Chapter 6

Perrin

“Really?” I grabbed Kira by the arm and swung her around in the hallway. “REALLY?”

“Like I said. Total man candy.”

I closed my eyes, breathing hard. “Kira, this isn’t some type of joke.”

“I don’t take it as one. My sex life is serious business and–”

“BOUNDARIES!” I said, my own voice slightly choked. 

She slapped a hand on my back. “Perrin, I know you keep saying that, but how am I supposed to be your Beta and you my Alpha if you don’t know what’s on my mind?”

I sighed, mulling over my options. Maybe Mark. Or Cynthia? Definitely Cynthia.

“What’s eating at you?”

“The fact that I want you to be taken seriously!” I said, not bothering to keep the annoyance from my voice. “You made yourself look like a fool in there.”

Her mouth opened as if to object, but wisely, she shut it. Finally, at least one exhibition of Beta-like behavior.

“I want you to be taken seriously, Kira,” I went on, pacing back and forth in the hallway. “People knew Ethan. They don’t know as much about you.”

“And whose fault is that?” She snapped, nearly in a snarl. “Your step-mother’s? She’s got a pretty good handle on the papers if I’m not mistaken. But my name never made it into the papers, did it? On the contrary, right? I was always the one in trouble.”

I sighed. She wasn’t making this easy.

“Kira, that’s not the point. I want the pack to get to know you and respect you. But when you act like some thirsty teenager, you don’t help your case.”

“You think I’m thirsty?”

I winced. Poor choice of words. “I meant–”

“I’m always thirsty, Perrin.” She crossed her arms, her eyes glittering with emotion. 

“As in, I want a damn drink. Every single day. Excuse me for getting excited about something else in my life for once.”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

“It’s not? That just because you’re all mated up and my brother’s all mated up that a girl can’t think about getting some around here?”

I had no idea how to respond to that. Where was this coming from? Was Kira actually jealous? If that was the case, pointing it out won’t likely help.

“How was your meeting?” I asked, trying to redirect. She wasn’t buying it.

“I’m sorry if I embarrassed you,” she snorted, not meaning it in the slightest. “But some of us don’t have our lives lined up and are still trying to figure it out.”

“Kira,” I said gently. “I’m sorry–”

“Just don’t, ok?” She held up a hand, and to my own surprise, I fell silent. She sighed. “My meeting was fine.”

“Are they going, uh… are you making progress?” I asked awkwardly. We hadn’t really talked about the content of her meetings. I was just glad that progress was progress. 

“They’re fine. At least I can go to a meeting and not have to worry about being stuck in here all day.”

“What do you mean?”

“But it was either get stuck in here like some prison like you’ve done with the mother of your child or sober up. I didn’t really think I had a choice.”

The barb wasn’t lost on me. “You’re not a prisoner.”

“And what is Jesamine?”

My jaw dropped. “I thought you hated her!”

“I didn’t say that I don’t. But I didn’t think I’d be sympathizing with her so soon.”

“Sympathize?” I was baffled. “What does Jesamine have to do with you? With any of this?”

“Trying to fit a square peg into a round hole isn’t always the answer, Perrin.”

I stared at her, trying to figure out the hell she was talking about. “What is this about?”

“Nothing,” she said, her arms falling to her sides. She put a hand to her forehead then drew it down your face. “Forget about it. I’ll fall in line, ok?”

I wasn’t sure that was an answer I wanted to hear, but chose to let it go. Kira and I never argued. It was like Ethan and I argued. Alien territory and I didn’t like it one bit. Fortunately, she didn’t seem to, either. “So, why are you still here?” she asked, extending an olive branch. 

“I have one more stop to make,” I said. 

“Here?” I nodded. “To who?” 

I glanced at my watch. I only had about an hour before my video chat with Lo, and I wasn’t going to miss it. “Gowan.”

Kira’s body language changed abruptly. “Oh.” Her voice was flat now.

“Do you want to join me?”

Her eyes shifted to the floor. “No, not really.”

“Now would be a good time for you to over-share, Kira.”

She put her hands in her pockets and stared at her shoes. “I can’t think he’s taken too kindly to what I did to him.”

“You mean what Justin did to him?”

She didn’t answer at first, then looked at me, her face hard. “I know that my life had to be saved and everything. But I certainly didn’t ask to be this way.” She gestured at her contacts. “It’s a blessing to be alive, sure. But the cravings don’t get any easier. My cravings–Ethan’s temper, Justin’s entire existence. It’s terrible.”

“But you didn’t do that to him, Kira. That was Nael’s fault.”

