Chapter 124 124

Chapter 124 124


Damien's POV

I had covered up some things I might not have wanted Amelia to see about her father. I don't know if Amelia noticed or not. She was right behind me but I moved faster and I'm glad I did, because the amount of blood on Ronald's side was not something I wanted her to see up close before I knew how bad it actually was. Maybe she saw a little because she was too worried.

When we finally reached, I had him laid on the bed. I dropped down beside him and pressed my hand against the wound. He was alive. I could feel his pulse when I checked and it was uneven but it was there. That was the first thing. That was the only thing that mattered in that moment.

"Get the doctors." I said it to whoever was closest without looking up. "Now."

Someone moved. I kept my focus on Ronald.

He was conscious. Barely, but he was. His eyes were open and he was looking at me with this expression that I didn't know how to read at first. It wasn't fear. It wasn't pain, even though he had to be in a lot of it. It was something more focused than that. Like he had something to say and he was trying to figure out how much time he had to say it.

I could hear Amelia behind me. One of my warriors was holding her back so the doctors could get through and she was not happy about it. I could hear her arguing and under any other circumstances I would have smiled at that but right now I needed to pay attention to her father.

Gamma Ronald grabbed my arm. His grip was weaker than I expected from him. This man had always seemed immovable to me. He was the kind of person who just existed solidly no matter what was going on around him. Feeling how little strength was in his hand right now made me so uncomfortable knowing it was my fault.

He pulled me closer. I leaned down.

"Brian." His voice was very low. Almost nothing. "It was Brian. The last attack. He was the one who stabbed me."

I went completely still. I heard what he said. I understood what he said. I just needed a second to process it because Brian being the one who stabbed him during the previous attack was not a small piece of information. That wasn't just betrayal. That was calculated.

That meant Brian got close enough on purpose. That meant everything he had been doing, coming around Amelia, trying to insert himself, acting concerned, all of it was cover for something much more deliberate than I had given him credit for.

I should have dealt with him sooner. That was my mistake and I was already angry at myself for it.

"Are you certain?" I asked. I kept my voice completely flat.

He looked at me like that was a stupid question. Fair enough. He wouldn't tell me this if he didn't trust me.

"Who sent him," I said. It wasn't really a question either. I already knew Brian wasn't smart enough to be the one running this. He was too obvious, always too emotional about Amelia. People who are that emotional don't plan this kind of thing on their own.

His grip on my arm tightened slightly.

"I don't know his name," he said. "But whoever he is, he's been doing this for a long time. Decades. He's connected to the old Lycan court. He knows things about them that most people don't. I found this out with my investigation."

I felt something go cold in me. The old Lycan court. I had suspected for a while that whoever was leading the Dark Hunters wasn't new. The operation was too organized, too patient, too long-running to be someone who just decided one day to start hunting lycans. This kind of thing takes years of planning. I knew it had to go back further than anyone was saying.

But connected to the old Lycan court specifically. That changed the shape of it completely. It meant this wasn't just someone who wanted power in general. It was someone who was there, or people. People who knew exactly what the court was, what it had, what it meant and decided to destroy it from the inside.

I stayed very still and let that settle. The doctors arrived and started working on him. I didn't move away because his hand was still on my arm and I didn't think he was done.

I was right.

"There's something else," he said.

I waited. He was struggling now. I could see it. The doctors were telling him to stay calm and he was ignoring them the way stubborn people always ignore doctors when they have something they need to finish saying first.

"Damien." He said my name differently than he usually did. Without the careful distance and respect he normally kept with me. "Whatever you find out, and you will find it all out, I know you will, whatever it is..."

He stopped. Took a breath that looked like it cost him something.

"Don't let it break her," he said. "Keep her standing. That's all I'm asking you. Whatever comes next, keep my daughter standing."

Then his eyes closed and his grip went slack and the doctors moved in fully and I had to step back.

I stood up slowly. I stood there for a moment and didn't move. I was looking at him but I wasn't really seeing him anymore. I was thinking of everything he said, the old Lycan court.

Someone who was connected to it closely enough to know its secrets and had been running this operation for that long was not a random person. That was someone specific. Someone with a reason that went further back than anyone currently alive had been paying attention to.

And Brian was working for him.

Brian, who kept coming back to Amelia. Someone who rejected her publicly years ago and then suddenly reappeared the moment she was relevant. I've been watching and warning and tolerating him because Amelia had a history with him, and I didn't want to make decisions that felt like control.

I should have trusted my instincts earlier. I don't make that mistake twice.

"Alpha."

Lucas appeared at my shoulder. He had that look he gets when he's waiting for instructions and trying not to ask too many questions.

"Is he going to make it?" I asked. I meant Sanders.

"Doctors say yes. It's bad but it missed anything critical."

I nodded. "That's good news."

I looked over at Amelia. The warrior had stopped holding her back and she had gotten to her father's side. She was crouched down next to him, watching the doctors work, and her face was doing that thing it does when she's scared but refusing to show it. She thinks she hides it well.

I watched her for a second. I kept thinking about how her father wanted me to protect her. The thing was I didn't need him to ask.

I was never going to let anything hurt her. That wasn't something I had to decide. It just was something I would do without needing to be told or thinking about it. But I understood why he said it out loud.

Because what he told me about the old court, about the decades, about how deep this thing went, he already knew it was going to be a lot for her to carry when she found out. And she was going to find out. There was no way she wasn't going to find out eventually with everything going on.

I looked at Lucas.

"Get me everything we have on anyone connected to the old Lycan court who is still alive," I told him quietly. "Anyone who would have had access to its inner workings. Anyone with enough history to have been running something this long without being noticed."

Lucas nodded and didn't ask questions. I walked over to Amelia. She looked up at me when I got close. Her eyes looked scared, and she wasn't trying to hide it this time around.

"He's going to be fine," I told her. Same thing I said before and I meant it the same way. Because it was true and she needed to hear it from someone who wasn't going to say it just to make her feel better.

She nodded and looked back at her father. I stood beside her and didn't go anywhere.

I have a lot to figure out. I have names to find, secrets to reveal and a threat to neutralize before it got anywhere near her or our child. But right now she needed someone to stand next to her. So that's what I'm doing. This happened all because of me anyway. Her father was paying too much for me just for his acceptance, I don't know if I deserve this.