Chapter 131 131
Damien POV
We stayed an extra day with the Saint Wolf pack, and I didn’t mind that at all.
I’ve never liked lingering too long in another pack’s territory. I run my pack a certain way, and sometimes it’s hard not to expect everyone else to do the same. Control comes naturally to me letting go of it does not.
Still, I was beginning to understand the dynamic between Aurélie and Fabrice… I thought. What bound them now felt more like sibling affection than anything else. I doubted it had always been that way on his end especially back when she was the Bloodnight Luna but finding his mate seemed to have settled whatever lingering emotions remained. Cemented them into something safer. Something clearer.
That didn’t mean I liked it.
I didn’t find their closeness any easier to stomach, nor the fact that my daughter called him Daddy. But I was managing the jealousy better than before. Improving. Marginally. I still hated seeing his hands on Aurélie an arm around her shoulders, a hug on the stairs but if I focused, if I controlled my breathing and spoke calmly to my wolf, I could endure it without losing control.
They barely spent time together while we were at Saint Wolf. I wondered briefly if that would have changed had Florence not been there but no. I didn’t think so.
Aurélie had been forged by necessity. Becoming Alpha of Darkvale had demanded everything from her. The murder of her parents had carved fear into her bones, and she’d turned that fear into relentless drive. She refused to rest until she could guarantee the safety of every single pack member. That intensity raw, unforgiving was the only reason she’d managed to stand toe-to-toe with me in just four years.
Something shifted near the end of our stay.
She closed herself off again.
She began avoiding me deliberately, repositioning herself whenever I came near, denying me access blocking those subtle, electric tingles that allowed me to slip further beneath her skin. Further into her soul.
Dominique asked if he could ride back with Lucas and me to Darkvale. I brought it up with Aurélie, but she shut it down immediately. He would stay with her.
I didn’t argue.
The last time Dominique had been in a car without her, the people with him were executed shot point-blank in the head and he was taken. Kidnapped.
Still, when I told him another time, he looked at me like he already knew exactly who was responsible.
Something about that unsettled me.
There was something else about him too an energy I couldn’t quite place. An aura. Faint, but unmistakable. For a child, it was extraordinary.
He was angry.
The kind of anger I recognized all too well.
But why?
He was loved fiercely by his mother. He adored his sister. Even Fabrice… as much as it grated on me to admit it, Fabrice had been a solid father figure in his life. Dominique had a pack that would die to protect him.
I envied that.
My own childhood had been nothing like his.
My mother died when I was young. I could say her death made my father cruel, aggressive, cold but the truth was, he’d always been that way. Losing his mate simply sharpened the blade. Made his ruthlessness more focused.
Even as a child, I knew I had to escape his shadow as soon as possible. The things I saw. The way he treated pack members. The fear he ruled with.
My wolf came early far earlier than most. I felt him long before I should have. He rose to protect me, driven by the grief of my mother’s death, stepping in where no one else could.
Dominique’s trauma might be doing the same thing.
His wolf might be awakening early too not out of ambition, but out of refusal. A refusal to ever be helpless again.
On the drive back with Lucas, my thoughts were heavy, my focus fixed on Aurélie’s car ahead of us. I needed time alone with Dominique. Needed answers. Needed to understand where that buried anger was coming from.
When we reached Darkvale, it was nearly dinner. The twins were exhausted, and Aurélie said she’d bathe them and put them to bed before we ate together.
I took the opportunity to run the borders.
I hadn’t trained in days, and the energy coiled inside me needed an outlet needed to be burned away before it became something dangerous.
The house was warm and loud by dinner, the scent of roasted meat filling the air. Fabrice served himself vegetables, glancing between Dominique and Delphine.
“So, what’s the plan for tomorrow?” he asked casually.
“I need to have a meeting with Alpha Damien.”
His eyes lifted to mine sharp, serious. No mischief. No humor.
I wasn’t sure whether to laugh… or brace myself.
“A meeting?” I smiled lightly, trying to defuse the tension. “That sounds ominous. Should I bring my Beta?”
He didn’t smile back.
Not even a little.