Chapter 107

Chapter 107
Violet's POV:

My deep gray wolf stood opposite Evan's gray-brown form, silver-touched fur rippling with barely contained violence.

The overhead speakers crackled to life: "Final boarding call for Flight 847 to Northern Summit."

Daemon's transformation happened in a heartbeat—his massive black wolf Onyx materialized between us with earth-shaking force, red eyes fixed on Evan with predatory focus.

Evan's wolf held Onyx's stare for perhaps ten seconds. His golden eyes weren't filled with battle-lust but rather the dull gleam of a cornered animal who understood the futility of resistance. Fear and resignation warred across his lupine features as his body began to tremble. His head lowered slowly, ears flattening against his skull in ultimate surrender, and the light in his eyes shifted to something that looked disturbingly like relief—as though some part of him welcomed this forced end to his revenge fantasy.

The shift rippled through Evan's form in reverse, gray-brown fur receding to reveal bare human skin. He collapsed to his knees on the cold airport floor, hands splayed flat against the ground, every line of his body screaming defeat.

I felt Ember's consciousness retreat as the immediate threat dissolved. The shift back to human form took only seconds. Felix stepped forward with a coat and I wrapped it around myself, watching as Daemon shifted back to human form, his transformation leaving him standing bare-chested.

Lily and Jade both shifted back, accepting coats from airport staff. Against the wall, Celeste remained slumped where Onyx's attack had thrown her, blood seeping from multiple wounds, her broken arm hanging at a grotesque angle. Despite the agony wracking her small frame, her baby-blue eyes remained fixed on Evan with unhinged desperation.

The silence stretched for perhaps five seconds before Celeste's voice shattered it like breaking glass.

"Evan!" The shriek that tore from her throat was raw, feral. "You coward! You pathetic, useless coward!" She tried to push herself upright but could only prop herself against the wall, trembling with effort and fury. "After everything we planned, you're just giving up?! You promised me! You said we'd make them pay! You're letting that bitch win! Aurora would be ashamed of you! If you had just killed her when you had the chance—"

"Shut up!" Evan's roar cut through her tirade. He surged to his feet with unexpected violence, his entire body shaking with rage. "SHUT UP! If you hadn't spilled everything like a complete idiot, we wouldn't be in this mess! We could have kept lying! We could have kept going! But YOU—you just HAD to brag, HAD to gloat!"

Celeste's expression twisted. "I did it for US! For our plan! To make them suffer—"

"You stupid woman!" The words exploded from Evan's mouth with venom. His eyes began to glow with golden light, his wolf rising dangerously close to the surface. "You don't deserve Aurora's heart! You've tainted everything she stood for!" His voice broke completely.

The silence that followed was deafening. Then Evan's eyes began to burn brighter, the gold intensifying until it was almost painful to look at.

The transformation was explosive, violent. Evan's human form shattered into his wolf in less than two seconds, gray-brown fur erupting across rapidly expanding muscle. His wolf launched himself forward with a roar that shook the windows, massive paws thundering against the floor, golden eyes locked onto Celeste with murderous intent.

Celeste saw the massive form hurtling toward her and her eyes went wide with pure terror. She threw herself down and sideways, curling into as tight a ball as her injuries would allow.

But Evan wasn't thinking clearly, wasn't calculating angles. When Celeste's body suddenly dropped below his expected line of impact, he had no time to adjust.

The collision was sickening.

Evan's skull connected with the wall's concrete support beam with a sound like a gunshot, a wet crack that echoed through the VIP lounge. Blood sprayed across the pale wall. The structural beam was reinforced steel—it didn't give, didn't bend. Evan's body crumpled like a puppet with cut strings, his enormous weight dropping straight down onto Celeste's huddled form. The sound that emerged from her throat was inhuman, a shriek of agony, before it cut off abruptly as blood fountained from her mouth.

For a moment, the only sound was Celeste's wet, gurgling attempts to breathe. Then Ruby's scream split the air.

"No! NO! Mason! Celeste!" She scrambled forward. "Somebody help! Please!"

