Chapter 244 The search

Chapter 244 The search
Chapter 247: The Search

Damon's POV

Dawn broke over the destroyed temple like an ugly wound splitting open, bleeding red and gold across a sky that had no right to be beautiful. Not today. Not when half my soul lay buried somewhere in the rubble below.

I stood at the crater's edge, staring down into the darkness that had swallowed my mate. The hole was massive… easily fifty feet across and gods knew how deep it went. Smoke still rose from its depths, carrying the smell of burned stone and scorched earth and something else. Something disturbing that made my wolf howl in anguish.

Death.

" Damon." A rather familiar voice called out. I turned to see my beta approaching carefully, his usual military bearing softened by exhaustion and grief.

“James” I whispered, taking him by surprise by giving him a brother hug.Despite my grief, I felt a little of the chains weighing in my heart lift, seeing him alive. He had survived Millen's trap… and had somehow made it back to us during the chaos. Joining Selene and the redeemed soldiers in clearing the remaining of selene loyal soldiers that my sons cry couldn't break.

“i didnt know I would be missed like this. The structural engineers say the crater is unstable. One more collapse and…"

"I don't care." My voice came out flat, I disengaged from the hug. "We are going down."

"Damon…"

"I said we're going down!" The words tore from my throat, raw and desperate. "He is down there, Marcus. Milo, my mate is down there and the hell i am leaving him, for even a second. I won't!"

James studied me for a long moment, then nodded slowly. "Then we dig."

And so we did.

The enhanced soldiers worked in shifts, clearing debris with a desperate urgency that matched my own. They had all seen what Milo had done. Seeing him sacrifice everything to save them. To save all of us. The least they could do was help bring him home…

If there was anything left to bring home.

I shoved that thought away viciously. I couldn't think like that. Couldn't accept that the bond's silence meant what it seemed to mean. Milo was strong. Stronger than any of us had realized. He had survived the impossible before. He could survive this.

He had to.

The first day yielded nothing but rubble and melted stone. The heat from Millen's detonation had been so intense it had turned rock into glass in places, creating twisted sculptures of destruction that caught the light and threw it back in mocking rainbows.

By nightfall, we had cleared maybe ten feet.

"You should rest," Selene said softly, appearing at my side with a canteen of water, she knew too well that I wont drink. "Let the others work while you…"

"No." I didn't look at her, couldn't tear my eyes from the crater. "I have to keep looking. He's down there. He is…, what if he is waiting for me…"

My voice broke. I swallowed hard, forcing the words past the grief trying to strangle me. "...He is waiting for me to find him."

Selene didn't argue further. She just pressed the canteen into my hand and moved to help with the search for survivors.

The second day was worse. We found evidence of the explosion's power… scorched earth, blast marks, fragments of what might have been Millen's enhanced body scattered like shrapnel. But nothing purple. Nothing that looked like Milo.

I barely ate. I barely slept. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw him leaping into the crater with Millen in his jaws, saw the purple light blazing around him one last time before the explosion swallowed him whole.

Heard his final message through our bond.

Protect our son. Love him enough for both of us.

Our son. Gods… how was I supposed to explain to our baby that his father wasn't coming back? That my omega who had burned himself to nothing to save us was gone?

I couldn't accept it. I wouldn't accept it.

"Keep digging," I ordered when the soldiers showed signs of flagging. "Deeper. He's down there somewhere. We just have to…"

"Damon." Daphne's voice was gentle but firm. She stood at the crater's edge, my son in her arms, and the sight of him made something in my chest crack wider. "You need to eat. You need to rest. If you collapse, you won't be able to…"

"I can't stop." The admission tasted like ash. "If I stop, it means I am giving up on him. And I can't... I can't do that, Daphne. I can't."

She looked at me with such profound sadness that I had to turn away. "No one's asking you to give up. We are just asking you to take care of yourself. For him." She nodded toward my baby that I had not carried since the incident "Milo would want…"

"Don't." The word came out sharp. Cutting. "Don't tell me what he would want. Don't talk about him like he's already…"

I couldn't finish the sentence. Couldn't make myself say the word that hovered between us like a blade. I was with the foolish idea that if I spoke it out aloud, if I think about it, then I would be faced with the harsh reality of the truth.

The third day brought rain. Cold, relentless, turning the crater into a muddy nightmare that made the work ten times harder. But we didn't stop.

I worked alongside the soldiers, my hands bloody and raw, my injuries from the fight with Millen screaming in protest. I ignored all of it. Pain was good. Pain meant I was still alive, still searching, still refusing to accept the unacceptable.

By evening, we had reached what the engineers estimated was the blast's epicenter. The destruction here was total…stone vaporized, earth fused into glass, nothing recognizable remaining.

And no sign of him.

"Alpha Damon." One of the soldiers approached hesitantly. Young. Barely more than a kid, really, enhanced or not. "We have... we have searched everywhere. If there was anything to find, we would have…"

"Then we search again," I snapped, trying not to strike the poor kid to his early demise "From the beginning. Every inch. We don't stop until…"

"Damon, please." James' voice was heavy with exhaustion and grief. "It's been three days. The bond is silent. There's nothing…"

"I DON'T CARE!" The roar tore from my throat, echoing off the ruined temple walls. "I don't care if it takes three weeks or three months or three years! He's down here and I'm not leaving without him!"

Silence fell. The soldiers exchanged glances—worried, pitying glances that made me want to tear something apart.

They thought I was in denial. Thought grief had broken something in me.

Maybe it had, the silent bond said it already…

But I couldn't accept it. Couldn't accept that the mate I had failed so many times, dismissed so many times, had finally sacrificed himself to save me and I had never get the chance to make it right.

In my room, I finally let the pent of grief and frustrations free. I cried for what I could have done differently, what I was not able to do, and for the first time since I was born, I looked up to the moon, at whatever gods cared to listen.

“Pls, keep him safe.”

The fourth day came,finally. By now most of the soldiers that had sworn loyalty to us were on their way back to my pack. Everybody was occupied, so I didn't have the luxury of any soldier digging up for me.

My body moved on autopilot now, muscles screaming, hands shaking with exhaustion. but I kept digging. Kept searching, for anything at all

It was nearing the evening and still there was nothing to show for it. And for the first time since the last four days, it was beginning to dawn on me that maybe, he was really…

I froze,

but just for a moment, before my body was already moving, throwing myself at the rubble with strength I didn't know I still possessed.

I thought I saw something… or was it my mind playing games on me..

And then, in the crater's deepest point where the blast had carved a wound into the earth itself, I saw it, for the second time.

Purple.

Just a glimpse beneath a massive slab of rubble. But unmistakable.

My heart stopped.

"HERE!" The word came out strangled. "He's here! Help

The purple became more visible. Fur. Definitely fur.

The remaining soldiers saw my actions, and joined me, all of us digging with renewed desperation

We dug faster, stone and earth flying around, everyone working in frantic synchronization.

And then I saw him.

Milo's wolf form lay beneath the rubble, curled in on himself as if sleeping. His purple fur was dirty but intact, his body somehow preserved despite the explosion that should have obliterated him entirely.

He looked perfect.

Except he wasn't moving or breathing.

And the bond... the bond remained silent as a grave