Chapter 30 30
Damien POV
My wolf surged forward before I could stop him, a vicious growl tearing from his chest as the sight before us snapped every thread of restraint. Her eyes those unmistakable green eyes collided with mine. Recognition hit instantly. And behind it… hatred. Cold. Sharp. Unfiltered.
Hatred?
For me?
What right did she have to be angry?
She was the one who ran. She was the one who disappeared only to end up in another male’s bed and carrying his child. If anyone had earned the right to rage, betrayal, and the hollow ache of deception, it was me.
Fury pumped through my veins until every cell vibrated beneath my skin. My wolf wanted to spill blood for the lies. For the abandonment. For every year she lived while I mourned her.
She had a child.
She had been alive hidden from me all this time.
The little girl white-blonde hair like her mother was quickly passed into Aurélie’s arms as my massive wolf refused to back down. The child trembled easily, fragile… the way Aurélie once looked the first time I saw her.
A guttural snarl ripped from me as Fabrice shifted. The beta-turned-doctor had the audacity to stand there as if he was my equal. As if he could challenge me.
He hid my wife.
He sheltered the Luna of the Bloodnight pack.
He helped conceal her inside an enemy pack.
He would answer for that.
And this Darkvale alpha whoever he was would answer for giving her sanctuary.
Fabrice’s brown wolf stepped in front of them, positioning himself as a shield. His back arched, posture wide, silent declaration: you’ll have to go through me first.
My wolf bared his teeth, another growl shaking through his ribs. I may be the Alpha King, but I wasn’t a monster. I would never strike a child. And I would never harm my wife not even a wife who had betrayed me.
Still, Fabrice snapped at me, trying to provoke, trying to look dangerous.
He failed.
My attention drifted back to Aurélie. Her wolf was forward so close I could feel her through her skin. Her green eyes had deepened into a dark forest, almost black, the way they used to right before she shifted. She wanted to fight. She wanted me dead.
And she was the one who lied.
She was the one who vanished.
She was the one who sought refuge inside a pack now standing against mine.
Whoever the Darkvale alpha was, he’d helped her. Sheltered her. Hid her from her rightful king. And he would answer for that treachery with his life.
Warrior wolves arrived quickly, encircling the trio forming a living barrier around Fabrice, Aurélie, and the little girl. Their alpha had sent reinforcements. His protection. His claim.
My wolf couldn’t look away from her. Fabrice noticed. He growled, lowering himself in warning.
The Darkvale alpha would die. Violently. And I would make sure he understood why.
Aurélie POV
His wolf a towering mass of black fur and lethal intent stood like a creature forged for killing. My men waited for my command. One word and they could end him. The Alpha King, gone. The threat eliminated.
But I couldn’t say it.
My wolf whimpered, the sound echoing in my skull. My heart thrashed with a different kind of fear.
“Give the order!” Fabrice’s voice cut through my mind-link.
“I… I can’t.” My breath trembled. How would my children look at me when they were older knowing what I had done?
“Alpha?” Théo pushed through the link.
“Hold your positions,” I ordered sharply. Damien couldn’t learn who I truly was not yet.
He took a slow step toward me. A husband wanting to speak to the wife who ran from him. I could see it in his eyes, that twisted mix of anger and confusion and desperate familiarity. As if he expected me to welcome him. As if the pain he caused had never existed.
A growl rumbled from my chest, halting him.
With one final snarl aimed at Fabrice Damien’s beast retreated, leaping back over the blackberry hedge and vanishing into the woods.
“Shall we follow, Alpha?” Théo asked.
“No. He’ll leave. He knows he isn’t welcome here.”
But a darker question gnawed at me.
How did he break my borders?
I shifted back and gathered Delphine close.
“Mummy, who was that wolf?” she whispered.
“Not someone you need to worry about,” I murmured, holding her tighter as we walked back toward the alpha house. Fabrice remained beside us in wolf form, protective, tense.
“I want to know how he broke through our borders!” I roared later, seated at the round table as my alpha aura surged from me like a storm. “Four years of securing my pack… and he slips through it in a day. Alone!”
“Alpha, he’s the best tracker in the world,” Fabrice replied carefully, trying to soothe the rising fury.
“I don’t want excuses. We’re lucky he didn’t bring his warriors. I will not let us be attacked again!” My fist cracked against the table.
“Aurélie, calm down.” Fabrice’s voice slid into my mind-link.
“Don’t tell me to calm down. The Alpha King must never break our borders again!” I snapped, this time aloud, before storming out.
What was I more furious about?
That he breached my defenses
or that I couldn’t order his death?
He destroyed my life.
He murdered my parents.
He created the fire I lived with every single day.
“It’s complicated…” my wolf whispered.
“What is?” I hissed as I entered my bedroom, heading straight for the shower.
“You still love him.”
“No, I don’t.” My nails scraped my scalp as I scrubbed shampoo through my hair. Too hard. Too angry.
“He is the father of our children…”
“Anyone can father a child,” I snapped.
But her anger was fading. And I hated it.
If I’d given the command… Damien would be gone. And yet at the moment of truth I froze.
“Aurélie?” Fabrice’s voice called gently from the bedroom. “Security is tightened. Are you okay?”
“Is Delphine okay?” I countered.
“She’s fine. She and Dominique are watching a film. Do you want to talk?”
“No, thank you. I need you to contact the entire Darkvale alliance and put them on standby.”
“Aurélie… he was shocked. Like he’d seen a ghost. Did you hold your alpha aura in?”
“Yes, Fabrice,” I snapped, regretting it instantly.
Only when he left did I step out of the shower and sink against the bed, breath unsteady.
I felt torn in half.
I hated Damien. I had lived off that hatred for years.
But when the moment came to destroy him…
I couldn’t.
For my children.
For my wolf.
For reasons I didn’t want to name.