Chapter 21
Chapter Twenty-One
Damien
“What part of ‘Rielle isn't to be left alone at all times’ did you fail to understand?” I bit out, voice tight with frustration, my wolf dangerously close to the surface.
Gianna, the attendant I’d entrusted with looking after Rielle, dropped to her knees.
“It was her lunchtime, so I locked the doors and went to the kitchen—” She trembled, choking on the rest of her words. “Have mercy, Alpha.”
Hands clenched into fists at my sides, I corralled my dominance that had been bearing down on Gianna, then with a terse gesture, I dismissed her. It wasn't the girl's fault that Rielle had somehow gotten out of her room, broken a vase and cut herself up.
In truth, my dark mood had very little to do with the broken vase and everything to do with the steep cost of keeping my promise to Matthew.
While he'd kept his word about handling the human law enforcement, calling in favours to get all investigations into the murders temporarily suspended while Rielle recovered, nothing could counter the ripples Rielle's return caused within my pack.
The rising discontent and angst her presence provoked was palpable. So much so that Elder Malcolm’s half of the council took advantage of this to begin pushing for more drastic measures against the Sky Pack for ‘framing our pack for the human murders’.
Between that and the recent overhaul and audit of subsidiaries formerly under Elias's control, which had unearthed disturbing debts leveraging the parent company, the past week had been a shitstorm.
But nothing compared to what truly tormented me. The true cost of Rielle's return— Raven.
There wasn't a moment that passed in which I wasn’t consumed by thoughts of her. Where I wasn’t tormented by the potency of her absence.
From the moment Rielle returned, everything had fallen apart and nothing I did seemed enough to bridge the distance that had sprung between us.
…we are co-parents who sometimes share a purely physical relationship…
My jaw clenched at the remembrance of Raven's cold words. How she’d dismissed everything we shared when I'd gone to meet her to explain Rielle, to hold her, to do anything to return us to where we'd been before I left her bed.
For her, this was all transactional. Physical. It hadn’t meant anything to her.
Rielle let out a sharp, pained whimper that ripped me from my thoughts back to reality.
I’d been extracting the glass shards from Rielle’s bloody feet in Gianna's absence. Lost in my thoughts of Raven, I'd unconsciously tightened my grip on her ankle, bruising her skin.
A soft curse died in the back of my throat as Rielle's eyes, glistening with unshed tears, met my gaze.
They were the same deep blue I thought I'd known all those years before her betrayal, but now, save for the slight recognition of pain, her gaze was vacant as it had been the day I'd found her in those tunnels two weeks ago.
My jaw clenched. There was no coming back from this feral state for Rielle. Matthew’s theory was wrong, and all of this trouble was going to be for nought.
“Alpha.”
I glanced up to see Sinclair stepping into the room, the pack doctor I'd requested next to him.
I stood, ignoring the soft sound of distress Rielle made.
“Clean her up,” I told the doctor, then I was out, Sinclair falling in step behind me.
Once we were alone in my study, I turned to Sinclair.
“Do you have it?”
Sinclair nodded once solemnly.
“It was as you suspected, Elder Malcolm and Mia is pushing a motion to replace you with Elias,” He handed over a file and a memory card. “These are the recordings and proof of their treachery.”
I went through the evidence.
Elder Malcom and Mia had been even busier than I'd anticipated the past few weeks. From skimming and misappropriating pack funds to hire out mercenaries in preparation for the coup against me, to spearheading the movement that would see me ousted from the Alpha position in a few hours.
Pain and sadness knotted up in me as I noted the depth of Elias's involvement in the scheme.
All this time, even with the embezzlement in the subsidiaries, even after Sinclair's most recent investigations that had uncovered the entirety of Elias’s plot with Ivy against Raven, I'd refused to give up hope on Elias.
He was still my nephew. My sister's son. But now…
“Shall I order their arrests, Alpha?” Sinclair asked.
For several seconds, I stared at the screen in front of me without really seeing anything.
“No, I will discuss with Elias first,” I said finally. “I am certain he is being misled by Elder Malcolm and Mia.”
Yes. That had to be it.
Elias was young and misguided, my situation with Raven no doubt exacerbating everything. I just needed to talk to him, and everything would be resolved.
Sinclair paused, then he bowed lower than necessary, his tone almost sympathetic.
“Of course, Alpha.”
I took a walk outside the pack house.
In the next few hours, the mutinous members of the council and Elias needed to be handled, but all I could think of was the ultrasound I’d unintentionally missed and the glint of pain I’d seen in Raven’s eyes earlier.
