Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Damien
I noticed the bandage as soon as she stepped into the training room.
“What happened to your hand?”
“There was a minor incident.” Raven didn’t even look at me, her tone cold and distant.
Full of worry, I let out a curse, reaching for her.
“Let me see—”
Raven took a step back.
“Don’t touch me.” Her emerald eyes held mine emotionlessly. “Let us continue to stay with the limits of our arrangement, Mr. Blackwell.”
Raven was still mad at me for that night. Of course, she was. Even I was still mad at myself. I hated that I was back to being Mr. Blackwell, no longer Damien. All because I’d let my temper get the better of me.
Raven had tried to comfort me, and what had I done? I’d lashed out at her.
Discussions about Rielle always rubbed me the wrong way. They reminded me of what my blind faith in the wrong person had cost my pack and family. So instead of taking the support Raven offered, I’d barricaded myself in my pain and pushed her so far away that now she couldn’t stand me.
“Raven—” I started to apologize, but she was already sliding on those blasted earphones again and jogging away from me.
Against my wishes, I watched her run, and it wasn’t because her posture had improved or because I found her tenacity impressive. It had, and I did, but it wasn’t why I stared.
I stared because I couldn’t help but stare at Raven, and I couldn’t even blame this on my wolf. It was on me. All me. I, who resented the awkward tension between us at work, Raven’s one-word responses, and the fact that she acted like I didn’t exist. I felt rattled.
I’d never realized how much I’d looked forward to talking to Raven and the small knowing smile that would play across her lips whenever our gazes met across a room. I even missed her unforgiving glare when I got on her nerves.
It certainly didn’t help that ever since she got mad at me, everything seemed to be going downhill around me.
First was that localized earth tremor a couple of days back that had only affected my wing of the pack house and left my room a mess.
I could have sworn at least half of my clothes and possessions had disappeared since that day.
“Is there an issue with the laundry?” I asked Margaret. “Mine hasn’t been brought in yet.”
She was one of the oldest maids in charge of housekeeping at the pack house. She delegated most of the other chores to younger maids but preferred to take on mine personally.
“It has, Alpha,” Margaret frowned in confusion, the wrinkles around her eyes crinkling. “I personally dropped it off myself.”
I let out a sigh of frustration.
“I can’t find my shirts and—”
My words hung in my throat as I watched Raven pass by, ignoring me but offering Margret a soft, friendly smile as she made her way to her new room that lay at the end of my room’s hallway.
“How is she?” I questioned Margaret once Raven’s door was shut behind her.
I was the one who’d pushed her away, but now, I was certain the distance between us was going to be my undoing. I couldn’t stand not knowing what was going on with her, even though she didn’t want to have me close.
“Raven?” Margaret seemed unsure of how to answer my question. “She’s taking her meals and medication regularly at the general dining area, and she still refuses to let anyone into her rooms.”
Since she’d moved rooms, Raven took care of cleaning her room herself, refusing to let anyone through the doors, as though she suspected I would use the domestic staff to spy on her.
I’d intended to, but that was beside the point.
“You should apologize to her,” Margaret suggested helpfully. “Whatever it is you did, I know she’ll forgive you. Raven is very soft-hearted.”
But Margaret didn’t understand. I knew how warm and soft Raven could be, but when she’d been hurt? I’d never known anyone more stonehearted— perhaps save for myself. There wasn’t a chance in hell that Raven would forgive me so easily for how I’d treated her.
“I’ve been trying,” I said instead, and I meant every word. I’d tried to talk to Raven, to apologize, to explain, and every single time she shut me out cold.
I knew I could have forced her to hear me out, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Not after the way I’d behaved. No explanation or apology could completely undo the effects of those hurtful words I’d said, and Raven was within her rights to refuse to listen to me.
I would wait until her anger passed. However long that took. It was the least I could do.
“There’s no proof?” I repeated flipping through the pages, as though that would change the content of Sinclair’s reports.
“None Alpha,” Sinclair bowed apologetically as though this was somehow his failing. “It would seem the Sky Pack truly isn’t to blame for the murders.”
I’d suspected as much. For all of Alpha Matt’s threats at the Silverstone Pack, I knew he wouldn’t be behind such a premeditated, despicable act.
But deep down, I’d still hoped to find something, anything that would shed light on this situation, especially with the latest human disappearance. If the pattern stayed true, the body would be found any moment now, and the subsequent human declaration of war would follow.
We were out of time. Closing the report, I massaged my temple, suddenly feeling fatigued.
“I trust you are still monitoring Elias’s movement.”
“Yes, Alpha,” Sinclair nodded once at my query. “He is still communicating with the elders. Mostly Elder Malcolm’s faction.”
The same faction that hadn’t approved of my recent choices. I knew they were planning something, but without any damning proof, all I could do was wait.
“Keep watching them,” I instructed.
After Sinclair took his leave, I combed through the files of the five dead and the one missing human as I had done several times in the past, trying to find a pattern I couldn’t see.
They didn’t have mutual friends or any peculiar ties to the werewolf community, nor did they share any overlapping occupational interests or hobbies.
One had been a doctor returning from a particularly long shift. Another homeless man, for whom there were scant two lines in his file. There was also a mechanic, a female traveler, and a true crime podcaster.
There were no traces of drugs in their systems, although an insignificant amount of trace metals had been found on the mangled bodies, which had been attributed to the murder site more than anything.
