry ends in the same wall. Nothing in the pack archives, nothing in the libraries, not a single written record that mentions her. It’s as though she never existed."

Derek didn’t move. He hadn’t eased up on the investigation into Rolf Thornclaw and his first Luna since they returned from Moonfang. He couldn’t shake the feeling that the Moonfang Alpha was hiding something substantial. He had personally gone through every scrap of correspondence between Rolf and his own father from years earlier, every meeting note, every treaty draft. Not once did the name of Rolf’s first mate appear. Only the current Luna and her daughter were ever referenced.

He had made certain Kira never suspected he was digging. Better she believed he had no interest in her past. After all, he wasn’t about to make the rookie mistake of trusting a werewolf.

"But I did find something rather... interesting," the man continued, voice careful. "Some years back, there was a fire at the old Moonfang pack house in the middle of the night. Burned the entire building to ash. Every soul inside perished... except for the Queen."

Derek turned then, his brows knitting together. "Everyone?"

"Alpha Rolf, Luna Lydia, and the younger daughter—Chloe—were away on a trip when it happened. They returned to ruins. They found the Queen by the pool, completely unscathed."

Derek lowered himself back into his chair and accepted the photographs the man slid across the table. They showed the charred, skeletal remains of a once-grand estate.

"This incident was never entered into any official pack history," the investigator said. "My source believes Rolf deliberately suppressed it. The theory among the few who still whisper about it... is that the Alpha wanted to cover up that it was Queen Kira who started the fire."

Derek’s eyes lifted. "How old was she when this happened?"

"Eight."

Kai let out a low whistle and shook his head. "Eight years old? Come on. No child that age sets fire to an entire pack house and walks away untouched. Something doesn’t add up."

Derek’s thumb brushed the edge of one photograph. "What about the mother’s family?"

"Her parents were long dead. The rest of her bloodline was inside that building when it burned."

"So," Derek mused, "the only thing anyone ’knows’ about this Luna is that she cheated on Rolf?"

The man nodded once.

Kai leaned forward. "And Lydia? Did you look into her?"

"Yes. She appeared at the Moonfang borders almost dead, years ago. She had been attacked by rogues and barely survived. They took her in, and she worked as a servant in the packhouse for a short time before she eventually became Luna." 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Derek’s fingers began a slow rhythm against the desk. Tap. Tap. Tap. "Hmm," he murmured. "Interesting."