Todos los capítulos de THE LYCAN KING'S STAR MAID: Capítulo 11 - Capítulo 20

POV: KiraI feel his eyes on me before I see them.It happens in the quiet stretch of late morning, while I am folding the fresh linens he requested for the outer chamber. The air in the private wing is still and heavy, the kind of stillness that makes every small sound feel too loud. My hands move automatically—corner to corner, crease to crease—until the weight of his attention settles across my shoulders like a physical thing I cannot shrug away.I do not look up right away.I have learned that looking too quickly gives too much away,.When I finally lift my gaze, Stefan is standing in the doorway of the study, one shoulder resting against the frame, arms loosely crossed. He is not speaking. He is simply watching. The golden eyes that once flashed at me in the dark of a cave are steady now, unblinking, fixed on the simple work of my hands as if the way I fold cloth might hold some answer he has been searching for.My fingers tighten on the linen.“My lord,” I say, keeping my voice

POV: KiraThe request comes in the late afternoon, when the light in the study has turned the color of old honey and the air inside the private wing feels heavier than usual.“Kira.”I look up from the correspondence I have been copying. Stefan is seated behind his desk, but the papers are pushed aside into an untidy stack he has clearly abandoned. One hand rests against his left shoulder, fingers pressing lightly through the dark fabric of his shirt as if testing something that still pulls and aches beneath the skin.“Yes, my lord?”“The scar is tight today.” His voice is even, almost detached, but I hear the undercurrent of discomfort he is choosing not to name out loud. “I need it checked.”I set the pen down carefully, aligning it with the edge of the paper though my thoughts are already nowhere near the work in front of me. The last time I bound that wound was years ago, in the dark of a cold cave, with torn cloth and badly shaking hands. The last time I touched it inside these w

POV: StefanSleep has become a negotiation I keep losing, night after night, with increasing predictability.I stand at the window of the study long after the household has gone quiet, watching the dark line of the outer walls and the faint glow of torches along the battlements. The confrontation in the corridor replays itself without mercy or variation. Veron’s posture. The way he leaned toward her. The particular smile he wore when he looked at her as if measuring something he already intended to take.I should have broken something of his in that moment.The thought is not useful, but it returns with every circuit my mind makes around the memory. He approached her in a public passage without shame, spoke to her as if she belonged to the general inventory of the palace, and watched for a reaction with the patience of someone who already suspected he would find one worth using. I saw the moment her shoulders tightened under his attention. I saw the careful blankness she forced over he

POV: KiraThe truth changes the air between us before it changes anything else in the palace.By midday the private wing feels altered in ways that have nothing to do with new guards or closed doors. Stefan does not look at me the same way he did even yesterday. The careful distance he once maintained—king to maid, authority to subordinate—has thinned into something rawer and far less defined. When our eyes meet across the study, there is no longer the question of whether I am the girl from the cave. There is only the fact of it, heavy and fully shared between us.I spend the morning at the smaller desk copying the replies he dictates in that low, precise voice. His tone remains steady. Mine is quieter than usual, as if the truth spoken the day before has taken some of the volume from my words. Every so often I feel the weight of his attention settle on me and know he is no longer searching for recognition or confirmation. He is simply looking at the person who once kept him alive on

POV: KiraThe adjoining chamber is larger than the small room I left behind only hours ago, with better light and cleaner lines, but the walls feel closer in a way that has nothing to do with their actual measurements or the space between them.I stand in the center of it after the attendants have finished their quiet work and gone, studying the space that is now mine by the king’s direct and non-negotiable order. A proper bed with clean linens already turned down. A small hearth already laid with dry wood for the night. A narrow connecting door that leads directly to the study corridor and, beyond it, to Stefan’s own private rooms. The two guards remain outside the main entrance without being told to leave or relax their attention. Their presence is constant and deliberate, a quiet but unmistakable reminder that the protection he has placed around me is no longer subtle or easily overlooked by anyone in the household.I unpack the few belongings I own with the same careful, methodica