Chapter 127 127

Chapter 127 127
Amy's POV

I can't believe Damien pulled back on the retaliation. I found out through Lucas not through Damien. It was definitely not through a conversation where he sat me down and explained his reasoning like I was a person capable of handling information.

No. I found out because I walked past Lucas giving orders to pull the warriors back and I stopped and asked him what was happening and he got that look on his face that meant he had just said something he wasn't supposed to say in front of me.

I went and found Damien immediately.

He was in the main room going over something with two of his senior warriors. When he saw my face he dismissed them without me having to say anything.

"You pulled back the retaliation," I said.

"Yes."

"Without telling me."

"Amelia—"

"Without telling me," I said again. I wanted him to actually hear that part. "After everything. After I stood in that meeting and defended you in front of all those Alphas. After I told you I was in this with you. You made a decision that affects both of us and you didn't say a single word to me about it. I thought we agreed that we were going to make them pay for everything they did? My dad even came to help you and got injured!"

He looked at me steadily. "I'm protecting you."

That was the wrong thing to say.

"Protecting me," I repeated. I could hear my own voice going flat and I knew from experience that when my voice went flat I was past the point of just being annoyed. "Damien, I am pregnant, not incapacitated. There is a difference. I have a brain. I can process difficult information without falling apart. I have been processing difficult information my entire life without anyone's help."

"I know that."

"Then act like it." I stepped closer. "What is going on? What did that prisoner tell you? Because you came out of that room and something changed and you've been managing me ever since and I am so tired of being managed by people who think they're helping me."

He was quiet for a second. That specific kind of silence that meant he was deciding how much to say.

And that made me even more angry.

"Don't do that," I said. "Don't stand there calculating what version of the truth to give me. I'm not one of your warriors who needs information filtered before it reaches them. I'm your mate. I'm carrying your child. Whatever is happening affects me directly and I deserve to know all of it."

"You're right," he said.

I blinked. I wasn't expecting that.

"You're right," he said again. "You deserve to know. But I need a little more time to confirm some things before I tell you everything because I don't want to tell you something that turns out to be wrong."

"Then tell me what you know so far," I said. "Tell me the parts you're certain about. I'm not asking you to guess. I'm asking you to stop shutting me out."

He looked at me for a long moment.

Then he said, "There's a man behind the Dark Hunters. Someone specific. Someone who has been running this for a long time. He knows we're lycans and he's been planning to make a move on you. I pulled back the retaliation because I realized it was going to be used as a distraction to get to you while my attention was split."

I absorbed that. Okay. That was real information. That was something I could work with. "Who is he?"

"I'm still verifying the full picture."

"Damien."

"Amelia, I promise you I will tell you everything. I just need—"

"You need to stop deciding what I can handle." I said it clearly and without raising my voice because I wanted him to understand I wasn't just reacting emotionally. I meant it. "That's what this is. You think you're protecting me but what you're actually doing is making decisions for me. And I'm telling you right now that I won't accept that. Not from you. Not from anyone."

I needed no one to tell me he was trying to hide something very serious from me. How stimulating could it be that I couldn't handle it?

"I'm not trying to control you."

"Protection without honesty is just control," I said. "That's what it is. Even if your intentions are good. Even if you genuinely think you're doing the right thing. If you're keeping things from me to manage how I feel about them, that's not protection. That's you deciding your judgment matters more than mine."

He didn't say anything.

I picked up my jacket from the chair. "I need some air."

"Amelia—"

"I'm not leaving the building," I said. "I'm just not standing in this room right now."

I walked out. I went down the corridor and into the smaller sitting room at the end that nobody really used and I sat down on the couch and I stared at the wall for a while.

I wasn't just angry. I want to be honest about that. I was also hurt. Which is worse than just being angry because anger is clean and hurt is messy and I didn't particularly want to feel it.

The thing about Damien is that he had been doing so well. For weeks he had been actually talking to me, actually including me, actually treating me like a partner instead of something fragile he needed to keep on a shelf. And then the moment something serious came up he went straight back to the old pattern. Shut down. Filter everything. Manage the situation.

I understood why he did it. I genuinely did. He grew up with nobody he could trust and he learned to handle everything alone because that was the only option he had for a long time. I knew that about him. I wasn't unsympathetic to it.

But understanding why someone does something doesn't mean you have to accept it. We planned this together and I thought everything was going fine. Then I just look around and see that everyone is packing up to go home. I wouldn't even have known if I didn't see it. That's crazy how much he didn't tell me anything about it.

I sat there until I felt less like I wanted to throw something and more like a regular person. Then I went to check on my dad, had dinner, and eventually went to bed.

Damien didn't come to the room until late. I was still awake but I had my back to the door and I didn't turn around. He didn't try to talk. He just settled on his side and the room went quiet.

I lay there staring at the wall thinking about everything. At some point I must have drifted off because when I opened my eyes, the room was dark and quiet and Damien was asleep beside me.

I lay still for a moment. Then I noticed the light coming from under the door. Not the corridor light that was always on. This was different. It looked as if something was blocking part of it.

I got up carefully and went to the door and opened it.

The corridor was empty.

But on the floor, just inside the doorway, was a piece of paper. Small. Folded once. It hadn't been there when I came to bed. Someone had put it there while we were sleeping and nobody had them and that alone made my skin prickle.

I picked it up and unfolded it.

Six words.

– He already knows who you are, Princess. –

I read it twice. Then I read it a third time because I wanted to make sure I was reading it correctly and I was.

Princess? Who's that?

I stood in the doorway of our room in the middle of the night holding a piece of paper and staring at that one word.

Nobody had ever called me that... I mean except for my family and Damien. So anyone else calling me this aside from my best friend Stacy is weird.

Princess. He already knows who you are.

I didn't know what that meant. I didn't know who wrote it or what they were trying to tell me or why they used that specific word. But something in the back of my mind was very quietly telling me that Damien did know.

That whatever he had been sitting on since he came out of that room with the prisoner, this was connected to it.

I folded the paper slowly. I was going to need him to talk to me. I don't care if it's late or not, I wasn't going to walk away until he told me what was going on.