Chapter 336 336
Damien POV
We received the tip-off in the early hours of the morning information about Sab’s possible whereabouts. Under normal circumstances, I might have questioned it. But this wasn’t just a rumour. With him having monitored her discreetly for the past six months, the tip was as good as a pinned location with a live feed.
I knew I had to move immediately.
Now that her face was plastered across the darker corners of the internet wanted posters circulating among people who would not hesitate to exploit her I couldn’t afford hesitation. Others were hunting her now.
She’d managed to get far. Farther than I expected. She was holed up in one of the most rural parts of the country, which was clever. Smart. She’d deliberately stripped technology from her life, knowing facial recognition software would flag her the second she appeared on a screen.
She was far more intelligent than I’d given her credit for.
There were only two ways this could end. Either she returned to my family… or she ran again.
She didn’t even know about Father.
I’d never had to explain myself to anyone not truly. Not until Aurélie re-entered my life with our children in tow. Only then did I begin to question the choices I’d made in the past.
I’d felt nothing when Father died. Relief, perhaps but no grief. The bastard was gone, and with him the shadow he’d cast over my family and pack.
Sab, however, wouldn’t take the news the same way. I could already feel it. If anything, it might push her to flee again.
If she weren’t half-werewolf… if she weren’t a secret multimillionaire from the human world, I might have let her disappear into this new life she’d built. This stripped-back existence—remote farmland, isolation, simplicity.
But she was fooling herself.
Sab had been raised on luxury, accustomed to refinement, to power and privilege. She’d fight me on this I could already sense it when I tore her away from the quiet, rural life she’d carved out. The farmer’s life.
And I suspected she liked it.
But if I didn’t reach her first, someone else would. And their intentions would be far less forgiving than mine.
The scenery outside confirmed we were close. Urban sprawl faded into endless green fields stretching as far as the eye could see.
My phone buzzed. A location update.
“Enter this into the satnav,” I ordered the warrior driving while I remained in the back seat.
Three vehicles. Four men per car. Lucas and Fabrice were back with Aurélie and the children, which meant I could handle this personally.
Sab had been gone far too long.
It was time she came home.
Perhaps her return would quiet the darkness building inside me the one I kept blaming on regret and guilt over how I’d handled things with her.
“Ten minutes away, Alpha,” the driver confirms once the satnav recalculates.
Excellent.
The directions lead us to a roadside diner. That tells me everything I need to know. She had to be in a vehicle there was nothing else for miles. No one stopped here unless they were passing through.
A lorry driver, most likely.
She’d hitched a ride.
Annoyance coils tightly in my chest at her recklessness trusting a stranger, risking her life again.
“Continue forward,” I instruct. “Set up a roadblock ahead. She won’t escape a vehicle with us surrounding it. If she runs for the fields, we’ll outrun her.”
It takes only minutes to position the cars. For every driver who approaches, we flash fake police badges and conduct inspections, spinning a story about escaped criminals to justify the delay.
Doubt begins to creep in. A rare thing for me. Perhaps my instincts were wrong. Perhaps she wouldn’t come this way at all.
Then a truck appears.
Not slowing.
Slamming its brakes as if spotting us at the last second.
Impossible. The roadblock is visible from at least a quarter mile away.
Until I spot the bottle of alcohol in the driver’s hand.
We exit our vehicles. The scents hit me instantly werewolves, unmistakably… a human… and Gilles.
My jaw tightens.
I move to the side of the truck and there she is.
Sab.
Sitting in the back.
Covered in blood.
What the fuck.
“What the fuck are you thinking?” I roar at her rage ignited by her stupidity, by the drunk driver, by the fact she’d already managed to get herself into trouble before dawn had even broken.
She doesn’t answer.
She looks disoriented distant.
Instead, a young male speaks up.
“What are you doing?” he demands. “Blocking a road like this it’s a massive accident waiting to happen.”
He’s got courage. I’ll give him that. He knows I’m a werewolf but not who I truly am. Not yet. My aura has been dampened, suppressed to its lowest threshold.
Until now.
“Do you know who I am?” I ask smoothly, a smirk curling my mouth as I release my full power.
The effect is immediate.
The young, mousy brown-haired male crumples, his knees giving way under the weight of my Alpha King aura as it forces submission. The young woman beside him similar in colouring collapses as well.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” he gasps. “Forgive me. I didn’t recognise you.”