“Yea, but I went hard on him, Perrin. When he was messed up in a bad way. It’s not right.”

“You were competing!” I replied, unaware that she had seen her actions that way. “What choice did you have?”

She looked back at the floor, as if about to say that she had a choice. Instead, she muttered “I just don’t think he was in the right headspace, that’s all.”

“Of course he wasn’t in the right headspace,” I said gently, trying to console whatever guilt she was harboring. “He was drugged and had just gone through some type of transformation. That’s not your fault.”

She didn’t respond.

“Kira?”

“Mm?”

“Do you regret doing what you did?”

Her had snapped up. “Which part?”

Which part? Goddess, wasn’t it obvious? I chose my words carefully. “Either part?”

“Standing in for my brother? No.” I felt relieved but tried not to show it. I waited for her to continue.

“Beating Gowan? Not really. But I don’t like the way I did it.” She had made that clear, and while I think she had done what she thought she had to do, it clearly troubled her. And I couldn’t quite figure out why. I wasn’t sure how to respond, and before I could think of an answer, she offered me a third part, one I hadn’t even considered.

“As for becoming your Beta? Well. I honestly never really thought about winning when I took Ethan’s place.”

My whole body went rigid. “What are you saying, Kira?”

She looked up at me once more, her face contorted with feeling. I couldn’t read her, this suddenly adult, version of her. It wasn’t anything like the girl in Thomas’ room. Or the one I had grown up with.

“I don’t regret becoming your Beta, Perrin. I’m proud to carry on my father’s legacy. It’s just that I never dreamed of this. This was all Ethan’s dream. And I feel like sometimes I’m this terrible stand-in. Like some type of fraud.”

“I’m sorry if I’ve made you feel that way,” I said, mortified. Had I gone too hard on her about Thomas?

“I can take most of your shit,” she said, waving off my apology. “And I know we’ll get there. This type of thing doesn’t happen overnight. Well, I mean, it did. But that’s not what I’m saying.”

She cut off, annoyed that she couldn’t find the words. I waited in silence. “You’ve always been there for me, especially with my uh, my little consumption problem.” She tread lightly on the words. “Sorry, by the way, for the prison analogy.”

“No need to apologize.” I said, waving off her apology to me in turn.

She gave me a small, grateful smile. “And going on runs at the start of my sobriety probably saved me more than you realize. I’ll be forever thankful for that. But listening to you talk on those runs; about Jack and Lo and confiding in me? I think maybe somehow deep down I had a feeling it was going to be me and not Ethan up there after all.”

I felt my eyebrows rise. I hadn’t seen any of that coming. 

She sighed, as if suddenly exhausted. “I just need time to adapt to the fact that this is my life now. It’s been a long few months and it’s all just a lot to handle, ok?”

I froze, rooted to the spot. The last few months had been a lot for all of us.

“So I’m going to respectfully request the rest of the day off from Beta Training.” And without another word, she pulled her motorcycle keys from her pocket, gave me that awkward salute of hers, and departed towards the lobby. 

I stared at her, stunned. Sometimes Kira could be such a teenager, girlish and immature to the point where it drove me crazy. And then in other moments, I realized how truly strong she was. Not because of one thing or another, but because of all of it. Kira was a recovering alcoholic raised in a household with an absent mother. She had been on a trajectory to become Luna of a rival pack until the the love of her life mated with her brother. On top of it, she nearly drank herself to death, was saved by a suspect medical procedure and her mother–to everyone’s surprise– and woke up a completely different person. And after that, she was now forced to hide herself, even when thrust into the public spotlight now as my right-hand man. Woman, I corrected.

And I was the one who had requested that she live in a disguise. I was disgusted with myself. 

“KIRA!” I called after her.

She turned, her hand on the double doors, waiting.

“Let’s talk about your contacts later,” I said. “It’s time the pack gets to know the real you.”

She froze, her hands poised on the door handles. And then her face lit up. 

I could see her smile from thirty feet away, beaming. It was genuine, like one piece of her suddenly relaxed–loosened, unraveled from the complexity that was her life. I felt the knot in my own stomach release somewhat. Kira was who she was. And I needed to learn to respect that, not try to control it. Showing the pack who she was, and not being afraid of that, was the right path forward. I wasn’t sure what narrative we’d use to explain, but I didn’t want to stray too far from the truth. 

“You mean it?” She called, her excitement bouncing off the hallway like her newfound explosion of emotion.

“Yes,” I said. “We’ll talk about it later.”

She waved and pushed the doors, the sudden bounce in her step visible from down the hall.