21. Damon
Circle of Union:
Three candles, three breaths, one spark. Together, stronger.
The ground is frozen, cracking under my boots with every step. It’s not snow, but a black hoarfrost that covers everything, swallowing the light from the moon. The town is behind me, a distant collection of dark, silent shapes. Ahead of me, the tree line is a gaping maw.
And they’re there.
Silas stands at the edge of the woods, a figure of black against the deeper black of the trees.
He isn’t looking at me. His attention is on the woman he’s holding by the arm.
Caroline’s struggling, her feet slipping on the icy ground.
She’s wearing the same jeans she wore yesterday, the same thin sweater.
She must be freezing.
I run, but the ground feels like mud, pulling at my legs, slowing me to a crawl. I can’t reach them. I can hear her, a sound that cuts through the silence. It’s not a scream. It’s my name.
“Damon!”
Silas turns his head, his face catching the faint moonlight.
His eyes are empty. He smiles, a slight, cruel curve of his lips.
He says something to her, too low for me to hear, and she goes limp in his grasp.
He doesn’t catch her. He just keeps dragging her toward the trees, her boots leaving furrows in the frost.
“Caroline!” I roar, the sound tearing from my throat, but it’s swallowed by the immense, oppressive quiet. I’m not getting any closer. The distance between us is a chasm that widens with every step I take.
He reaches the tree line. He pauses, looking back at me one last time. He raises a hand in a small, mocking wave. Then he pulls her into the darkness, and they’re gone. The scent of her, cinnamon and honey and fear, hangs in the frozen air for a moment before the cold snuffs it out.
“No.”
I bolt upright in bed, the word a ragged gasp in my throat. My heart is a frantic drum against my ribs, a wild, panicked beat. I’m drenched in sweat, the sheets wrapped around my legs. My room is dark, but familiar.
I’m home. I’m safe.
I drag a hand through my hair, my breath coming in harsh, uneven bursts.
The dream. It felt so real. The cold, the helplessness, the look on Silas’s face.
I swing my legs out of bed, my feet hitting the cool wood of the floor.
I need to move. I need to shake the feeling of that frozen ground under my feet.
I glance at the clock on the nightstand. 4:17 a.m. Too early. Too late to go back to sleep. The images from the nightmare are still burned onto the back of my eyelids.
I pick up my phone from the nightstand. The screen is too bright in the dark room. I squint, my thumb finding Amara’s contact. I type out a quick message.
Me: You good?
I stare at the screen, waiting. The three little dots appear almost immediately.
Amara: Bored. Studying. Why?
Me: Just checking. Go back to sleep.
I set the phone down, a small measure of calm settling in my chest. She’s okay. She’s safe. That’s what matters. But the feeling of unease doesn’t leave. It’s a knot in my gut, tight and cold.
I push to my feet and walk out of the bedroom, not bothering to grab a shirt. The house is quiet. Aunt Etta’s door is closed. I pad down the hallway, my bare feet silent on the runner, and into the study.
I should work. I should go through the incident reports from the last week and the budget requests for the new cruisers. I should focus on something tangible, something I can control. But my mind keeps drifting back to the dream. To Silas. To Caroline.
I lean forward, resting my elbows on the desk, my head in my hands.
The Council’s envoy is here. A man who looks at this town like it’s a puzzle he can’t wait to solve, a prize to be claimed.
A man who looks at me like I’m an obstacle.
And now my own subconscious is pairing him with Caroline, creating a nightmare scenario where I fail to protect the one person I’ve sworn to.
The door to the study opens with a soft creak. I don’t look up. I know who it is.
“Bad dream?” Aunt Etta asks gently.
I lift my head. She’s standing in the doorway, holding a steaming mug. She’s wearing her worn flannel robe, her gray hair in a loose braid over her shoulder. Her eyes are full of a knowing sympathy that I both appreciate and resent.
“Something like that,” I say.
She crosses the room and places the mug on the desk in front of me. The scent of strong black coffee fills the air. “You were shouting.”
I wince. I hadn’t realized. “Sorry if I woke you.”
“You didn’t. Not really.” She pulls up the armchair across from my desk, settling into it with a soft sigh. “You’ve been on edge since that meeting, Damon. Is it Silas?”
“He’s a problem,” I say, wrapping my hands around the warm mug. The heat is a grounding sensation. “A big one.”
