Chapter 93
Violet's POV:
The morning light filtered through the hospital blinds in pale strips, illuminating the sterile white walls of my room. I sat propped against the pillows, my phone resting in my lap, listening to Evan's voice through the speaker.
"Sienna and the others don't know yet," I said quietly. "I need you to keep it from Lucian. If he doesn't know, they won't find out."
"She's pregnant, Evan." My voice came out flat, emotionless. "I don't want her upset. I don't want her stress levels spiking because of what happened to me."
"Alright," he said finally, and I could hear the reluctant agreement in his tone. "I won't say anything."
A nurse appeared during our conversation, pushing a metal cart laden with IV supplies. She smiled professionally as she entered, and in the brief moment before the door swung shut, I caught sight of a familiar silhouette standing just outside in the corridor.
Daemon.
He was there, just beyond the threshold, his posture rigid and watchful. He came every day, I'd been told. Every single day since I'd woken up. But my parents stood as immovable guardians, refusing him entry, and I had no desire to see him either.
The nurse worked efficiently, checking my IV line before leaving. I turned my attention back to Evan. "How is Celeste?"
"Stable," Evan replied, his voice carefully neutral. "And she's not being transferred to Northern Summit Pack yet. They want to continue monitoring her condition here for a while longer before any surgical intervention."
I nodded to myself.
"Thank you," I said quietly. "For everything."
After ending the call, I stared at the wall across from my bed, my thoughts already turning toward what came next.
---
The discharge process took most of the morning. Aiden would handle resigning from my position at the events company and clearing out my apartment—all the loose ends I no longer had energy to manage myself. My parents flanked me as we left through the side entrance, their bodies forming a protective barrier as we made our way to the car.
We drove in silence back to Wildfire Pack territory, the familiar landscape rolling past—dense forests giving way to open meadows. By the time we pulled up to the house, afternoon sunlight was slanting golden across the front porch.
Inside, my parents settled me on the living room couch, my mother bringing tea I didn't drink, my father queuing up a comedy special on the television. I sat between them, staring at the screen without really seeing it, unable to summon even the ghost of a smile at the jokes that had the studio audience roaring with laughter.
My thoughts kept drifting, circling back to that hospital room, to Celeste's cold smile as she'd pushed me. To my daughter, gone before I'd ever held her.
But grief alone wouldn't bring justice.
---
That evening, after my parents had gone to bed, I sat alone in my bedroom and pulled up Sienna's contact.
"Vi? Everything okay?" she answered immediately.
"I need a favor," I said quietly. "Remember that gossip journalist you mentioned? The one who used to write about Daemon?"
"Blaine Wright," Sienna replied without hesitation. "Independent investigative reporter. Specializes in elite pack drama. Why?"
"Can you send me his contact information?"
There was a pause, then understanding dawned in her voice. "What are you planning?"
"Something long overdue."
Within minutes, Sienna's text arrived with Blaine's details and a note: He's hungry for authentic stories. If you've got real dirt, he'll run with it.
I stared at the information, my thumb hovering over the screen. This was the point of no return. Once I contacted Blaine, there would be no taking it back.
Good. I was done with mercy.
I drafted a careful email, attaching the audio file I'd recorded during one of Celeste's hospital visits—the one where she'd dropped her fragile act long enough to reveal the calculating predator beneath. The recording where she'd gloated, where her mask had slipped completely.
My finger pressed send before I could second-guess myself.
Almost immediately, my phone rang again—Sienna.
"Vi, what the fuck is going on? You were pregnant? And you lost the baby? Why didn't you tell us?"
My chest tightened. "Sienna, calm down. You're pregnant too, you can't get this worked up—"
"It was Celeste, wasn't it? That bitch caused your miscarriage. And Daemon's still protecting her?"
"How did you find out?"
"Celeste sent a message to Lucian." Sienna's words came out in a rush, fury making them sharp and clipped. "She told him everything about your miscarriage. I grabbed his phone and saw the whole fucking message."
