Chapter 51 Chapter 51
ELIJAH'S POV
Anna’s footsteps had barely faded before everywhere became quiet again.
Her half-eaten food sat on the table, her chair was still slightly pushed back, and her scent still lingered in the air.
I leaned back slowly, letting out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. Watching her at the table had brought back more memories than I wanted.
Anna and I used to share real moments—quiet ones, warm ones, the kind that made you forget the world. Sometimes I think we were actually in love. Sometimes I think she cared about me too, but after everything I did, I doubt she does anymore.
And it was my fault.
All of it.
I ruined it when I chose Amanda to be my Luna. I ruined it even more when I stood in front of the entire pack and announced Amanda as my mate for the mating ceremony. I told myself it was for her safety, that choosing Anna would expose her, and people would start digging. If they dug far enough, they would uncover what she truly was.
They would find out that she was a Tribid.
The last Tribid.
She was someone people believed should be killed before her powers ever awakened. Loving her openly would have put a target on her back, so I chose someone else and pretended it didn’t destroy me.
But now… watching Damon pull her chair closer, watching him tease her and soften in ways he never did with anyone else—it burned in a way I hated. I tried to swallow it down, to pretend I didn’t feel it, but the truth pushed up anyway. Damon knew exactly what he was doing. He knew the spot he was pressing, and he enjoyed watching me flinch.
He leaned back in his chair with that lazy arrogance he always carried, crossing his arms like he owned the moment. A smirk tugged at his mouth—slow, sharp, and cruel. “You look miserable, little brother,” he teased, sounding far too pleased. “Is it because I’ve taken your former lover from you?”
My pulse jumped.
I felt the words in my chest like a hit, but I forced my face to stay calm. Damon wanted a reaction. He totally lived off reactions, and if he smelled even a drop of jealousy, he would use it like a weapon against me.
So I swallowed hard and pretended I didn't hear him. I decided it was better to ignore him than give him exactly what he was hoping for.
But he kept going.
He always kept going.
“Anna is completely in love with me now,” he revealed, that same smirk still never leaving his face. “She laughs with me and trusts me. And you?” His smirk widened, cutting deep. “I doubt she even gives a fuck about you again.”
The words punched the air right out of my lungs. My jaw tightened before I could stop it, and I hated that he saw that tiny reaction, hated that he had the power to pull it out of me.
“You haven’t taken anything from me, Damon.” I shot back in anger, keeping my voice low, steady, even though my chest felt tight.
“Please...” he muttered with a roll of his eyes. “You’re still in love with her.”
The words stabbed.
I felt my heart twist… but I couldn’t let him have that victory.
“If I was still in love with Anna, I wouldn't announce my mating ceremony with Amanda on her birthday.”
“You are still in love with Anna, brother. You can lie to everyone but not yourself...” He tilted his head and studied me like I was something pathetic on the floor. “And you hate the fact that she wants me instead.”
I looked away for a second because he wasn’t wrong—not fully.
“She doesn't want anyone,” I murmured quietly. “And even if she did, she wouldn’t want anything to do with you if she knew the truth.”
That made something flicker in Damon’s eyes—a tiny crack in his mask, but he buried it so fast I almost doubted I saw it.
“The truth doesn’t matter,” he replied. “Her birthday is in a few days, and it's the day she dies. That’s all that matters to me, brother.”
My stomach tightened.
I could almost feel the countdown. I could almost hear the clock he had probably memorized in his head. How could he sit here so calmly? How could he plan her death so easily while she smiled at him like he was her safe place?
“You don’t have to kill her, Damon.” I told him, my voice filled with something I didn’t want to name.
Damon laughed.
A cold, dark laugh that didn’t reach his eyes. “Listen to yourself, brother. Why do you care so much for that girl?”
“That's because I love her so much and I'd kill myself if something bad happened to her...” I almost said.
But I bit it back.
I couldn't say such words.
“She’s innocent,” I answered instead.
“She’s dangerous!” he snapped.
“Anna doesn’t even know she's a Tribid. She doesn't even know what she is,” I assured him, heat rising in my chest, hoping he'd change his mind. “She trusts and laughs with you. She would never imagine you’re waiting for the right moment to put a blade in her heart.”
