Chapter 23 What Is Mine
Damon
The world is a muffled roar. A sea of faces and banners, all of it blurring into a meaningless smear of color. I see only one thing. Her back. Straight. Defiant. Walking away from me, shoulder to shoulder with him.
Elara.
My wolf, a beast I have commanded my entire life, is tearing my insides apart. It howls a silent, agonizing scream that rattles my bones. Mate. Our mate. You let her go. You let him take her.
“Well, she’s certainly learned a few tricks.” Serena’s voice is a shard of glass in my ear. “Putting on a brave face. It’s almost pathetic.”
I don’t answer. I can’t. My tongue is a useless weight in my mouth. I watch them, the small, defiant banner of the Crescent Moon, until they are swallowed by the crowd. She never once looks back.
“Damon.”
My father’s voice is a block of ice. I finally tear my gaze away and look at him. His face is unreadable, but his eyes are hard. Disappointed.
“You have created a complication,” he says. It is not an accusation. It is a statement of fact. Cold. Final.
“She’s nothing,” Serena says, her hand tightening on my arm. A possessive gesture. A brand. “She’s a stray who got lucky. Kael is collecting rejects. It shows his weakness, not his strength.”
“He is the one with the silver wolf on his team,” my father says, his eyes still on me. “An asset you discarded. An asset that now belongs to a rival.”
Discarded. The word hits me like a physical blow. I didn’t discard her. I made a strategic decision. For the pack. For the Games. It was logical.
It felt logical three years ago.
“Let’s go,” my father commands. He turns his back, expecting me to follow. He always expects me to follow.
I force my feet to move. Each step is a betrayal of the instinct screaming at me to go after her. To drag her back. To remind her where she belongs.
With us, my wolf snarls. Not with him.
We reach the space beneath our banner. The silver and grey feels dull. Tarnished. Our warriors watch us, their faces a mixture of confusion and unease. They all saw it. They all saw the Beta’s lost daughter, returned as an enemy.
“That little bitch has some nerve,” Serena spits, her voice a low hiss once we are inside the privacy of our tent. “Challenging me. In front of everyone.”
“You provoked her,” I say. My voice is a rough rasp.
Serena’s head whips around, her blue eyes flashing. “What did you just say? I was defending your honor. She made you look like a fool.”
“She is not the one who made me look like a fool,” I say, the words tasting like ash. I run a hand through my hair, my entire body thrumming with a violent, directionless energy.
“A silver wolf,” my father says from the corner of the tent. He is cleaning a ceremonial blade, his movements precise, deliberate. Uncaring. “You failed to mention that part, son.”
“I didn’t know,” I snap. How could I have known? She was nothing. Wolf-less. Broken.
“No,” he says, not looking up from his work. “You did not bother to look. You saw a problem and you removed it. You did not consider the potential. That is a failure of leadership.”
“I did what was best for the pack!” I shout, the control I pride myself on finally shattering. “We needed a strong team for the Games! A strong Luna! Not a… a girl who couldn’t even shift.”
The words sound hollow. Excuses. The confident Alpha I was on her eighteenth birthday is gone. In his place is a boy screaming his own justifications into the void.
“And now she returns with a legendary power, allied with an unknown Alpha, and her brother is one of our senior warriors,” my father continues, his voice a relentless, calm dissection of my failure. “Her father is my Beta. You did not just reject a mate, Damon. You created a political schism that could tear this pack apart from the inside. All for a game.”
“This is not just a game,” I snarl. “It is about the honor of this pack.”
“And you have put that honor at risk.” He finally looks up, the blade still in his hand. His eyes are cold. “Fix it.”
He walks out of the tent, leaving the order hanging in the air.
“He’s right, you know,” Serena says, her tone softer now, manipulative. She comes to stand behind me, her hands on my shoulders. “You made a mistake. But you chose me. You chose strength.”
Her touch feels wrong. It is not the calming presence I thought I wanted. It is a cage.
I shake her off. “Leave me alone.”
“Damon…”
“I said, leave me alone!” I roar. The force of my voice, my Alpha command, makes her flinch and take a step back. Her face is a mask of shock and wounded pride.
She turns on her heel and storms out of the tent.
I am alone. The silence is a crushing weight. My wolf paces in my mind, a caged, furious beast. She is ours. She is ours. She is ours.
I try to push the thought away. I try to focus. Strategy. The first trial. The Hunt. We need to dominate. We need to show strength.
But all I can see is her face. The calm defiance in her eyes. The way she stood next to Kael, like she belonged there.
The sickness returns. That faint, nauseating pull. The ghost of the bond. I press my hand to my chest, my heart hammering against my ribs.
It is not gone. After three years. After my rejection. It is still there.
My father is wrong. Serena is wrong. I was wrong.
It was not a mistake of the Goddess. It was a test. She was testing me. She gave me an uncut diamond, and I threw it away because I was too impatient to see its worth.
But the bond is still here. Faint. A whisper. But it is here.
That means she is still mine.
The thought is a revelation. A spark of light in the darkness of my regret. My wolf seizes it, his howling turning into a low, possessive growl. Ours.
It is not over. The rejection was my mistake. But the bond gives me a right. A claim. She belongs to me. Not to Kael. Not to his pathetic pack of strays.
Possession floods my veins, hot and sharp, chasing away the cold grip of regret. It is a powerful, clarifying feeling. This is not about winning the Games anymore. That is a child’s prize.
This is about reclamation.
I see her thriving, and it is not a testament to her strength. It is a theft. Kael stole what was mine and polished it for himself. Her power, her wolf, her loyalty… they belong to Silver Creek. They belong to me.
I walk to the entrance of the tent and look out across the arena. The Crescent Moon banner is a dark blue speck in the distance. A stain.
I will win the Games. That is a given. It is my destiny. But that is not the real prize.
I will break her team. I will break her new Alpha. And then I will take back what he stole.
I will take back my mate.