Chapter 46

Chapter 46
Rowan's POV 

The living room was already in chaos.

Voices overlapped into one loud mess; Dalia shouting, her mother shaking her head in disapproval, her father accusingly pointing fingers at Damon, while Damon stood in front of Lyla like he was ready to fight anyone who got close.

Lyla…

She stood behind him with tears in her eyes, her hands trembling, her lips tight like she was trying not to fall apart.

The sight of her like that made something hot coil in my chest.

Dalia kept going on and on about her stupid diamond necklace. How rare it was. How expensive. And how “an outsider like Lyla clearly couldn’t resist stealing it.”

Every time she said the word “outsider,” it made my fists close. Every time she called Lyla “thief” like she was spitting poison, I could feel my wolf crawling forward.

“How can you just stand there and act like this isn’t happening?” Dalia shouted at me. “Your fiancée was robbed, in her own room, and the only one who entered was her.”

I stared straight at her, steady and tired of all this.

“Dalia, what you did tonight was wrong,” I said. “You stormed into Lyla’s room. Accused her without proof. Threatened her in front of guards. How is that acceptable behavior for someone who is supposed to become Luna?”

She blinked, startled, like she didn’t expect anyone to push back.

Her mother clutched her chest. “Are you really defending that girl against your own mate?”

“You're not my mate,” I said sharply, and the room went quiet for just a second.

Dalia’s face fell.

Damon exhaled behind me, long and tense.

“Lyla is a member of this pack,” I continued. “Which means she deserves respect until proven otherwise.”

Lyla flinched behind him. Her shoulders shook like she wanted to vanish.

Dalia rolled her eyes. “How many times do I have to remind everyone that she’s a stranger? A stray wolf. We don’t even know her past.”

Lyla dropped her gaze to the floor.

I could feel my wolf pacing harder, restless and angry, like he wanted to rip down every word coming out of Dalia’s mouth.

Dalia’s father cleared his throat. “Alpha Rowan, it is not wrong to protect the people who serve this house. But this girl has brought too much danger since she arrived. First, she’s followed by a stranger. Now a missing diamond—where does it end?”

Damon took a step forward. “Lyla didn’t steal anything.”

“You don’t know that,” Dalia snapped.

“Yeah? And you don’t know she did,” Damon fired back.

This was spiraling. No one was listening. Everyone was throwing noise into the room and expecting me to fix it.

And then it got worse.

Lyla lifted her head, eyes red, lips trembling and said softly, “Maybe I should just go.”

Everything stopped.

“No,” Damon said immediately. “You’re not going anywhere.”

“I agree.” My voice came out low, sharp. “You are not leaving.”

Her eyes flicked between us; scared, tired, defeated. “But I don’t want to be the reason everyone is fighting.”

“You’re not the reason,” I said firmly. “They are.”

But Dalia just scoffed. “Oh please. Look at her. She’s acting like she’s the victim in all of this. She came here with trouble behind her and now everything is turning into a mess. If she leaves now, it would fix—”

“Say one more word,” I cut in quietly, my wolf pushing forward so hard I had to shut my eyes.

The room tensed.

I could hear the shift in my breathing, deeper, heavier. I could feel the edge of claws under my skin.

Damon noticed it.

He shook his head slightly, like he was warning me to stay calm.

Dalia didn’t notice at all. She just kept pushing.

“At this point, even Rowan’s blind loyalty won’t save her! She’s just a burden and he refuses to see—”

Something snapped in me.

“Enough,” I growled.

The sound that came out of me wasn’t human.

Lyla froze.

Damon stepped closer to her.

Dalia’s eyes widened, fear flickering just for a moment.

“That’s enough,” I said again, breath low and sharp. “I will not let you or anyone here tear apart a member of my pack based on nothing but your bitterness and assumptions.”

No one said a word.

I turned to Lyla.

The way she stood there; small, shaken, humiliated, made my jaw tense all over again.

I hated that I hadn’t stopped this sooner.

I hated that she thought she didn’t belong here.

I hated that I didn’t have the right to pull her into my arms and tell her she did.

And I hated that someone like Dalia could look at her with so much poison and not see what I saw.

Light.

Strength.

And something I had no business wanting.

But I wanted anyway.

“Everyone will leave now,” I said.

Damon didn’t move. He stayed by Lyla, his hand still at her back, as if he believed the moment he stopped touching her, someone would drag her away. He wasn’t wrong. The look on some of their faces said it all, Lyla had already been declared guilty, and her punishment was already decided.

Even without proof.

Even without reason.

