Chapter 13 - Damian
There's a coldness that hits my face even before I open my eyes, like a whisper of dread, or a signal that nothing is the way it's supposed to be.
Something is wrong. That chill travels down my neck, prickling the fine hairs there, and my eyes spring open, only to find that my arms are empty, and so is the space beside me where Sophie is supposed to be.
My heart lurches, and for a breath, a cloud of sadness hangs over my head, threatening to crack open in a way that feels even worse than it did when I broke up with her in the past. This one is fresh, a newer hurt, because I thought that we were moving forward.
I thought that we could move forward after everything, but maybe I was wrong.
Or maybe I’m just being too quick to assume things. She could have woken up and gone to the bathroom.
But the cold space beside me is a tell-tale sign that she didn’t sleep beside me at all.
Dawn has already broken, and the morning sun streams through the curtains in the living room; the fire has gone out long ago, and the absence beside me is a lingering presence, born from the night, as cold as the dead fireplace, as if she left as soon as I fell asleep.
I sigh heavily, placing an arm over my eyes as I take a moment to gather my thoughts.
I’m not shocked, but I am surprised. No one can fake the desire or the passion we shared last night.
What we had was special—what we’ve always had was special—and denying it feels like a betrayal of the mate bond, a betrayal of my heart, and a betrayal of everything that I’ve ever felt for her.
How could she do this?
Something inside me breaks, cracks open as if the earth itself is shattering and swallowing me whole. I try not to let it consume me, but it’s nearly impossible when every inch of my body smells like her, as if she’s a pond and I’d drowned myself in her essence.
Her scent is everywhere, as if it’s in my pores, and it’s what compels me to pull myself together and get to my feet, finding my pants thrown on the floor and pulling them over my legs before going in search of Sophie.
I follow her scent like a breadcrumb trail toward the guest bedroom, finding the door closed but catching her scent even more strongly.
I raise my hand, about to knock, but stop, hesitating, my stomach twisting as if my insides are warning me not to go ahead. If she’s in there, with the door closed, and she didn’t sleep beside me last night, it means she regrets what happened between us.
Perhaps she was just caught up in the moment—a heated moment brought on by the use of her magic out there in the valley last night, and then proceeding to heal me with her abilities.
Even I was shocked by the way she hungered for me, and I should have known that it was too good to be true.
She said she can’t trust me yet. Things couldn’t miraculously change overnight, and I’d be too presumptuous to expect it to change so quickly.
That’s why I decided to give Sophie space and distract myself with something else—something productive that won’t leave me feeling hopeless or useless.
Gulping hard, I make my way to the kitchen to prepare breakfast, with the mental note to keep a plate aside for Sophie for when she wakes up.
As if on cue, Heinrich reaches out to me just after I’m done eating, sending me a mind link to inform me that the council has gathered in Silver Stone territory.
***
The tension is razor-sharp in the Silver Stone meeting cabin, the other alphas gathered there with their betas, along with the council members and the research team.
This meeting is for the purpose of debriefing everyone about last night’s attack, and I can only report on as much as I was conscious for, while everything else is almost new to me as Heinrich tells them the rest.
Conan is oddly quiet while he sits in a corner, arms folded, a look of indifference on his face—nearly resentful, his eyes wildly unfocused as if he’s drunk on poison. Even glancing at him churns my insides, like my inner wolf can sense that there’s something wrong with him.
I can’t pinpoint what it is. All I know is that something is off with him, and his presence feels wrong, his scent feels wrong, and he doesn’t even want to be here. I glance at Heinrich, and he gives me a knowing nod before he continues.
“Miss Sophie took care of the demons for us. There were four of them, and we would have been toast if she weren’t there,” he says.
“The human is proving to be valuable to us,” Elder Bernard concedes as he leans forward. “Perhaps we have been wrong to have reservations. If this is true, it means the theory was correct.”
