Chapter 16 Darius
DARIUS
The scent hits me first—wrong in every way that matters.
It slithers under the threshold like poison: synthetic, cloying, too clean, like disinfectant and polished leather hiding something festering underneath.
It doesn’t belong here, not in this wild place, not in my home, and it scrapes against every instinct I’ve got like claws across bone.
I rise slowly from the edge of the greenhouse where I’ve been checking the new seedlings Tessa planted, heart already pounding in my throat.
The scent is human. But not just any human.
It’s him.
The scent that followed Tessa when she first arrived, curled around her fear and anxiety like a snake. The warning that was buried in her deeper than the snow.
The world narrows. I move, boots crunching through the snow, the cold forgotten in the wake of the fire starting in my blood.
I don’t need to track the scent far—his voice carries, slick and oily as the stench that coats his skin.
It’s coming from the front of the estate.
He’s standing there like he owns the place, standing across from Tessa.
She’s barefoot. Still wearing the damn sweater she stole from my closet that morning.
Her shoulders are squared, jaw tight, and I can see it—she’s trying not to shake.
But I know her body now, every line of it, every tremble, every breath.
She’s terrified. And she’s holding herself still so he won’t see it.
And that breaks something inside me.
He’s got a smug smile and that voice that grates like glass in my ears. “Come now, Tessa. Don’t make this dramatic. I’ve come to bring you home.”
“Don’t call it that, Holden,” she says, voice sharp but wavering. “That was never my home.”
Mary is beside her, eyes narrowed and steely as always. She speaks before I can, her voice cutting through the icy air like a blade. “You don’t belong here.”
“I have documentation,” he sneers, reaching into his coat like it proves something. “Psych evaluations, behavioral statements. Court papers, if you’re curious. She’s been declared mentally unfit. I’m her emergency contact. Her conservator. She belongs with me.”
“She belongs to no one,” Mary snaps.
Tessa trembles. Not with fear. With fury.
“You forged those,” she says. “You manipulated every test. You made sure I had nowhere to go but you.”
And he smiles like the devil. “I did what I had to. You weren’t yourself. You needed me.”
That’s when I step out of the trees.
I don’t speak right away. I walk slowly, boots heavy in the snow, posture loose, deliberate—lethal. He sees me too late. He blinks, adjusts his stance like it matters, and his mouth curls into something half smug, half confused.
“You must be the mountain man,” he says with a smirk. “I expected... more beard.”
I stop just short of him, barely a foot away, and let the silence speak for me.
His smirk twitches. “Well? You gonna grunt at me, or are you capable of actual words?”
“I’m going to give you one chance,” I say, voice quiet, calm, and edged with something primal. “Turn around. Get in your car. And don’t stop until you’re back in whatever corner of the world you slithered out from.”
He scoffs. “She’s not yours. She’s sick. She needs help.”
I step closer. “If you don’t leave, I’m going to make you disappear.”
“Is that a threat?”
“It’s a promise.”
He moves to step past me, to reach her—and I grab his coat, slam him against the wall of the house hard enough to rattle the siding.
Tessa gasps. Mary yells, “Darius—!”
But I’m already inches from his face, claws punching through the skin of my fingertips, breath steaming in furious clouds.
“I’ve killed before,” I say, voice thick with the growl rising from my chest. “Men stronger than you. Men who thought they could touch what’s mine.”
“Yours?” he sputters, struggling against my grip. “She’s not—she’s not a thing!”
“No,” I whisper, “she’s everything. And that’s exactly why I’ll destroy you if you ever come near her again.”
His face goes pale, the fear finally sinking in. He tries to twist free, but Mary’s voice cuts through again—calmer now, firm. “Darius. Let him go.”
“I should rip his throat out.”
“But you won’t,” she says gently. “Because that’s not who you are anymore.”
I stare at the man squirming in my grasp, eyes wide, breath short. Every instinct in me screams to finish it—to end the threat. But I don’t.
I drop him.
He stumbles backward into the snow, scrambling for footing, sputtering half-formed threats and gasps. Tessa hasn’t moved. Her hands are fisted at her sides, but her eyes are locked on me—not with fear, not with judgment. With something quieter. Warmer.
Holden straightens, spits blood into the snow. “Oh, how convenient, Tessa. Did you know, when you got here?”
Tessa’s eyes widen in confusion.
“I know what you are, big man. We will meet again.”
“You’re right,” I say. “And next time, I won’t stop.”
He bolts.
The tires of his rental spin in the icy drive. Then he’s gone.
And I turn to her.
She’s shaking now, but not from fear. Her breath comes in shallow pulls. I step toward her slowly.
“I didn’t mean to—” I start.
But she walks into me, presses her forehead to my chest, and wraps her arms around me like I’m the one who needs comfort.
“I knew he’d find me eventually,” she whispers. “I just didn’t think I’d be strong enough when he did.”
“You were,” I say. “You are.”
She tilts her head up. “You would’ve killed him for me.”
“Without a second thought.”
“And Mary stopped you.”
“Because she knows what I’d lose if I did.”
She stares up at me, eyes shining. “You’d lose me.”
“Yes.”
The words are barely there, but they hang in the cold like a vow.
Later, when she’s tucked in bed and Mary’s finished checking every window, every door, every goddamn creak in the house, I sit in the dark by the fire, heart still thundering like war drums behind my ribs.
I almost lost her.
And not to the Blood Moon. Not to the beast inside me. But to a man in a coat with papers in his hand and venom in his voice. A man who saw her as property. A man who almost convinced the world she was broken.
But she isn’t.
She’s the strongest thing I’ve ever known.
And I can’t lose her.
The Blood Moon is coming—I feel it in my bones, in the heat under my skin, in the way the air tastes like copper and anticipation. But this time, I’m not afraid for myself.
I’m afraid of what I’ll become if she isn’t standing beside me when the moon rises.