“He seems like a reasonable young man. I know you don’t want to hear this, but I think the Council has this town’s best interests at heart. I wish more people would trust them. Maybe judge them if something goes wrong. Not before.”
I take a sip of the coffee. It’s bitter, just how I like it. I can’t go into details tonight. I already know where she stands with all of this. “I’m trying to keep this town safe.”
“Maybe they are, too?” She leans forward, her hands clasped in her lap.
“Think it through. The Council is seriously worried about the ley lines and how all these disruptions are affecting them. It’s their job to keep us safe.
If the Omegas are putting us in danger, then maybe you need to put that into consideration too. ”
I grunt in response. Yeah, there’s no reasoning with her.
She gets up and pats my shoulder, then she turns and leaves the room as quietly as she entered, closing the door behind her.
I sit in the quiet, the coffee warming my hands.
She’s right, of course. She’s always right.
But knowing something and being able to do something about it are two different things.
I can’t focus on the reports. I can’t think about the budget.
All I can think about is the clock on the wall.
The slow, agonizing crawl of the minute hand.
I’m just buying time. Waiting for the sun to rise. Waiting for a decent hour. Waiting for the moment I can walk out of this house, go down to that shop, and see for myself that she’s okay.
The engine is still running, the heater pushing a lukewarm breeze into the cab of the cruiser. I’m parked across the street, two houses down from hers. The windows are dark. The whole street is quiet under the pre-dawn sky.
I tell myself I’m just giving it a minute. A moment to process the nightmare, to get my head on straight before I see her. But it’s a lie. I’ve been sitting here for ten minutes, my hands gripping the steering wheel.
I kill the engine. The sudden silence is loud.
I get out, the cold air a shock against my bare skin.
I left my jacket in the back seat. I cross the street, my boots crunching on the gravel of the shoulder.
I walk up her driveway, the neat flagstone path flanked by dormant flowerbeds, and climb the three steps to her porch and stand in front of the door.
When I raise my hand and knock, the sound of my knuckles against the wood is too sharp in the stillness.
I wait. Thirty seconds. A minute. I hear something from inside. A thud. A muffled curse. More thudding, like someone stumbling around in the dark. My muscles tense. I raise my hand to knock again, this time harder, but the sound of a deadbolt turning stops me.
The door swings open.
And there she is.
She’s a mess. Her hair is a tangled halo around her face, escaping a messy bun on top of her head.
Her cheeks are flushed, a high, hectic color.
She’s wearing an old, faded T-shirt that’s damp with sweat, clinging to her breasts and torso.
The scent hits me first, before I can process anything else.
It’s not her usual cinnamon and honey. It’s the salty scent of exertion, of sweat on her skin. Underneath it, though, is the faint, sweet trace of her Omega heat, a ghost of a scent that should be long gone.
My body reacts before my brain can catch up.
A hot punch of lust straight to my groin.
My cock immediately goes hard, an aching pressure against the zipper of my jeans.
It’s an instinctual response to an Omega in distress, to her scent, to the sight of her.
I have to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from making a sound.
“Damon?” Her voice is hoarse, her eyes wide and dazed. “What are you doing here?”
“Is this a bad time?” The question is stupid, a formality. I can see it’s a bad time. A terrible time.
“No,” she says, shaking her head a little too quickly. She glances back into the dark house. “No, I was just… running a load of laundry. Come in.”
She steps aside, and I cross the threshold into her house.
Inside, the scent of her sweat and something else, something faintly metallic, clings to every surface.
The place is neat. Immaculate, even. Books are stacked on the coffee table, a half-finished mug of tea on the coaster. Everything has its place.
It’s the same as the last time I was here, but different.
That time, the air had been thick with the scent of her heat, with the tension of what we were about to do.
I remember my hands under her shirt, her leg wrapped around my hip.
I remember ending up with my cock buried inside her, her cries echoing in the quiet house.
“Can I get you some coffee? Or tea? Or… something?” She’s wringing her hands, a nervous gesture.
“No, I’m okay,” I say. I walk further into the room, trying to put some space between us, to get my body under control. I sit on the edge of the armchair, my posture rigid.
She hovers for a moment before sitting on the opposite end of the sofa, pulling her knees up to her chest. She’s as far away from me as she can get. The movement makes the T-shirt ride up, exposing a long expanse of her thigh. I look away, focusing on a spot on the wall.