Chapter 18 18
Damien POV
“The Darkvale Alpha has refused my request for communication.” The words leave me in a low growl as I relay the update to Geneviève. I’m not surprised. Lucas wouldn’t have moved without my permission because I explicitly ordered him never to share anything with her. I told myself it was to keep her from carrying too much…but maybe that was just the excuse I fed both myself and my wolf.
“Unbelievable. The audacity.” Geneviève’s snarl slices through the room. “He thinks he can ignore you? Fine. Let’s hit him where it’ll actually hurt.” She storms out of my office, the door slamming so hard behind her that the frame trembles.
“Dismissed,” I say to Lucas, even though I know he still has more to report. I can’t stomach another word right now. I need the quiet to think to breathe.
Who the hell is this so-called Alpha of Darkvale? The Alpha bloodline was wiped out in that fire. Everyone knew it. No one survived. So how did someone suddenly claim a dead pack?
Was it a head warrior clawing his way into the vacant position? Impossible. I remember the ruins clearly the charred skeleton of the Alpha house, every corner reduced to cinder and ash. Nothing alive could have walked out of that inferno.
Back then, after Aurélie walked away from the pack and shattered us both, I had let my wolf take over. His rage had been too vicious, too consuming, and I let him burn through everything in his path.
“You don’t actually believe she’s gone,” my wolf whispers now, his guilt bleeding into mine.
“I do,” I snap. “No one survived that fire. Especially not Aurélie.”
I remember regaining control only when he saw the flames devouring the house, the twisted bodies inside. After that…everything was smoke and silence.
“How could you be so” he starts, low and furious.
“What? Cold? Honest?” I bite out. “Don’t forget you were just as furious when we discovered she’d been with Fabrice. Maybe if you searched your own damn memories, you’d understand why your guilt still claws at you.”
“What are you implying?” he growls.
“I’m not doing this again.” My voice is sharp enough to cut. “Four years have passed. She’s gone. Her parents are gone. What matters now is figuring out who this new Alpha is and why he’s building an alliance against us.”
I yank open my desk drawer, pull out a cigarette, and light it. The first inhale burns warmly down my lungs an old, toxic comfort I keep swearing off and crawling back to whenever stress tightens its grip around my throat.
When the cigarette burns down to its end, I crush it against the desk and drop it into my cold, empty coffee cup. My wolf remains close, hovering, refusing to give me the distance I want. We can’t keep circling this argument not after four years. It’s tearing us apart. We’re supposed to be one.
His longing for Aurélie isn’t love it’s unfinished business. We never got the chance to reject her, to sever that bond cleanly. And now she’s dead. Which makes me…a widower in all but ceremony.
A loud crash erupts from the kitchen, dragging me from my thoughts.
“What the hell is this?” Geneviève’s scream rips through the halls, directed at poor Denise.
Fantastic. Just what I need. I sigh, rubbing my temples.
Élodie left about two years ago, and since then, no one has stepped up to fill her place. I suspect the females in the pack can’t stand Geneviève, which makes recruiting impossible. Élodie had been over the moon when she found her mate I’d even offered him a role here. But he was the beta of the Saint Wolf Pack; he had his own duties to uphold.
At least that alliance remains strong. It’s one pack I can trust not to fall into Darkvale’s orbit.
“Fix this. Now,” Geneviève hisses through clenched teeth.