Chapter 280 280
Lucas POV
“What are you doing?”
Damien walks back into the Darkvale Alpha house after seeing Maurice off. Maurice had returned to the Ash Valley pack today we’d agreed to keep in close contact, share updates regularly. It was better this way. He needed to check in on his people. Needed distance. The last few weeks had been hell on him.
On all of us.
“I’m covering the air vent in the wall,” I reply. I probably look like a complete idiot crouched on the floor of the small cloak cupboard near the front door, tools scattered around me.
“Why?”
“Because your son has been using it to listen in on confidential meetings,” I say bluntly. “I think he started long before Aurélie first came to us trying to track down Dominique.”
I’d caught him just this morning, pressed up against the vent, listening with far too much focus for his age. Cheeky little bastard.
“Does Aurélie know?” Damien asks.
“No. I was hoping to sort it while she was asleep.”
“The little shit…” Damien mutters, rubbing the bridge of his nose. But there’s more pride than irritation in his voice.
Dominique is pure Damien. A miniature version. The number of times Damien dragged us into trouble when we were younger… I stopped counting years ago.
“He’ll just find another way,” Damien says, resigned. “But at least this keeps anything about Gaston out of his earshot for now.”
That determination borderline magnetism for chaos was definitely inherited.
“Did you manage to reach Simon?” Damien asks, shifting to the mind-link as Miss Lambert descends the stairs, eyeing my position on the floor with clear judgement.
Damien had asked me to contact Alpha Simon to see if he could quietly investigate on his end. Simon still maintained friendly relations with most packs in the Bloodnight alliance, even some outside it. He was removed enough from recent events that he could stir things subtly test loyalties, see who might be leaning back toward Gaston in preparation for a hostile takeover of both alliances.
“Yes,” I reply through the link. “He said he’d do what he can. But some packs have been holding secret meetings. Without us.”
Damien’s mouth curls slowly into a dangerous smile. “Then it’s time we attend one of those meetings.”
There it is. That look.
He wants his father gone.
Especially now—now that Aurélie is pregnant.
“Your aura alone will give you away,” I point out.
“That’s why we’re going to the cells,” he says calmly. “What kind of Alpha would I be if I didn’t give rogues a second chance?”
The Darkvale cells aren’t like ours. Aurélie believes in capture, re-education, and release. She always has.
Damien doesn’t.
He understands that some people can’t be re-educated. That they’ll always return to the same life because it’s all they’ve ever known. Stéphane was the perfect example.
So while the surface cells appear fair almost humane the underground ones were built for something else entirely. Torture. Intense psychological and physical reconditioning.
That was his plan.
Damien is a father now. A mate. He has a family to protect.
But he is still a ruthless Alpha. Still very much Garnier blood.
His family was attacked. His pregnant wife was left for dead.
He may look calm. He may even smile. But beneath that calm surface, he’s already planning his next move.
Damien is like a black swan graceful above water, lethal beneath it. Aurélie is the white swan: peace, diplomacy, hope. Damien plots in shadows. Black for death.
He’d already culled some of the rogues the ones who would never choose a different path. The ones who would keep attacking no matter how many olive branches we extended.
Right or wrong, we didn’t have time for them.
Time was our enemy now.
The growing baby was a countdown in Damien’s mind. He wanted the child born into a world without looming threats. Without enemies waiting in the dark.
“How many are left?” Damien asks as Fabrice opens the cell door for him.
Fabrice looks uneasy. He always does when we come down here. He doesn’t agree with our methods but he swore an oath to Damien. To protect Aurélie. To protect the children.
He’s in too deep to turn back now.