Chapter 111 111
Aurélie POV
“Aurélie?” Fabrice’s voice drifts up from downstairs.
“Daddy, there was a really big spider,” Delphine announces brightly as she bolts past me. “Mummy couldn’t get it… but Damien did.” She barrels down the stairs, completely innocent, proudly reporting the great rescue. The tale of the fearless Damien.
I hear her words, but they feel distant, muffled, as though I’m underwater. The pounding of my heart fills my ears, drowning out everything else. Time stretches, slows, thickens as he stands there in front of me.
“I think he knows,” Damien murmurs, his voice low, smooth, threaded with teasing heat.
“Knows?” I swallow hard, my throat painfully dry. My eyes sting, moisture gathering no matter how hard I fight it. They drift to his mouth as he runs his tongue over his lips, as if savoring something unspoken.
Breathe in. Breathe out.
I shouldn’t be here. Not this close. Not like this.
I step back, desperate for space, but his fingers close gently around my elbow, stopping me before I can retreat.
“You’re avoiding me?”
“Yes.” The word slips out on a gasp. I squeeze my eyes shut, and tears escape anyway two of them, traitorous and hot.
He catches both with his thumb. Slowly, deliberately, he brings the salty dampness to his own lips.
“You need to understand something, Aurélie,” he says quietly. “I’m not going anywhere. You can’t push me away.”
His eyes flash no longer entirely human. His wolf surfaces, predatory and intent, the look of something that wants to devour rather than destroy. Every inch of me feels exposed under that gaze.
“Aurélie?” Fabrice calls again from the bottom of the stairs.
I want to answer. I want to move. But I’m frozen, rooted in place, my elbow alive with sparks where Damien still touches me.
“Why are you here?” I whisper, barely audible. He’d seen that I was safe. He’d told me Geneviève was responsible. So why hadn’t he left?
He doesn’t answer. Instead, he leans in and presses a soft kiss to my cheek.
I forget how to breathe.
My legs wobble beneath me, weak and traitorous. As if he senses it, his hand slides to my lower back, steadying me claiming my balance as easily as he could claim me.
“Breathe, Aurélie,” he commands.
I obey, dragging in a deep breath, my lungs burning as oxygen finally floods back into me.
“I need to go,” I whisper.
“Then go.” He releases me. His hand drops away, his touch gone far too quickly.
He follows me downstairs anyway.
Fabrice is standing in the office, an envelope held loosely in his hand.
“Ah, there you are,” he says with a gentle smile as I stop at the doorway.
“Excuse me,” Damien mutters as he brushes past me toward the kitchen.
There was more than enough room in the hallway. He didn’t need to be that close. He knew exactly what he was doing and he enjoyed it.
“Everything okay?” I manage, my voice rough, but my eyes betray me, tracking Damien until he disappears into the kitchen. He glances back once, just once, and our gazes lock. Both wolves surge forward in the same heartbeat.
“Alpha Quentin has sent an invitation,” Fabrice says, placing it into my hands. “The Saint Wolf pack.”
“What for?”
I scan the names. Mine. Fabrice’s. Damien’s and Lucas’s. Maurice. Florence. Dominique and Delphine as well.
A celebration, it says. Nothing more.
“We can’t leave,” I say, lifting my eyes to Fabrice. “Not right now.”
He adjusts his glasses he’s wearing them again.
“Aurélie, I’m fine. And honestly, having three packs’ worth of warriors around you and the children might not be such a terrible idea.”
…
“Why don’t you want to go?” Damien asks later, seated at the round table in my office with Fabrice, Lucas, and Maurice.
“It isn’t safe.”
“You can’t hide here forever,” Maurice says, glancing up from his phone. “You need to show Geneviève you aren’t afraid. You need to show the other packs how strong you are.”
He’d been away from his own pack for far too long. I wondered, not for the first time, who was leading in his absence.
“Go to Saint Wolf,” Damien says evenly. “Take the children. All of us are invited myself, Maurice, Lucas, Fabrice, Florence. We’ll bring additional security, and Alpha Quentin will add his own. Maurice is right. You can’t keep living in the shadows.”
My wolf stirs, agreeing despite my fear.
“I can’t protect them there,” I mutter.
“You won’t need to,” Maurice says gently. “You’re not alone, Aurélie. I’ll have some of my men meet us there. Between four packs, we’ll create a security plan. The children will always be protected.”
The tension in my chest eases, just a fraction.
“What about the mothers?” I mind-link Fabrice. He was forever torn between being a doctor and a beta.
“I have a window before the next expectant mothers arrive,” he replies calmly. “We can manage.”
He places his hand over mine on the table.
A low, warning growl from Damien snaps me out of the link instantly.