Mason Morrison stood frozen perhaps ten feet away, his face gone waxy pale, one hand pressed against his chest. His daughter lay pinned beneath a massive corpse, drowning in her own blood.

"Celeste..." The name emerged as barely a whisper, and then Mason's legs simply gave out. He dropped like a felled tree, his body hitting the marble floor with a dull thud. His eyes rolled back, foam gathering at the corners of his mouth, and his chest went still.

"Mason! MASON!" Ruby abandoned Celeste and threw herself toward her husband, pressing her ear to his chest. "No, no, no, please God, no—"

Ruby's wail of grief was primal, the sound of a mother and wife who'd just watched her entire world collapse. She clutched Mason's body to her chest, rocking back and forth.

I stood there frozen, my mind struggling to process the carnage that had unfolded in less than a minute.

Daemon's voice cut through the chaos, cold and authoritative. "Felix, check Morrison. Lucian, call the Council. This needs to be documented as accidental death during internal conflict."

Felix moved to help the doctor, while Lucian pulled out his phone and stepped away. Sienna pressed closer to her mate, deliberately turning her face away from the blood.

Ruby looked up at Daemon, her face streaked with tears and mascara. "Alpha Blackwood, please! My daughter—she's dying! Please help her!"

Daemon's expression didn't change. "Do what you can," he said to the doctor, his tone making it clear he expected nothing. "But don't expect miracles."

Then he turned to Lucian. "Evan Thorne attacked a pack member in rage and died due to his own recklessness. Mason Morrison died of pre-existing heart condition triggered by stress. Document it."

It was cold, calculated, and completely in line with wolf law. No one would be held responsible.

Ruby's sob was broken, defeated. "Please... please save my daughter..."

But Daemon had already turned away, his blood-red eyes finding me across the room.

He crossed the space between us in three long strides and scooped me up in his arms, one hand beneath my knees and the other supporting my back.

"Put me down," I said coldly, my body going rigid in his hold. "I can walk."

"Don't argue." His voice was low, brooking no disagreement. "I'm taking you to the clinic." His arms tightened around me as I tried to twist free.

"I'm fine—"

"You're not fine. Handle the rest," he told Lucian over his shoulder. "I'll contact the Council later."

"Daemon—" I started to protest again, but he was already striding toward the door with me cradled against his chest like I weighed nothing.

Sienna called after us, "Vi, should I—"

"Give them space," I heard Lucian say quietly. "Daemon won't hurt her."

---

The clinic was mercifully empty when we arrived, just a receptionist who took one look at Daemon's bare chest and my disheveled state and immediately buzzed us through to a private examination room. Daemon set me down on the padded table with unexpected gentleness.

"I'll get the doctor," the receptionist said.

She scurried away, leaving us alone in the sterile white room. I pulled the borrowed coat tighter around myself, suddenly aware that I was wearing nothing but torn fabric beneath it, and Daemon was still shirtless, his bronzed skin marked with faint red lines where Celeste's wolf had managed to rake him during their brief struggle.

The silence stretched between us, heavy with everything that had just happened and everything that remained unspoken. I watched him standing there, his powerful frame tense despite the casual way he'd propped himself against the counter, his blood-red eyes never leaving my face.

Finally, a doctor entered—young, female, professional. She took one look at us and her expression became carefully neutral. "Luna—" She caught herself. "Ms. Goldcrest. Let me examine you."

She checked me over with efficient thoroughness, paying particular attention to my neck where Evan's scalpel had drawn a thin line of blood. The wound had already begun to close thanks to wolf healing, but she cleaned and dressed it anyway, murmuring about infection risks and proper care.

Daemon watched every moment of the examination with predatory focus, his body coiling tighter each time I winced at the antiseptic's sting.

"She'll be fine," the doctor said, stepping back. "The neck wound is superficial and should heal completely within a few days. Just keep it clean and dry." She looked between us, clearly sensing the tension. "I'll give you some privacy."