As though conjured by my thoughts, a whiff of Raven's vanilla and spice scent hit me.
My legs began moving before I was fully aware of it, and as I neared the garden grounds overlooked by an overhead balcony, my footsteps slowed. Above, Raven stood on the balcony. But she wasn't alone.
“...tell me you believe Alpha Damien would choose a woman he's known for a handful of months over his childhood love and fated mate…”
I stood in that corner downwind, my heart slowing at the certainty of Elias's words, Raven's lack of response and the weary tension her shoulders held.
A deep guttural growl rattled to life deep within my chest as I watched Elias drift closer to her. Watched him place his hand on Raven's belly as he sold her the dreams of a future they would have had if he'd never cheated. A future they could still have.
The thought of the manifestation of that future, of Raven sharing soft, intimate smiles with Elias, of Raven in his arms, in anyone else's arms but mine, damn near obliterated my sanity.
It didn't matter that she'd been engaged to Elias first. Didn't matter that she thought what we had was only physical. She was mine now, and I had no intention whatsoever of letting her go.
But as I watched Raven tilt her head back to meet Elias's gaze, I realised it wasn't my choice to make. It was Raven's.
Raw, unfettered panic surged in my veins as I was hit by the deja vu of the moment so similar to another where Rielle had made a similar choice. The moment she'd rejected me and left me to die.
“I won't betray Damien.”
Raven’s words were firm and immovable, and for a breathless moment where my entire world slowed to a pause, I stared at Raven, completely transfixed, unable to believe she'd chosen me.
“What?” Elias’s gaze flared with disbelief. “You can't be serious.”
Raven's voice was steel.
“I am.”
Elias took Raven's hands in his, an almost desperate edge to his words.
“If this is about my former relationship with Ivy, I reassure you that I am fully committed to us now. I'm ready to earn your trust, Raven, however long it takes—”
Raven stepped away from him, letting her hands fall from his.
“It's not about you.”
I saw the moment Elias heard her, really heard her. Saw the moment the hope of a reunion in his gaze died.
“He doesn't love you. All he cares about is his mate,” Elias's expression was dark as it was broken. “That bitch wrecked this pack, killed my mother, his sister, yet he welcomed her back with open arms. If you stay with him, your safety isn't guaranteed. Neither is your child’s. With me, it is.”
“I know,” Raven met his gaze unflinchingly, emerald green eyes glittering with unshed tears.
“But I won't betray him.”
"So this is your choice," Elias's gaze shuttered as he took a step towards Raven, backing her up against the railing. “Ivy was right, you are as dumb as your parents.”
Raven's gaze crackled with a fury I felt even from three floors below.
“How dare you—”
"I think you might have been the first woman I ever loved," Elias closed the distance between them, cupping her cheek almost tenderly. “Too bad, I can't have you spilling my secrets.”
Elias shoved Raven off the balcony. Raven let out a surprised gasp, hands flailing for a hold she wouldn't find, then she was falling.
I didn't think. I moved. My motion a blur as my body rapidly closed the distance between where I stood to where Raven would land as she plunged from above.
And in those suspended seconds, I rediscovered the meaning of fear.
True fear. Thought-debilitating, mind-numbing, bloodcurdling fear. Then Raven hit my outstretched hands, the weight of her body slamming into mine, knocking the air from my lungs as we tumbled back, but I had her.
Her nails latched onto my shoulder, ripping through my shirt and skin, but it was a pain I welcomed because it meant she was alive.
Wide emerald green eyes found mine, her cheeks pale and her lips parted with shock.
“Damien.”
Trembling with relief, I pressed a kiss to her forehead even as I reached out to Sinclair via the pack link.
I let go of Raven, and it was the hardest thing I'd ever done. Then I was leaping on a pillar, levering myself over a balustrade and vaulting myself over the balcony Elias was already making his escape from.
Within a single breath, I had him pinned to the wall.
Elias choked out a pitiful plea, his scent drenched with fear.
“Uncle, it's not what you think—”
I tightened my grip on his throat, cutting off his air flow, a bloody haze falling over me as I recalled how he’d ruthlessly pushed Raven off the balcony.
“I tolerated your excesses all these years because your mother's death—”
Elias snarled, claws bared, his pathetic attempt at contrition falling away.
“You have no right to talk about my mother!”
I slammed him even harder against the wall, my dominance bearing down on him, forcing his silence.