"Sienna, listen to me. I'm back at Wildfire Pack now, I'm home, and I'm fine. But you need to calm down. You need to protect your baby. Don't let her win by letting this stress hurt you."
"I'm going to kill her." Sienna's voice shook. "I swear to God, Vi, I'm going to rip her apart—"
It took another ten minutes to talk her down, to extract promises that she'd rest, that she'd let Lucian handle things, that she wouldn't do anything to jeopardize her own health.
My grip tightened on the phone until my knuckles went white. Celeste Morrison had murdered my daughter and was now actively trying to harm Sienna's baby too.
She wanted to play with fire? Fine.
In a few days, she'd learn exactly what it felt like to burn.
My phone buzzed again—Lily this time.
"Vi, you need to hear what's happening at Lupine Sovereign University," she said, her voice strange and layered with disbelief.
I sat up straighter. "What's going on?"
"Celeste's heart condition is all over campus. The student council organized a fundraiser for her medical expenses." Lily paused. "But it gets worse. The narrative's completely shifted. Now everyone's saying she never had anything with Daemon, that it was all one-sided pursuit on his end. That she kept rejecting him but was too noble to embarrass him publicly."
My jaw clenched. Of course. Celeste was rehabilitating her image, transforming from mistress to martyr.
"There's more," Lily continued hesitantly. "She's coming back to campus next week. Something about personally returning the fundraiser donations and redirecting them to a scholarship program. The student council is planning a whole welcome event."
My eyes snapped open, my mind racing. "A welcome event. Public. With witnesses."
---
The next morning, I was sitting at my laptop editing the audio files when my phone buzzed with a news alert. I glanced at it absently, then froze.
The headline read: "Brave Heart: Celeste Morrison Returns Home"
I clicked through to find airport photos—Celeste seated in a wheelchair, looking pale and ethereal in a simple white dress, her honey-blonde hair falling in soft waves around her shoulders. Linda and Riley flanked her, Riley pushing the wheelchair while Linda carried what looked like medical documents.
What caught my attention wasn't Celeste's carefully staged fragility—it was what wasn't in the photos.
Daemon was nowhere to be seen.
I was still studying the photos when my phone rang, Daemon's number flashing across the screen—a name I'd once lived to see and now only felt cold contempt for.
I rejected the call.
Immediately, a text appeared: I'm outside your house. We need to talk.
My jaw clenched. Had he come back to Wildfire Pack before Celeste? I typed back a single word: No.
His response came instantly: You wanted to know why I keep protecting her. Come outside. I'll tell you.
I stared at those words, hating how easily he could still manipulate me with the one question that had haunted every sleepless night. Why Celeste? What hold did she have over him that made her worth sacrificing everything else?
Fine. If he wanted to talk, we'd talk.
I slipped on shoes and walked out the front door.
Daemon's black SUV was parked at the curb, sleek and expensive. He sat in the driver's seat.
I crossed the lawn and opened the passenger door, sliding into the seat without looking at him.
"Talk," I said flatly, staring straight ahead through the windshield. "Tell me why you've protected her all this time."
Daemon's hands gripped the steering wheel, his knuckles white. When he spoke, his voice was rough, carefully controlled. "Celeste had a heart transplant when she was younger. If she needs a second transplant now, the complexity and risk factors increase exponentially."
I turned to look at him, my expression cold. "That's your explanation? You're worried about her medical condition? That's the waste-of-breath justification you drove all the way here to give me?"
His jaw clenched. "I'm trying to make you understand—"
"Understand what? That you're so concerned about her health that you let her murder our daughter?" My voice was ice. "Daemon, if killing people wasn't illegal, I would have ended both of you already. You're both murderers. You and Celeste—you both killed my baby."