In fact, one could say the only thing they all had in common was the fact that they’d died from blood loss resulting from the attacks on them rather than the attacks themselves.
As I picked up the true crime podcaster’s folder to examine the victim’s details once more, some papers slipped out and mingled with the pack sentry reports on my desk.
As I picked up the papers, reports blending with sentry routes blending with victim profiles, I saw it. It took me several minutes to print out the maps I needed. My mind raced with the implications of my discovery.
One after the other, I marked the locations where the bodies had been found, which also happened to be the murder sites in all the cases. With all the locations marked, the detail that had seemed so elusive was clear to see. It was so clear that I wondered how I had failed to see it all this time.
Picking up the sentry report I’d put aside all those months ago, I summoned Sinclair to my office.
“Alpha?”
“Come, Sinclair,” I said, feeling lighter than I’d felt in days. I could prevent the war.
“We are going to visit an old friend.”
Alpha Matt and his sentries reached the border sooner than I’d anticipated. I straightened from my crouch to meet the indignant glare of Alpha Matt, who stood at the head of the group, his dominance charging the air between us.
“What on earth do you think you are doing on my territory?” he snarled.
I moved towards him, matching my dominance to his.
“At what point did you plan on informing me that the first of the murders was one of your sentries?”
It wasn’t until the maps were in front of me, until I’d seen the pattern in the wolf attacks, that the familiar but off-scent of the wolf finally made sense. The attacks followed a clear northwest trajectory—right from the borders between the Shadow Thorn Pack and Sky Pack.
And that familiar, not-so-familiar scent the wolf had?
It was that of my pack and the Sky Pack interwoven with the bitter, damp scent of the oak trees that covered acres of the stretch of land between our packs, where a Sky Pack sentry died roughly two months before the human murders had started up.
The Sky Pack initially threw accusations at my pack for that death, but before I could make it to the borders to examine the body and resolve the issue, Alpha Matt took back the claim and had the area cleaned up without any explanation.
It’d all been strange, but stranger things had happened, so I’d let the incident slip from my mind, until today. At my query, Alpha Matt visibly stiffened, his lips twisting into a scowl.
“Have you forgotten the laws of trespass?” He growled in an obvious attempt at misdirection. “I could have your head for this!”
I nodded once.
“All those weeks you kept your men sniffing at my border, you were hunting the murderer.” I wasn’t asking a question. “And you let my pack take the blame for yours.”
“You are grasping at straws,” Alpha Matt said, his jaw clenched, his gaze dark and evasive.
“And you are still keeping secrets,” I took another step towards him, letting him see the steel in my gaze. “If I find out all these murders were your doing, the humans will be the least of your worries.”
Alpha Matt went completely still, and his next words were a hostile, rough rumble.
“Get off my property.”
I left. There was nothing else left to say.
Following the northeast trail, we’d already discovered the sixth human body and, for the first time, gotten a hold of the murderer’s fresh scent leading to a major storm drain network that explained how the murderer got around and how we kept losing his scent with all the water to obscure our sense of smell.
My best trackers were already on it. In hours, I’d have my hands on the murderer, and Goddess help Matthew if I found out it was his man behind all this.
The need to see Raven hit me as I rounded the corner to the entry into my wing of the pack house. I’d returned home to wait for news from my trackers. But that wasn’t completely true, was it?
Even when I was knee deep in critical affairs, Raven lingered in my every thought. I owed her an apology, and if she decided not to forgive me, then that was fine as well.
At the edge of the corridor, I watched the door of my room swing open, and Raven stepped out, casting a surreptitious look around before hurrying down the hall to her bedroom with—was that my shirt tucked under her arm?
For a moment, I stood still, trying and failing to understand what I had just seen. Then, still puzzled, I headed towards Raven’s room. I didn’t knock before I stepped in. Climbing onto her bed, Raven made a startled sound, her face pale with shock as my gaze swept across her room.
The guest room space had been transformed into a mirror of mine. Those grey curtains and navy-blue bedspread were mine. And my shirts—my missing shirts were twisted into pillowcases, sleeves knotted into careful rolls.
Mounds of clothes—my clothes—were arranged artfully, obsessively, and color-coded around the room. And then there was Raven, flushed beet-red right in the middle of it all, the shirt she’d just stolen hanging off her shoulders. I let out a soft sound of surprise.
“You were the one stealing my clothes?”
Raven was nesting.
I’d read about nesting in pregnant wolves. When I found out Raven was carrying my child, I devoured everything I could get my hands on that could explain what the coming months would hold for her and how I could help out.
Nesting was a hoarding instinct—deep and primal. The pregnant wolf gathered whatever brought her comfort, safety, and familiarity. She built a haven for her unborn pup using scents that calmed her. But reading about it hadn’t prepared me for seeing Raven’s nest in person, especially not like this.
To see that my scent calmed and comforted Raven even when we were fighting and I had been a spectacular ass made my heart ache. A small laugh, full of disbelief and an overwhelming sense of relief, escaped me as Raven continued to stare at me wide-eyed.
Maybe Raven wasn’t as closed off as I’d believed…not if she was still clinging to me in this way. Maybe she’d listen to me and accept my apologies, and we’d finally move beyond this.
Goddess, I hoped so. I missed her so damn much. I stepped forward.
“Rave—”
Raven broke into a sob.