Chapter 26
Chapter twenty-six
Damien
Istare at the bottom of my empty whiskey glass, watching the amber residue catch the morning light slanting through the tall windows behind my chair. My hand trembles enough that I notice.
My fingers, toes, and balls still throb from the frostbite I earned running naked through Luna’s snow-covered property at one in the morning. At least I had the presence of mind to cup my cock with both hands during the sprint.
Thank fuck I parked halfway up Luna’s driveway last night, the snow blocking my usual path through the woods.
Less than a minute and a half from her back door to the Range Rover.
I dove inside, calling Cade and telling him to drag my personal physician out of bed and get him on the helicopter.
I’ve never been more grateful that I left the doors unlocked, considering I abandoned everything at Luna’s, every piece of clothing I wore there except my goddamned socks.
They arrived a little after 3 AM, and the doctor just left a few minutes ago, after giving me a three-hour lecture on the dangers of exposing my naked genitals to thirty-two-degree temperatures.
No fucking shit, Sherlock!
The frostbite might be mild, but every sting reminds me how catastrophically I ruined things with Luna. Running naked into a snowstorm was the least of my fuckups. My reasons for it, buried under the layers of lies and deception I’ve spun, outweigh it by a mile.
Cade sits rigid in the chair across my desk, arms locked over his chest, eyes sharp as vultures.
The silence between us is thick and suffocating.
Athena curls at my feet, her warm weight the only thing keeping me tethered.
But she’s restless, whining and thumping her tail, as if she can sense every jagged piece of my guilt.
“You gonna tell me what happened?” Cade’s rough voice cuts through the noise in my head. “Or should I just watch you drink yourself stupid? You realize it’s only 7 AM, right?”
I slam the glass down. The sharp crack echoes off the wood.
“She knows.”
Cade doesn’t even blink. “Course she does. Told you this would blow up in your face.”
I surge to my feet. Athena lifts her head with a grunt as I stride to the window overlooking the helipad, each step a stabbing reminder of my stupidity.
“She said my name, Cade. Looked me dead in the eye and said, ‘Damien.’ She's had suspicions for a while, but the second I kissed her, everything clicked.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have kissed her.”
I spin toward him, heat exploding in my chest. “I fucking had to. I couldn’t take it anymore.”
Cade leans back, his expression unchanged. “What now?”
“Fuck if I know. Maybe I can convince her she’s wrong.” Even as the words leave my mouth, I hear how pathetic they sound.
“Why would you do that? I thought you were trying to come clean?”
“I am. But she’s been through enough. She doesn’t need my deception to add to it. Besides, she was overwhelmed, caught up in the moment. People say all kinds of shit during sex.”
“Bullshit!” Cade stands, his presence suddenly dominating the room.
“That woman’s smarter than half the people we both know, and you’ve been playing a dangerous game for months.
You really think she hasn’t noticed how similar you are?
The way you move, touch her, even fucking breathe?
Christ, Damien. I’m shocked it took this long. ”
My hands ball into fists. I welcome the pain as my fingers ache. “I did what I had to do.”
“You did what you wanted.” His tone stays flat and factual. “You got obsessed, but you couldn’t just watch from the shadows. You had to have her.”
We’ve had this fucking conversation what feels like a dozen times, but I thought he finally understood that wanting Luna and loving her aren’t choices I made. They’re facts of my existence now.
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this.” I drag both hands through my hair and yank hard enough to hurt. “I was supposed to come clean first.”
I drop onto the bench below the window. Athena pads over and nudges my foot. Pain shoots through the frostbitten flesh, and I jerk back. Fuck, I hope I can wear shoes.
“I blame my fucking parents for this. If I could kill them again, I would.”
“Your parents were evil and got what they deserved.” That’s a first. He’s always kept his opinion of what I did to himself.
“But you’re a forty-six-year-old man, and it’s time you stopped blaming them for all your shitty choices.
There’s a point when you have to take responsibility for your own actions. ”
“You think I don’t know this is all a hell of my own making?”
“Then man the fuck up.”
I exhale, and months of buried secrets leave with the breath. “Luna’s the only woman I’ve ever shown my real self to. Right from the start, I knew she could handle my darkness, even with all her light. Maybe because of it.”
“So, you created two different versions of yourself?”
“I gave her what she needed. Her dark side wanted the wolf. But the rest of her wants someone normal.”
“And what did you want? I’m serious, Damien. What did you want from her? Really?”
“At first? Just sex. To own her. Ruin her for anyone else but me. But the second she surrendered, I wanted every fucking part of her.”
“That’s not love, kid. That’s control.”
I surge to my feet. “Don’t fucking lecture me about love.
I’ve killed fifteen hundred fifty-seven people, Cade.
Fifteen hundred fifty-seven pieces of human garbage who tortured innocent animals for fun.
Their blood’s on my hands, their screams are in my head, and I loved every fucking second of it.
Someone who loves that kind of violence and carnage doesn’t deserve to be on the receiving end of it. Especially from someone like her.”
“For what it’s worth, I believe she does… love you.”
“Why?”
My voice cracks like I’m sixteen again instead of pushing fifty.
“Because you’re not in fucking prison. She saw something worth protecting in you, or she would’ve turned you in.” Cade settles back, his expression thoughtful. “So, what are you going to do?”
I lean forward, forearms braced on my knees, studying the grain of the floorboards. “I could go back tonight. Wear the mask, pretend she never said my name. Keep things the way they were.”
“Did you miss the part where we just established she’s not an idiot?”
“I know that.”
I’ve been carrying this secret like a weight, part of me hoping she’d see through the deception while another part dreaded this exact moment. But I wanted control over the reveal. Instead, she connected the dots because I couldn’t keep my goddamn mouth off her.
“I guess you could try.” His tone makes clear what he thinks of my odds. “How’d that work out for you last night when you nearly lost your nuts in the snow?”
The memory makes me flinch. “That wasn’t my finest moment.”
Her voice echoes in my head. The shock when she said my name, her eyes searching mine for confirmation. She spoke with such certainty, but instead of answering, I grabbed her hair and snarled at her like the wolf she called me. Then I ran into the night like a coward.
“I had to get out of there.” I drag a hand down my face. “One more second and I was going to fucking lose it and vomit out the truth.”
“I think your truth might be more than anyone should have to handle. But if anyone can, it’s probably her.”
“That’s not fucking helping me, Cade. I don’t know if I’m capable of being what she needs. What if all I know how to do is take and claim and destroy?”
“Then you figure out how to learn something else.” He stands and crosses to the door, pausing at the threshold. “You’ve spent forty-six years convinced you’re damaged beyond repair, but that woman proved you wrong. She chose you, Damien. Both versions of you, without even knowing it.”
Athena whines and pushes her wet nose into my palm. Her love is simple and uncomplicated. She doesn’t judge the killer in me. Doesn’t care that I’m warped and broken. She only remembers I pulled her out of hell, and that’s enough for her.
“Once she knows everything, once she sees that there’s no separation between the man and the monster, she’ll run.”
“She might.” His voice holds no false comfort. “Or she might not. But that’s her choice to make.”