"That was my child too!" Daemon suddenly slammed his fist against the steering wheel, the sound explosive in the confined space. His eyes were red-rimmed, fury and pain warring in his expression. "For three months you hid it from me, Violet! Three months I was kept in the dark like an idiot, never given a chance to protect you, to handle anything, to be a father! And then when the baby was gone, only then did you tell me, forcing me to accept this nightmare without any preparation! How is that fair? Don't I deserve—"
"You have Celeste, don't you?" I cut him off, my voice flat and emotionless.
"I wanted the child, not her!" His words came out in a roar, years of suppressed rage finally erupting.
I watched him struggle to regain control, his chest heaving, his hands trembling slightly on the wheel. He loved our daughter, at least. Even if he'd never loved me.
I could tell him the truth right now—that even without Celeste's intervention, the baby might not have survived.
But I didn't. Because the method of loss mattered. I could accept fate taking my daughter. I couldn't accept murder.
"You loved me for ten years, didn't you?" Daemon's voice had gone quiet now, almost defeated. "So why, when I finally told you I'd started having feelings for you too, did you choose to sever the bond so completely? You didn't even give me a chance to fix things, to deal with the complications. You just... cut me off entirely. Like I'd committed some unforgivable sin."
I stared at him, this man I'd wasted a decade loving, and felt nothing but bitter exhaustion. "You want to talk about unforgivable? Find Celeste. She's the one who pushed me off that hospital bed. She's the one who killed our daughter."
Something shifted in Daemon's expression—something I couldn't quite read. When he spoke again, his voice was carefully controlled. "Give me six months. If I can confirm she did it, I won't let her get away with it."
"Six months?" I couldn't keep the disbelief from my voice. "Why the hell would you need six months?"
"Celeste needs treatment first, possibly surgery depending on how her condition develops. After the second transplant is complete, if it comes to that..." He closed his eyes briefly. "After that, she and I are done. Completely done."
There it was again—that strange emphasis on the surgery, on the timing. Something about this entire explanation felt wrong, incomplete, like he was dancing around the real answer.
"So you're telling me you still prioritize her health over justice for our daughter," I said coldly. "You're going to let a murderer walk free for six more months because you're worried about her heart condition."
"That's not—" Daemon's jaw clenched. "Can't you just trust me?"
"Trust you?" A harsh laugh escaped me. "Why would I trust anything you say? You haven't given me a single reason to believe you're telling the truth."
"Then ask me what you really want to know." His blood-red eyes fixed on mine, intense and searching. "Ask me the real question, Violet."
"Fine." I held his gaze, refusing to look away. "Why does it have to wait until after her surgery? What aren't you telling me?"
Daemon opened his mouth to answer—and then his phone rang, the sound cutting through the tension like a blade.
I glanced at the screen reflexively. Celeste's name glowed there, and everything inside me went cold and hard.
He answered immediately. "What's wrong?"
I couldn't hear her words, but I watched his expression change—concern flooding in, his brows drawing together. "Alright. I'm on my way."
When he hung up and looked at me, there was something guarded in his expression. "She's having an episode at the hospital. I need to go. We'll talk next time."
"A few words is all it would take." My voice was sharp, insistent. "You could tell me right now, Daemon. Whatever this reason is—just say it."
I needed to know. Because if it wasn't love driving his protection of Celeste, then what was it? He wouldn't have come here, wouldn't have started this conversation, if the answer was simple infatuation.
He just stared at me, his blood-red eyes unreadable, then repeated flatly, "Next time. Okay?"
Whatever Celeste had said on that call had changed his mind. Made him retreat back behind his walls.
I had the audio recording, had Blaine Wright ready to publish, had everything I needed to destroy Celeste whenever I chose. But I held back, instinct telling me the timing wasn't right yet.
I looked at Daemon one last time. His face was set in hard lines, frost settling over his features, his jaw clenched with barely suppressed frustration.
I didn't say another word. I just opened the door and stepped out of the car.