“Yes,” Amos agrees, jumping into the meeting at last. “While the south area seems to be coming alive again, with heat signatures showing up in places that were previously as extinct as the Ashclaw Pack, the demons seem to be aware of this as well. We don’t know much they know, or if they’re tracking Sophie because of it, but we need to be proactive.
She will have to be made aware of who she truly is.
It’s no coincidence that she was able to heal both the alpha and beta of Red Moon.
” Amos turns to me. “How have you been doing with regaining your powers?”
“Better,” I say, curling my hands on the table as I stare at them. “But Sophie isn’t ready to learn who she is, nor is she ready to train. She needs time. This isn’t something that can be sprung onto her.”
“We don’t have time, Alpha Damian,” Elder Mortimer argues. “The attacks are becoming more frequent.”
“She’s already proved to be an asset to this fight. If she is the key…” Heinrich adds, but I shake my head at him.
“It’s time you know the truth…” I say with a sigh, before going on to explain how I knew Sophie in the past when I met her at the hospital, and share with the council our history, in the hopes that they can see why Sophie has so much resistance. “And this is why she needs time.”
It’s like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders, and the news is met with different responses.
“It’s no excuse.”
“She needs to understand that this is bigger than any of us.”
“We’ll give it a week,” Amos relents as he places a hand on my shoulder. “A week for her to come around before we call her into an official meeting with the council.”
“Thank you for understanding, Amos,” I tell him with a nod, grateful that he has enough compassion for the current state of Sophie’s emotions.
He nods his understanding. “We cannot rely on her powers while she’s not in a good place emotionally. Her powers are different, unlike anything we’ve seen, and we have to be careful with them.”
Uncle Joel steps in. “In the meantime, Red Moon will have to strengthen our defenses and double down on training. If Damian’s power is awakening, we can use it to our advantage.”
“Yes,” I concede. “If I am getting stronger, then so will the rest of the pack.”
The meeting comes to a close, with Conan barely saying a word before leaving with his beta and grandfather. I say my goodbyes to Heinrich before leaving with James, and that’s when Amos and his team decide to join us back to Red Moon territory.
“There’s something we need to check,” he says as we walk toward the Red Moon clinic. “Something with James.”
The Red Moon clinic is unusually quiet when we arrive, as there aren't many patients requiring treatment—not since Sophie took over.
I feel her presence nearby, but we don't head in her direction, and we proceed to an empty room, the sterile scent of antiseptic layered beneath something older, like iron and ash and the faint, lingering bitterness of demon residue that never quite leaves the walls anymore.
James walks ahead of us, his stride steady but cautious, as if his body remembers too well what it felt like to be trapped between waking and death.
Amos and two members of the research team fan out immediately, pulling gloves over their hands, murmuring to one another as they prepare instruments and scanning tablets that hum softly when powered on.
I stay near the doorway, arms crossed over my chest, my mind already racing ahead of what they might find.
This isn’t curiosity. It’s dread. I’ve learned to recognize that feeling—the same one that crept in when Sophie burned demons to ash, when the land itself leaned toward her like a living thing recognizing its master.
I should be relieved, but with so much weighing on Sophie being the key to defeating the demons for good, I can't rest. My inner wolf won't rest until I know she's safe, yet she always seems to be the one on the frontline of danger.
James sits on the examination table without complaint as Amos gestures for him to bare his forearm.
“We detected something unusual when you woke,” Amos explains, his tone careful. “Residual energy readings that shouldn’t have dissipated on their own. The demon corruption usually lingers. It embeds itself in the victim's bloodstream. That’s why so many of our wounded don’t recover.”
The word “linger” twists something sharp in my chest. I think of James lying motionless for months, his body healed but his spirit trapped, as if something had wrapped itself around his soul and refused to let go.
Amos draws a thin line of blood from James’s arm and passes a scanner over it. The device emits a low whine, then… nothing. The screen remains clear, and one of the researchers frowns and recalibrates the device before running the scan again, then a third time.
“That’s impossible…” she mutters.
