What Selene Knows

I didn’t find anything else in the records that night. It wasn’t because there was nothing left to find. Somebody had beaten me to it.

I realized it at half past nine. I opened the drawer where the correspondence files from four years ago should’ve been. Empty. Not even a scrap left behind, not a single file shoved out of place or misfiled. Just the neat hanging folders, labels in careful handwriting from whoever kept the records before me, but every sheet inside gone.

I stood there, staring at the empty drawer for a long second. Then I checked the next drawer. Also empty. And the one below. Same. Three whole years’ worth of correspondence. Disappeared.

I sat down in the records room chair, just looking at those empty drawers, thinking through the day. I’d been in the room since morning, but I’d stepped out twice—once to call Cassian in the hallway, once when I heard Selene’s voice and went to the door. Both times, I left the records room door unlocked.

Somebody took three years’ records in one of those windows.

Selene hadn’t come to that end of the hall just to argue with Marcus about Damien. She needed me out of that room. Needed someone inside while I was distracted. It was obvious in hindsight. I walked right into her setup.

I sat with that thought for a moment. Not angry—something colder than that. The kind of feeling when you realize you’ve seriously underestimated the other side. She was playing at a level I hadn’t given her credit for. That wasn’t happening again.

I gathered every photo and document I’d gotten so far and fired them off to three secure spots: my encrypted personal drive, Nadia’s server, and a hidden archive managed by a contact who owed me. A person good at keeping secrets for their own reasons.

Then I messaged Cassian:

She’s wiping the records. Come tonight if you can. Don’t wait for morning.

He answered in under two minutes.

Four hours.

I slipped my phone away and went looking for Lena. Except she wasn’t there—she was back at the foundation, running things in my absence. What I had in Darkwood was Marcus, Nadia, a bunch of wolves whose loyalties I couldn’t fully trust yet, and a man upstairs fighting to live. Time to think about security differently.

Upstairs, I found Nadia in the makeshift med room next to Damien’s. She had her back to me, surrounded by equipment she brought herself—she didn’t trust the pack’s medicine after what was in Damien’s bloodwork.

She didn’t even turn around when I came in.

“Someone took the correspondence,” I said.

“I know. Marcus told me twenty minutes ago. One of the pack saw someone leaving the records room while you were out at the door with Selene. Young wolf. Not regular. He’s only been here a month.”

A plant. Selene slipped someone in.

“Where is he?”

“Gone.” Nadia didn’t have to look up. “Left the territory an hour ago, according to the border guards. Marcus has a description.”

Of course he was gone. You don’t leave someone behind after a job like that, not if you’re careful. And Selene was nothing if not careful.

“How’s Damien?”

“Better than this morning. First stage of the treatment is working.” She finally turned, looking at me over her glasses. “He’s asking for you.”

“He’s supposed to be resting.”

“He is resting. And he’s asking for you. Those two things go together.”

I hung there in the doorway for a moment, then went to his room.

He was propped up in bed, exactly the way I left him, but now the lamp was on, the room warm. The gold glow of evening had given way to darkness. Outside, the pack’s houses blinked one by one with light as night deepened. The place had settled into quiet.

I’d stood at that window before, looking out at those lights, feeling that solid, bone-deep sense of belonging I’d tried to explain to him earlier. I didn’t allow myself to feel it now.

“You should be sleeping,” I said.

“I slept for two hours. Nadia’s treatment makes me... twitchy. Sit down.”

“Damien—”

“Aria.” He met my gaze. “Please. Sit.”

I sat, not on the edge of his bed (I wasn’t ready to cross that line), but dragged the chair closer, mindful of the lamplight and the fact that he already looked better—a little color in his face, clearer eyes, not so drawn with pain. Even one day of Nadia’s medicine made a difference. He was still beautiful. I’d forgotten—or maybe just pretended to forget—how much I never stopped noticing that. Remembering it now wasn’t convenient.

“Tell me about the foundation,” he said.

“What?”

“How you built it. From the start. I want to hear it from you.”

I looked for the angle, the hidden agenda. There was nothing. He honestly wanted to know.

So I told him. About the beginning—the tiny room in town, the practical checklist, making the decision not to fall apart. About helping Sam, the first wolf, an omega nobody wanted, who reached me through a miracle chain of whispered connections. Helping Sam gave me a reason to get out of bed when I was running out of reasons. That connection led to another, and another, until I needed a plan.

I told him about Wren, who came in during my second year and who flat out told me she had an MBA, organizational skills, and if I wanted something real, I’d need someone like her. I hired her on the spot; some people you just know mean what they say.

How Lena started as a client and became something else entirely. About the first shelter, then the second. What it meant when the Lycan King endorsed us, how much that did for our reputation and reach.

I didn’t realize how long I’d talked until I stopped. Damien just listened the entire time, never breaking eye contact, never interrupting. That’s something I’d always loved—he could make you feel like the only person in the world worth listening to.

When I finished, he was quiet.

“Three hundred wolves,” he said.

“At least. Probably more, if we count the ones who didn’t sign anything.”

He looked out the window. “You did all that from nothing. From what I left you.” His jaw tightened. “Twelve minutes. One bag.”

“Yes,” I said.

He sat with that for another breath or two.

“I’m proud of you. I know I don’t have the right to say that. Still—” he shrugged. “I am.”

The room felt smaller. I looked at my hands.

“Damien—”

“I’m not asking you for anything,” he said quickly. “I’m not trying to turn this into something it isn’t. I just... I just needed to tell you. I’ve been thinking it for three years, watching you build, and never said it. Now I can.”

I looked up. His face was open in a way I barely recognized. Damien’s always been guarded, shown only what he wanted. Not now. He let all of it show, every emotion, every regret. It was raw, inconvenient, and exactly what I didn’t have time for.

“Go to sleep,” I said as I stood. “Cassian is coming tonight. I need to be downstairs.”

“Aria—”

I paused at the door.

“What you said earlier. About evenings in here. I waited for that. Every day. I did what I had to just to get to the hour you’d come, the house quiet, and it’d be just... us.”

I gripped the door frame. My wolf wasn’t pressing against me now. She was perfectly still, as if she held her breath.

“I remember,” I said, quieter than I wanted.

“I know,” he replied. “That’s all.”

I left.

I made it to the end of the hall, pressed my back to the wall, closed my eyes, and just breathed for a minute.

My wolf made that wordless sound again, the one I couldn’t name.

Not yet, I told her.

Then downstairs. Marcus was in the front hall. He saw me, and something in his expression changed.

“Cassian just crossed the border.”

I nodded. “Good. Set up the main room. Nadia too. And make sure Selene stays out of it until I say otherwise.”

He moved fast.

For a second, I just stood in the front hall, thinking about everything I’d found, everything Damien said, and what was coming next, tonight, when Cassian arrived and the real work started.

My phone buzzed.

Wren.

I checked her message.

Someone tried to get into the donor records again. Same method as last night. This time, they got further before security stopped them. Aria, they weren’t after the donor list. They went after a specific file. One under your personal records.

I typed back, fast.

Which file?

She was already typing.

My phone buzzed again.

I read the answer, and all the air went out of me.

Your birth record.