Chapter 237 237
Maurice POV
“Are you reporting this?” I ask, turning sharply to the guard who’d been mind-linking Damien the entire time.
“Yes, Alpha.”
Of course he was.
“So… she had no one?” I continue. “No one who came looking for her when her mother died?”
The rogue sneers, lifting his head just enough to look at me. “What do you think wiping records means?”
I exhale slowly. I don’t smoke but hell, I finally understand why Damien struggles to quit.
I find him outside the cell facility, a cigarette burning between his fingers. For a second, I wonder if he came back to keep an eye on me. To make sure I didn’t cross a line and kill the bastard.
“Well?” he asks.
“Well what?” I counter. “I assume your men told you everything he told me.”
Damien nods, then flicks the cigarette to the ground and crushes it beneath his boot. “So she’s dead. Or… dead on paper.”
“Yes.” I rake a hand through my hair. “That would explain why there’s no trace of her anywhere.”
Fuck.
The poor kid. Reduced to nothing. Used for her money and erased like she never mattered.
We walk back to the Alpha house together. The moment we step inside, I spot Bee pacing the hallway like a caged animal. Restless. Cornered.
Aurélie stands nearby, watching her carefully too carefully. Like she’s bracing for Bee to lash out at any moment. Aurélie’s Alpha aura hangs heavy in the air, sharp and unyielding. If anything, it’s making things worse.
“Bee?” I step toward her slowly.
She’s biting her nails as she paces, eyes darting, nerves fraying right in front of me.
“We need to show you something.” I extend my hand.
To my surprise, she takes it.
The moment her fingers touch mine, a sharp spark runs up my arm, tingles dancing across my palm. My wolf surges instantly, possessive and alert.
Mine, he growls.
We lead her into Damien’s office and sit her down, spreading the files out in front of her.
She goes quiet as we show her everything.
Photos of the shipping container where Aurélie and the children were held captive.
Images of Damien in the medical center after he’d been shot.
Pictures of the Darkvale pack burned. Destroyed. Reduced to ash.
Aurélie doesn’t stop there.
She tells Bee about finding her parents’ bodies. About Geneviève kidnapping Dominique. And then cold, brutal truth she explains exactly what kind of monster Geneviève is.
How she dragged Aurélie down the stairs while she was pregnant.
Just so she could become Luna.
How Geneviève murdered her own mate. Her own pack.
With Stéphane’s help.
“Gaston wanted to mate with me too,” Aurélie adds flatly. “To reclaim the Bloodnight alliance and merge it with Darkvale.”
“Bloodnight… Darkvale…” Bee murmurs, closing the files with trembling hands. “I—I don’t know what that means.”
It’s obvious now. She was raised human. Shielded from this world. Completely unprepared for the truth of it.
Her heart is racing I can hear it. Fear rolls off her in waves, sharp and panicked. She starts edging backward, eyes flicking to the windows, then the door, already mapping out an escape.
“I can’t stay,” she says, voice cracking. “This was a mistake. I need to go back.”
She’s in shock. Deep in it.
Aurélie’s expression hardens instantly.
“You can’t go back,” she says coldly. “Your life as you knew it is over. There is no going back.”
She snatches the files off the desk and storms out of the office.
“I… I need to leave,” Bee whispers, more to herself than to Damien or me, fingers pressing into her forehead as if she can physically push the thoughts away.
I step closer. “I’m sorry, kitty cat but you can’t leave me now.”
The effect is immediate and not the one I expected.
Her head snaps toward me. Her eyes flash bright, glowing yellow. Her wolf surges forward, furious, clawing for control.
Damien intervenes quickly, assigning her a bedroom. Time alone. Space to breathe. A shower. Rest.
It should have helped.
It didn’t.
She refuses to come down for dinner.
My wolf fights me every second, urging me to storm upstairs and drag her back down. Not only is she ignoring me she’s being outright rude, and she’s a guest in this pack.
We’re halfway through dessert when Dominique and Delphine finally rejoin us.
That’s when Damien groans.
His eyes glaze over.
“What is it?” Aurélie asks, turning toward him mid-conversation with Delphine.
Damien rises without a word. He leans down and kisses the top of her head.
Then a voice cuts through my mind.
“Alpha.”
One of my warriors.
“Our Luna has escaped.”