“What is?” I ask, stepping forward now, unable to keep the edge out of my voice.
“There’s no trace of dark residue,” she says slowly, lifting her gaze to meet mine. “No corruption. No shadow residue. It’s as if it was…scrubbed clean.”
The room stills.
“That can’t be right,” another researcher says. “We’ve never seen demon residue fully erased. Not even with the strongest healers. Not even with Alpha Damian.”
Amos exhales slowly, his eyes sharpening with something that looks dangerously close to awe. “Run the comparison,” he orders. “Against Damian’s injury.”
They don’t need to say more. I feel it then, a cold certainty settling into my bones as the data is pulled up side by side: James’s readings from before Sophie touched him, mine from the moment I was first injured in a demon attack, and then the current reading after last night’s attack.
Before, the report showed readings of contamination, demon residue clinging like tar to bone and blood.
After, there’s nothing. Clean lines. Pure readings. As if the demons had never touched us at all.
“That’s why he woke up,” Amos says, observing the readings. “Not because Sophie just accelerated his healing, but because she removed what was keeping him trapped in the coma.”
My hands curl into fists at my sides. I remember the look on Sophie’s face when I walked into the room, and James had been awake. “She purified it,” the researcher whispers. “The demon corruption didn’t fade. It didn’t weaken. It was erased.”
The word echoes loudly in my head. Erased.
James looks between us, confusion knitting his brow. “You’re saying Sophie did this?”
“Yes,” Amos answers without hesitation.
James lets out a slow breath, running a hand through his hair. “Then she saved my life twice.”
I swallow hard, my throat suddenly dry.
“This changes everything,” one of the researchers says. “If she can neutralize demon corruption completely—”
“Then she’s not just a weapon, she’s a solution,” Amos finishes.
“And a target,” I say, my voice cutting through the room like a blade.
They all turn to me.
“The demons didn’t adapt by accident,” I continue, anger simmering beneath my calm. “They’re moving in pairs now, as if they’re testing us. If they sense what Sophie can do—what she is—they won’t stop until they either destroy her or take her.”
The silence that follows is heavy and thick.
Amos straightens slowly. “You’re right,” he says. “Which means isolating her would be a mistake.”
Relief flickers through me, brief but sharp.
“But it also means she must be protected at all costs,” he adds. “And informed…eventually.”
Eventually.
I look away, my jaw tightening as I think of Sophie locked behind a guest room door, building walls out of regret and fear, still convinced that last night was a mistake she can’t afford to make again.
She barely trusts me as it is. If she knew that her touch could strip demons down to nothing, that the very thing hunting us now might be hunting her because of it—
She’d run. Or worse, she’d burn herself out trying to fix everything.
“I’ll handle it,” I say firmly. “For now, this stays between us.”
Amos studies me for a long moment, then nods. “For now.”
When we leave the clinic, dusk is already settling over the valley, the sky bruised purple and gold.
I dismiss the others and take the long way back to the cabin, needing the movement, the solitude.
My water magic hums beneath my skin, stronger than it’s ever been, responding to my emotions whether I want it to or not.
The river answers when I pass, its current shifting, restless.
But it’s unstable. Volatile. It’s as if the distance between Sophie and me is causing a rift in my powers, a very noticeable disconnect.
Only when Sophie is near does it steady.
That realization hits harder than any blow I took from the demons.
Night has fully fallen by the time I return home. I pause outside the guest bedroom, my hand hovering inches from the door. I can hear her breathing on the other side—soft, uneven, unmistakably awake. She’s hurting. So am I.
I don’t knock.
I won’t corner her. Not again.
Instead, I let my hand fall, turn away, and head to my room with a weight in my chest that no amount of power can lift.
Sophie isn’t just the key to ending this war.
She’s the reason it exists—the demons are here to finish off the last of the Ashclaw lineage, which is her. And I don’t think she’s ready to hear any of that. Not yet, and I only have a week to get her to agree to be the way we end this war against the demons.
Goddess help me.