Chapter 5
Chapter 5
The line went quiet. His assistant didn't dare say anything else.
Damon stood at the window with the phone in his hand.
"Damon?"
Selene came up and slipped her arm through his.
"Who was on the phone?"
He didn't answer.
"Damon?"
She shook his arm.
Damon pulled his arm out of her grip.
"Go home."
Selene froze.
"What did you say?"
"Go home."
"Damon!"
"Get the hell out."
Selene stood there. Her eyes reddened.
"You're kicking me out for her? She's just some maid's pup!"
He looked at her. His eyes went cold.
Selene lost her voice.
He turned and walked out.
In the car,
Damon called the assistant again.
"Pull every camera."
"Front of the medical center, the street, every one."
"Find that car."
He hung up and leaned back against the seat.
Closed his eyes.
She was all he could see.
By the time the car reached the manor, the sky was already black.
She was afraid of the dark.
When we were kids, every time night fell she would tug at the hem of my shirt.
Where was she now.
Was it dark.
Was she afraid.
Was anyone with her.
He couldn't stop asking himself.
He pushed the door open. The manor was dark.
In the entryway, his slippers and Wren's were set side by side.
Fuzzy ones.
She'd put them there on purpose. She said it made the house feel like home.
Damon stood there a long time, then bent down.
He slid his feet into his — he hadn't worn them in so long they were too tight.
They pinched. He didn't take them off.
He walked in. On the couch lay the scarf she was still knitting.
She'd been at it since last winter.
Half a year now.
Still not finished.
He'd made fun of it, said he'd never wear it.
She hadn't gotten mad.
She'd put it away and kept going.
On the coffee table was her cup.
Water still in the bottom, left from the night before.
She'd had a fever yesterday. He'd fed her that water himself.
He picked the cup up.
Cold.
No one had used it. She wasn't here.
Upstairs.
He pushed her bedroom door open.
He didn't turn the light on. Moonlight came in through the window.
The blanket on the bed was shoved into a mess.
Wren hated it like this. She'd have scolded him for leaving it that way.
He sat down.
Picked up her pillow. Held it to his face.
Her scent.
Faint.
Like shampoo.
And not quite.
He opened her wardrobe. The inside was thin.
She had so few clothes.
He laid the scarf out on the bed.
He took her clothes out one by one.
Spread them.
Smoothed them flat.
Covered the entire bed.
Then he lay down on top of them.
Damon pressed his face into the fabric. Her scent was everywhere.
All around him.
Stronger than on the pillow. Strong enough that she could have been right there, holding him.
Then he felt something.
On the pillow, a small patch.
It had been wet.
It was dry now.
His finger traced it.
Tear stain. Where she'd cried.
Right there on that pillow.
Right where he was lying now.
Damon pressed his face back into her clothes.
His shoulders started to shake, lightly at first, then harder.
His whole body shook.
The fabric soaked through under his tears.
Every feeling he'd crammed down for years broke at once.
He had gotten it wrong. He had mistaken his resentment of a blood debt for not-love.
He'd believed if he housed her, protected her, he'd settled the debt.
He had mistaken loving her for paying her back.
Only it had never been a blood debt.
It was love.
A love he hadn't known he had.
Something that had grown into his bones without him noticing.
Proud as he was, in that moment Damon laid it all down.
"Wren. Where are you…"
All of Rivermoor started saying the Hawthorne Alpha had lost his mind.
First he tore through his old flame's apartment and took back the ring.
No mercy for the past. He was done with her.
He put the man's ring on his hand and strung the woman's ring onto a chain around his neck, worn over his heart, never off.
And when the brave ones asked him who had designed them,
he'd look down at the rings and laugh — the laugh had something unhinged in it.
He'd say his mate designed them. Only two in the world. One on his hand. The other was waiting for her to come home and wear it.
Only everyone in Rivermoor knew.
That ring might never find its owner again.
After that came the pinned public statement, plastered on every board.
Wren Calloway is my mate.
Her mother dying for me was an accident.
The Hawthornes owe her a debt we'll never finish paying.
Anyone who slanders her can expect an attorney's letter.
Three hundred thousand gold coins for any lead on his mate.
Alive or dead.
Fake tips came in. He went in person. Turned up empty-handed and still paid the money.
His assistant told him they were grifters.
He said, What if they weren't.
Four years in, he'd burned through uncountable bounties of three hundred thousand.
At the same time, Hawthorne Pack territory exploded outward.
He acquired, he absorbed, he pushed the borders like a wolf with nothing left to lose.
By any logic, the Pack holdings should have collapsed.
They didn't. They grew.
People who caught glimpses would shake their heads and say only one thing.
A wolf who loves his mate, thrives.
In the spring of the fifth year, someone told Damon
they had seen his mate overseas, and handed him an address.
They forgot to tell him she now had someone else beside her.