Dalia opened her mouth, probably to protest, but her father stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. The guards shifted, waiting. I waved them out with a look, and they left.

It took a full minute of silent tension before the room finally emptied.

The second the last elder stepped out, I exhaled sharply and scrubbed a hand over my face. The silence that followed was worse.

Damon was the only one who hadn’t moved, and Lyla was still behind him; eyes red, barely standing.

“You should go to your room,” I told her quietly.

She lifted her head, and the expression on her face shattered something in my chest.

“I didn’t take anything.” Her voice broke, and she shook her head like she still couldn’t believe what was happening. “I didn’t steal her necklace. I would never steal anything.”

“I know,” I said.

But it didn’t seem like enough. Not for her, not for me.

She bit her trembling lip, dropped her eyes to the floor, and whispered, “I just want this to stop.”

Damon turned his head a little, like he was watching my reaction. Like he was waiting for me to do something that I clearly hadn’t done fast enough.

Lyla finally walked away quietly, slowly and Damon let her, but it was clear every muscle in him was restless.

When the door shut behind her, the room didn’t just feel empty. It felt wrong.

I could still feel every second she stood there crying.

And I hated that I couldn't hold her.

Damon finally turned toward me.

“You need to do something,” he said. He wasn’t yelling. He didn’t need to. The anger in his voice was cool, controlled and it cut deeper that way.

“I am,” I answered.

“Are you?” He stared at me like the answer mattered more than usual. “Because she’s breaking, Rowan. And everyone can see it.”

“You’re not the only one who cares,” I snapped.

He raised an eyebrow. “Then act like it.”

That hit harder than he knew.

“I’m doing everything I can to protect her,” I said.

“Protect her?” Damon scoffed. “You just stood there and watched while she got torn apart in front of the entire room.”

“I stopped it.”

“You stopped it late.”

I took a step toward him.

“And what exactly do you think you would’ve done differently?” I asked.

He held my stare.

“I wouldn’t have let her stand there alone.”

There it was.

The line that dug under my skin in a way nothing else had.

As if I hadn’t wanted to be the one shielding her.

As if I wasn’t holding myself back every day from doing more than I should.

As if it didn’t kill me that she only looked at Damon with softness... never me.

My voice came out low.

“You’re awfully confident for someone who wasn’t here when she was first taken in. You don’t know what I’ve done for her.”

Damon didn’t flinch, but something in his eyes shifted.

“I know you love her.”

Silence.

The kind that wasn’t just quiet, it was suffocating.

And that was the moment I knew this conversation wasn’t about the diamond.

It wasn’t about the pack.

It was about her.

And both of us knew it.

But I wasn’t ready to say it. I wasn’t ready to admit that the reason I felt like my chest was ripping open every time I saw them together was because I wanted to be the one making her smile.

So instead, I turned away and headed for the door.

“This isn’t about what I feel,” I said flatly.

“Funny,” Damon replied. “Because it’s the only thing that’s getting in the way.”

I stopped.

Damon kept talking, voice quieter, but deeper now.

“You’re angry. Not because she’s being accused. But because she went to me first. And because she’s not yours.”

My hand curled at my side.

He was still behind me when he said the final thing that pushed the air from my lungs:

“She would stay in this pack forever if you told her to. All she needs is your voice. But you won’t give it to her.”

I didn’t turn around.

I just walked out.

The halls were dark and cold when I reached the guard station.

“Report.”

The head of border security stepped forward. “Nothing found yet, Alpha.”

“No sign of the intruder?”

“No, but…” He hesitated. I narrowed my eyes. “We did get a sighting last night. A wolf on the north boundary. Not someone registered to our territory. He was gone by the time we reached him.”

A chill slid down my spine.

The same man from the party.

The one who knew Lyla’s past.

The one who promised she hasn’t seen the end of him.

He had come back, maybe already slipped through.

The threat was growing.

And Lyla was right in the center of it.

I headed straight to her room.

I didn’t even knock, I tried the handle.

It opened.

The room was dark.

Neat.

Empty.

The sweater she wore earlier was gone.

For a moment, I didn’t even breathe.

Then I turned and started down the hallway, calling her name under my breath.

No response.

Nothing.

Just the quiet creak of the house, and the echo of a choice she left behind.

She was gone.

Damon turned the corner at the same time I did eyes sharp, like he already knew.

“She left,” I said.

His face hardened.

He didn’t say anything.

He just ran for the door.

I followed.

And for once, everything between us, all the tension, all the jealousy, all the quiet war didn’t matter.

Because the only thing that mattered now…

Was finding her.

Before someone else did.