The door clicked shut behind her. Daemon and I stared at each other across the small room.

He opened his mouth as though to speak, then closed it again.

I slid off the examination table, standing on my own two feet even though my legs felt shaky. "I'm going home," I said quietly. "To rest."

"Violet." My name emerged rough, almost hoarse. "Wait."

I paused with my hand on the door handle, not turning around. "What?"

"I know I have no right to ask this, but..." He trailed off, and I heard him take a breath. "Can you stop being so distant?"

The laugh that escaped me was sharp, bitter. I turned to face him, letting him see the ice in my amber-gold eyes. "So what do you expect from me, Daemon? Should I act like before? Pretend nothing happened and go back to being your loyal little dog, wagging my tail and waiting for scraps of your attention?"

His body went rigid, his jaw clenching as my words landed like physical blows."That's not—"

"That's exactly what it was," I cut him off, my voice deadly calm. "For five years, that's exactly what I was. And you know what the worst part is? I did it to myself because I was so desperate for you to love me that I forgot how to be anything else."

"I can compensate you." His voice was low, urgent. "Whatever you want, I'll do it. I apologize for all the mistakes I made." His blood-red eyes held something I'd never seen before—genuine remorse, raw and unguarded.

The sound that came out of me was half laugh, half sob. "If apologies worked, we wouldn't need the police, would we?" I stepped closer to him. "Not all wounds can be healed with a simple 'I'm sorry', Daemon. My child is never coming back. Never."

The last word came out strangled, and I hated myself for the tears that burned behind my eyes.

"I want you to stay away from me." I forced the words out, each one sharp and clear. "Can you do that?"

"No." The answer was immediate, certain, almost defiant. "I can't."

He moved closer, closing the distance I'd tried to maintain. "I've tried, Violet. These past weeks, I tried to stay away, tried to convince myself I was doing the right thing by giving you space. But I can't. I just... can't."

"Daemon, don't forget—it was always YOU who pushed me away. YOU who destroyed my feelings for you." My voice rose despite my efforts to control it. "What's the point of saying this now?" I paused, letting bitter amusement color my next words. "You don't actually think that just because Celeste is gone, all the damage between us magically disappears, do you? Don't tell me you've actually fallen in love with me now."

The silence that followed felt like standing on the edge of a precipice. I expected him to deny it, to deflect, to retreat behind the walls he'd maintained for so long.

Instead, Daemon held my gaze and said, clearly and without hesitation: "Yes. I think I really have fallen in love with you."

My breath caught.

"I admit it," he continued, his voice rougher now. "I was blind before. I was so trapped in the past, in guilt, in... ghosts, that I couldn't see what was right in front of me. But now I see you, Violet. The real you." He took another step closer, and I found myself backed against the examination table. "I see your strength, your resilience, how you've grown from someone who tried so hard to please everyone into someone who knows her own worth. I see how you stood up to me, how you fought back, how you refused to be broken. And I... I'm in awe of you."

His hand rose slowly, carefully, giving me time to pull away. When I didn't move, his fingers ghosted along my jawline with a tenderness I'd never felt from him before. "So yes, I've fallen for you. And I'm asking—no, begging—will you give me a chance to prove it? Let me court you properly this time. Let me chase you the way I should have from the beginning."

Deep in my consciousness, Ember stirred with lazy amusement. "Well, well, well... looks like it's our turn to play hard to get now."

"You're right," I responded silently. "If he wants another chance, he'll have to earn it. And it won't be easy."

I didn't say yes. I didn't say no. I simply let the moment stretch between us before finally speaking in a voice that gave away nothing: "I'm not the same Violet who would accept crumbs anymore."

Then I turned and walked toward the door, each step deliberate and unhurried.

"Violet." His voice stopped me just as my hand touched the handle. When I glanced back over my shoulder, I found him watching me with an expression I couldn't quite read—something between hope and hunger and carefully restrained need. "Then make me work for it. Set your terms, make your demands—I'll meet every single one. However long it takes, whatever it costs, I'm not giving up on you."