Chapter 10 Darius
DARIUS
The snow doesn’t fall so much as it drapes, a slow cascade of white that hushes the world like a shroud drawn over the face of the dead.
It’s the kind of quiet that wraps around your bones, the kind that settles into the spaces behind your ribs and dares you to breathe too loud.
I sit at the far end of the dining room table that’s warped slightly in the middle from age and disuse, fingers steepled beneath my chin as the fire snaps behind me in the hearth, giving the illusion of warmth without ever truly reaching me.
Mary leans against the stone doorframe like she’s been waiting for me to speak since yesterday, arms folded tight across her chest, the lines at the corners of her mouth etched deeper than I remember.
Her silence is sharper than any reprimand, but I’ve grown used to that too.
Guilt doesn’t speak in shouts—it whispers.
In every creak of this godforsaken house.
In the sound of her footsteps as she approaches.
“I need to say it,” I mutter, more to the fire than to her. “Out loud.”
Mary doesn’t blink. Doesn’t soften. She just watches me with those sharp, calculating eyes that see too much. “Then say it.”
I drag in a breath, let it scrape its way out. “She’s my mate.”
It hangs in the room like smoke, thick and curling and impossible to ignore. I watch her face for any flicker—disbelief, fear, maybe hope. But Mary is a vault. Her only reaction is the slight stiffening of her jaw.
“You sure?” she asks, voice low and even.
“As sure as I’ve ever been of anything.” And I am. It’s not a maybe, not a passing infatuation or some trick of isolation. The second I caught her scent, something ancient shifted inside me—a lock turning in a door I didn’t know existed.
Mary exhales through her nose. Not a sigh, but something close. “Then we have a problem.”
I nod once. “I know.”
“She’s human, Darius. Fragile. Mortal. And soft in all the ways that break easiest.”
“I haven’t touched her,” I say quickly, before she can accuse me of more. “Not like that. Hell, I’ve barely looked her in the eye since the storm.”
“But you’ve wanted to.” Her words aren’t a question. They’re a sentence.
“Yes.” It costs me something to admit it. The wolf inside me shudders, thrilled to hear truth spoken aloud.
Mary takes a step forward, her boots clicking softly on the stone. “You remember what happened the last time. What you lost. What we all lost. You think Cassian would be proud of this?”
I flinch, just barely. The name cuts deeper than I expected. Cassian, with his rigid sense of duty, his cold logic that never bent even when it should have. “Cassian wouldn’t approve of much, least of all this.”
“He wouldn’t approve,” she agrees, “but he’d understand the cost. The price of letting instinct rule.”
I press my hands flat on the table, feel the tremor in my arms. “I’m not that man anymore. I won’t let it happen again.”
“No?” Mary’s voice softens, barely. “Then explain the scratches down your chest, the look in your eyes every time she enters the room, the way you bristle when anyone else so much as speaks her name. You’ve already started, Darius, even if you think you haven’t.”
“I dream of her,” I admit, voice raw. “And it’s not just want. It’s a need. It’s the wolf and the man tearing at each other, fighting for who gets to claim her first.”
Mary’s eyes narrow. “And what happens when the Blood Moon rises, and you’re not strong enough to hold either back?”
“I’ll be gone by then.”
“You’ll be worse by then.”
I look away, jaw tight, throat thick with the weight of everything I haven’t said.
She doesn’t say goodbye. Just walks out, her presence leaving the room colder than before.
That night, I pace like a caged animal, too restless for the bed, too wired for sleep.
I strip off my shirt, the air against my skin bracing, almost painful.
The marks on my chest are still fresh, thin rivulets of blood dried into rusted threads.
I run a hand down them, not surprised, not even angry. Just resigned.
Her scent still lingers. In my skin. My sheets. My memory.
I sink onto the bed like it might hold me together, like the weight of my body might be enough to keep the wolf from tearing loose. I lie back, stare at the ceiling, count the cracks in the plaster like they’re battle scars. But none of it works.
Because she’s there again.
In my mind, in the space behind my eyes, soft and warm and smelling like tea and sunlit linen.
Tessa.
She doesn’t speak. Just smiles that quiet, gentle smile that always feels like forgiveness wrapped in patience. She kneels beside me, fingertips ghosting over the scratches on my chest like she might heal them with nothing but kindness.
I reach for her. I always do.
This time, she lets me.
Our mouths meet like we’re drowning and only each other can offer breath. Her hands tangle in my hair, my arms wrap tight around her waist, and she doesn’t pull away. She moans into me, low and desperate, and it breaks me open like a blade to the ribs.
I touch her like prayer, like apology, like she’s the only thing anchoring me to this world.
And then the shift begins.
It starts low in my spine, a coil of heat and pain and hunger. My bones throb with it. My skin itches with the threat of fur. My hands grip her hips and I feel the claws breaking through.
“No,” I whisper, even in the dream. “Not this. Not now.”
But it’s too late.
My vision goes red. My teeth lengthen. I feel the wolf rise, not as an enemy, but as every truth I’ve buried for centuries.
I wake with a roar, chest heaving, soaked in sweat, the sheets ripped, clawed to ribbons. My breath fogs in the cold air. My heart pounds like war drums in my ears.
Outside, the Blood Moon hangs low, pulsing like a wound in the sky.
I stare at it and know, without question, I can’t run much longer.
And she’s the one thing I’ll never survive losing.