Chapter 4

Back at the Obsidian main house, the air in the great hall had turned suffocating.

Damon sat on the sofa with a glass of cold wine in his hand.

He tugged irritably at his collar and stared at the antique clock on the wall.

It was already eleven.

Three hours had passed since he had thrown me out.

Ivy approached with a plate of fruit and tried to settle beside him.

“Serena is terribly stubborn,” she murmured. “With all that snow outside, she’s probably hiding nearby, waiting for you to come after her.”

Damon shoved her hand away.

The plate fell. Fruit rolled across the floor.

He rose and crossed to the window, staring into the white night beyond the glass.

In seven years, I had never stayed away from him for more than a day.

No matter how badly we fought or how long he ignored me, I had always appeared at his study the next morning with the medicine for his old wound.

He was certain I would not truly leave. Sooner or later, the cold would become unbearable, and I would return to the front steps in tears, begging him to let me inside.

But three hours passed without a sound from beyond the doors.

A strange mixture of irritation and unease settled over Damon. He instinctively reached for our mind-link, intending to order me back.

There was nothing on the other side but silence.

His wolf stirred restlessly, and a faint pain flickered through his chest.

Damon suppressed it almost at once.

He told himself he simply wasn’t used to the sudden absence of a connection he had carried for seven years.

He spun toward the guards waiting in the corner.

“Open the gates and search outside. See if Serena has frozen to death out there.”

Several guards rushed into the storm.

Ten minutes later, their captain returned covered in snow, his face grim.

“Alpha, there’s no one outside. We searched the entire area around the house. Even Lady Serena’s footprints have been buried.”

The wineglass cracked in Damon’s grip.

His jaw tightened, his eyes turning cold.

“So she’s finally grown a spine. Check the security footage and find out where she went. Freeze every account in her name too. Let’s see how long she lasts without a penny.”

The captain hurried away.

Minutes later, he returned with a tablet held between trembling hands.

“Alpha, the footage shows Lady Serena reaching the edge of the territory and entering a convoy. Every vehicle bore the Silver Moon crest.”

Damon stared at the twelve black vehicles on the screen, his pupils contracting sharply.

Three hours later, the Silver Moon convoy reached the heart of its territory.

My father and brother helped me from the car, keeping me sheltered between them.

My mother was waiting outside the main house with the pack elders and guards.

The moment she saw me, she ran forward and crushed me against her, sobbing.

“My Serena. I finally found you. What did they do to you all these years?”

My father and brother stood beside us with red-rimmed eyes. My father touched my hair with trembling fingers while my brother gripped my hand tightly.

The sight of their worn faces broke the last of my restraint, and tears spilled down my cheeks.

Seven years ago, a rival pack had attacked me near the border. Badly injured and with no memory of who I was, I had wandered into Obsidian territory, where Damon found me and took me in.

I had believed he was the only person I had left in the world.

Only now did I understand that, far away in Silver Moon territory, my family had never stopped searching for me.

On my first day home, my father summoned the pack’s finest healer to examine me.

I removed my outer clothes, revealing the jagged scar from the time I had shielded Damon from an attack and the raw, blistered wound where wolfsbane ash had burned the mark from my neck.

The room fell silent.

My mother covered her mouth as tears flooded her eyes.

My father stared at the wound on my neck. Slowly, his irises flared crimson.

An instant later, the force of his Alpha aura exploded through the room, shattering every glass vial on the table.

“Damon.”

My father forced the name through clenched teeth.

“How dare he do this to my daughter?”

He wheeled toward the guards waiting beyond the door.

“By my authority as Alpha of the Silver Moon Pack, we are now at war with the Obsidian Pack.”