Chapter 13 13
Aurélie POV
“What does that mean?” I turn to Fabrice, confusion tightening my chest as I try to decipher the strange declaration.
“Keep reading.” His voice is gentle but firm, his hand nudging the laptop slightly closer as if urging me to swallow the truth whole.
It’s an invitation direct, deliberate addressed to the Alpha male of the Darkvale Pack. A trap disguised as diplomacy. A smart, calculated way to coax the mysterious Alpha out of hiding.
“The Darkvale Pack has grown faster than anyone expected these past four years,” Fabrice murmurs, stepping toward me. His hand settles on my shoulder, grounding me. “But no one has ever met the supposed Alpha. You must have known you couldn’t stay in the shadows forever—couldn’t keep the children hidden forever. You’ve damaged his alliances too deeply. He’s calling the Alpha out.”
Fabrice always did speak the truths no one else dared voice.
And he wasn’t wrong. One of my terms for accepting any pack into my alliance was simple: they never met me. Fabrice acted as the face, the voice, the shield. No one knew the Alpha of the Darkvale Pack was female… and the mother of the Alpha King’s children.
“I’m not ready,” I whisper, the confession barely audible. My hands tremble, and I hide them in my lap before he notices.
“Damien wants to meet the legendary Alpha,” Fabrice says softly. “You’ve become his biggest threat.”
That much had been intentional. That had been the goal from the moment I rebuilt my parents’ legacy from ashes. But still…
Why now?
Why call me out at this moment unless the rumors circling the kingdom were true?
I stare at the invitation, reading it again, and again, and again. Fabrice senses my hesitation. He kneels beside me, his brown eyes peering over his gold-rimmed glasses into mine, concern etched deeply in the lines of his face.
“Will you accept the invitation?” he asks gently, as if afraid his voice might push me over an edge.
My wolf presses forward, desperate. She yearns foolishly for the chance to look Damien in the eyes again. To show him his children. To believe, in her naive simplicity, that seeing them might stir remorse in a heart as cold as winter steel.
But I shield her from those illusions. I always have. Too much had been broken. Too much blood, too many screams, too many memories carved into my bones.
Without hesitation, I hit delete erasing the invitation before its existence can contaminate my resolve.
To me, Damien was a grey area I refused to step into.
“No,” I breathe. “Let’s wait. The rumors say he’s preparing to offer the Luna position… and I’m sure Geneviève will finally get what she’s always wanted. I’d much rather catch them both off guard at her Luna ceremony. That will be the real grand reveal they’ve been waiting for.”
Later, I push open the door to my bedroom with two ice-cold bottles of white wine in hand. I don’t bother with the lights. I want the darkness. I crave it need it to swallow any emotion I failed to lock away.
I knew this day would come.
I knew Damien would make Geneviève his Luna.
So why did it still hurt like this?
I’d built walls around my heart thick, cold, impenetrable. Or so I believed. But even hearing the possibility felt like a blade sliding into my ribs.
At first I imagined he would make her his Luna within six months of my leaving. But now four years later it still knocks the breath out of me.
I sink onto the floor beside my bed, uncork the bottle, and pour myself a glass far fuller than it should be. The room stays dark except for the silvery glow of the full moon spilling through the window. It casts long shadows across the floor, painting my loneliness in pale light.
Why did the thought of Geneviève claiming the Bloodnight Luna crown feel like a knife twisting in old wounds?
Was it because of everything she did to me?
The manipulation? The cruelty?
Or was it the moment she sent me tumbling down the stairs deliberately, spitefully not knowing she was nearly killing not just one life, but two?
I hadn’t known I carried twins then. I wouldn’t have known at all if Fabrice hadn’t finally intervened. He forced me gently, desperately to undergo a scan, to allow the ultrasound machine he arranged to be brought to the pack grounds since he knew I wouldn’t step foot inside a medical center.
He had been terrified for me after my parents’ deaths. I stopped eating. Stopped sleeping. Stopped wanting to live.
Until I heard them.
Two tiny heartbeats.
The sound that hauled me back from the edge.
The sound that rebuilt me more than any pack ever could.