Damon shrugged like I’d told him the weather. “That’s the point. It will hurt more if she's totally in love with me. That's the worst kind of betrayal, brother.”
I stared at him, feeling something twist painfully inside me. I knew Damon could be cruel, but this… this was something else.
He was monstrously evil.
How could anyone be this ruthless? How could his heart hold no trace of love, no sign of mercy for anyone? Anna—the same girl who had risked herself to save him that night, bleeding from a Wolfsbane sword—had shown him nothing but kindness.
And yet… he still wanted her dead.
Even after all these years.
“Why are you so heartless?” I couldn’t keep the shock out of my voice. “You weren’t always like this… Damon. What changed you?”
He didn’t answer.
He just stared at the table with a hard, distant look… and I felt the anger rolling under his skin like a storm he refused to let out.
Damon looked away, his jaw clenching so sharply it almost looked painful. That tiny movement told me everything—there were things he didn’t want to say out loud, things he pushed down so deep they twisted inside him like knives. And even though I hated him in that moment, some part of me recognized the silence. It was the silence of someone hiding something that still hurt.
Maybe I should have let it go.
Maybe I should have left the past where it belonged. Maybe I shouldn’t have touched the one wound he never let anyone see.
But I said it anyway.
Her name.
The name no one dared speak.
The name that had haunted this Pack long before Anna ever arrived.
“Is it because of what happened to Isabella?”
Damon's reaction was instant.
His chair scraped harshly against the floor as he shoved it back, and the sound cut through the room like a blade. His entire body went rigid, every muscle locked. His expression darkened so fast it was as if I had switched off the light inside him.
He turned toward me slowly, and the way he looked at me made my skin tighten. It was the same look he had once given a traitor before tearing his heart out.
It was deadly.
“Don’t you ever speak her name again!” Damon growled, every word dripping with warning.
Something inside me trembled, but I ignored it.
I was tired of the lies and the act. I was extremely tired of watching him play with Anna’s heart while pretending he had none of his own.
“You're heartless because of Isabella right?” I questioned in anger, without caring what he'd do to me. “Because this started with her, didn’t it? She broke you in a way even I don’t understand. And now you want to break everyone else to make the world match what you feel inside.”
Damon's eyes flashed like I had cut him open.
Before I could breathe, he grabbed the front of my shirt and yanked me toward him. My body slammed into the table, making the plates rattle violently. His hand fisted in my clothes, his knuckles white, and his breath hit my face—sharp, furious, and shaking.
“You don’t get to say her name!” he growled. His fingers trembled against my chest, but not from weakness. No—this was something else. It was something I'd never seen before. “You don’t get to talk about Isabella. You don’t know anything about what happened with us.”
I stared at him, refusing to look away.
Even with his anger burning into me, even with fear crawling down my spine, I pushed harder.
“She’s the reason you can’t love anymore. The reason you’re so cold, so heartless…” I didn’t pause. “She’s the reason you chase vengeance with such hunger that you’d kill an innocent girl just to feel anything at all.”
His grip tightened painfully, pulling me closer until our foreheads almost touched.
“You don’t understand,” he said, his voice breaking at the edge—not enough for most people to notice, but enough for me. I had grown up listening to his voice, and I knew every crack, every shift, and every fracture.
“Then explain it,” I demanded. “Explain why you want to kill a girl who has never harmed you. Explain why pretending to love her is so easy for you. Explain why you make her fall in love with you while planning to kill her.”
He didn’t answer.
He didn’t even blink.
He just stared at me with an anger I had never seen before—but beneath it, I recognized something worse.
And for the first time in years, I saw my brother.
I saw the man he used to be. The man who had loved Isabella with everything he had. The man who had lost her in a way that tore him open. The man who never recovered… and never forgave himself for losing her.
“Say her name again,” Damon warned, his voice frighteningly calm. “And brother or not, I’ll make sure you regret ever opening your mouth.”
And as he stood there gripping me, trembling from a memory he pretended didn’t exist, a cold truth settled deep inside my chest.
If Isabella hadn’t died, Damon would not be this person he was today.
He wouldn’t be this cruel... He wouldn’t be planning to kill a girl who only ever showed him kindness.
But Isabella was gone…
and because of that, Anna might die next.