Chapter 247 Chapter 0247

Chapter 247 Chapter 0247
•CASSANDRA•

I looked at Dante and wondered if we would be able to face and fight the remaining warriors after everything that we had already been through with Kael.

I was exhausted and could barely catch my breath. Plus, I didn't want to be there anymore. I felt as if the place had taken something from me, and I wouldn't feel the reality of it until my son was born.

"Can't we find a way out of here and avoid them? I don't think they'd want to fight for Kael once they find out that he's dead."

"They know that Kael is dead, but I think they are doing this to repay his death."

I sighed. "Then we should leave. Your men didn't have any casualties, so let's just keep it at that. No one has to die because of some idiots who refuse to give up."

"I will handle them, Cassandra," he answered. "You can find a safe place to hide, and then I will find you when I am done. I don't want them to chase us down all the way home."

"But Dante," I sighed, shaking my head. "Have you wondered why this is the Ashbourne Council? I mean, the name suggests that there are multiple partners forming part of the council, or it wouldn't be a council if it was run only by Kael and his mother."

Dante furrowed his eyebrows. "I never thought about that." He looked up at the tall building. "But if there were other people here, they would've come down to save one of their own, unless they don't reside here."

"That was exactly my thought," I answered. "But while you take care of those warriors, I will burn this place down and whoever is hiding inside it."

Dante looked at me for a moment and then nodded. "Be careful when you start the fire," he replied. "Make sure you are out of the building before it catches fully."

"I will," I answered.

He held my face in his hands for one second, looked at me, and then disappeared into the trees.

I turned and walked back inside the building.

I went straight to Kael's office. The door had been open ever since I walked past it to the living room downstairs. I went to his desk and started pulling open drawers.

The second drawer had two thick files sitting on top of each other. I pulled them out.

My photograph was on the front of the first file, and Dante's photograph was on the second.

I opened mine first and felt my stomach drop.

Inside were detailed records going back to the night I was banished from Silvercrest. Locations, dates, and sightings. And at the back, a payment record. One hundred thousand dollars each offered to Nadia, Damon, and Ronan to track Dante and me down after my banishment.

They had been hunting us for years, and I never knew.

I opened Dante's file and found something older underneath the recent records. There were photographs of a group of men I didn't recognize, taken somewhere in a forest.

Beneath the photographs was a document naming them as the founding members of the Ashbourne Council, the same people who hired my father to kill Dante when he was six years old.

So, Arsela probably didn't start the Council, but she carried on its mission and hunted Dante's entire family because her husband died because of them.

Behind that document were pages of notes in Arsela's handwriting. She had spent years trying to track down the founding members before eventually going after Dante's parents instead.

She never found them, so her entire focus shifted to Dante, his family, and me. They had already recruited my brother and wanted us to kill each other so they would repay the death of Kael's father.

But this meant that the founding members were still out there. They were watching the entire thing, and since Dante had come out as the lycan king, it wouldn't be long until they came for him personally.

I set the files down and looked around the office one last time. Then I tucked both files under my arm and went to find something that would burn.

I found a can of accelerant in the storage room at the end of the ground floor corridor. I carried it back through the building and started at Kael's office, pouring it across the desk and the shelves and the walls.

I moved through each room methodically, working my way toward the exit. The files were tucked securely under my arm the entire time, and I was not leaving without them.

When I reached the front entrance, I turned around and looked at the building one last time.

Then I struck the match.

The fire caught immediately and moved fast, climbing the walls of the office and spreading into the corridor. I stepped outside and walked a safe distance away before turning to watch.

The fire engulfed the entire building. Windows cracked from the heat and the upper floors began to glow orange through the openings. Whatever Arsela had built inside those walls, whatever herbs and devices and records remained, all of it was burning.

I stood there until I heard footsteps behind me.

Dante came through the tree line and stopped beside me. He was breathing hard, and there was blood on his hands that was not his. He looked at the fire and then at me.

"Is it done?" I asked.

"It's done," he answered.

I held the files up. "I found these inside before I started the fire. Payment records, photographs, names of the founding members." I looked at him. "We need to keep them. If anyone else from the Council comes after us, we will know exactly who we are dealing with."

He took the files and looked at the covers. Then he looked at me. "The war is over, Cassandra. We are safe."

"I know," I answered. "But I want to keep them anyway."

He nodded and tucked them under his arm without arguing.

He turned back to his warriors who had gathered at the tree line and told them to go ahead to the Crystal Valley pack and report to his commander there, and they left.

Dante took my hand, and we shifted into our lycan and werewolf forms. We ran all the way home.

•••

Alena was sleeping when we arrived home. It was almost midnight, and Mandy was sleeping as well.

Dante went to speak with the guards at the gate after we took a shower. I sat on the couch and let myself breathe properly for the first time in what felt like days.

My phone rang on the counter, and it was Mason. I answered the call on the second ring. "Mason."

"Cassandra," he replied. "Damon is in our custody. He is here in Silvercrest. We have him, and he will answer for everything that he did to you and your uncle's family."