LOGINChapter 73
Antonio POV
I had learned not to react when Raines brought me updates. I was still the Alpha and had to act like one.
Reports arrived daily. Most of them collapsed within minutes of reading. It was a case of the wrong woman, wrong date or most times wrong everything. So I learned to treat th
Chapter 75Damon POVThe decision arrived before sunrise after sitting alone in the kitchen for an hour. My mind had been turning over the question Annabella had left me with, nights ago.What do you want?I kept trying to categorize my answer under duty and responsibility but it went far beyond that.Sitting there in the dark before the house woke up, I decided to make the answer very simple. I was going back to Shadowfang. It wasn’t going to be today or tomorrow. I had no idea when I’ll be going back or my plans where but I finally had a baseline to work on.I went outside while the sky was still grey.It&r
Chapter 74Annabelle POVAfter our 3 A.M conversation the other day, Damon seemed different. He wasn’t back to his usual quiet self but he was more present than he was before we had that tea. He was still weighing his options and I knew better than to prod him. Whatever it was, it was obviously a big part of his life or at least it used to be.Gazing at the window as I combed my hair, a lot of questions crossed my mind and for the first time in a while, they weren’t about me.What place did Damon leave? Why would his return matter? Who keeps writing to him? What kind of man did he used to be? I wasn’t going to ask him anything, that much was clear to me. If he was going to tell me, he would.I kept the
Chapter 73Antonio POVI had learned not to react when Raines brought me updates. I was still the Alpha and had to act like one.Reports arrived daily. Most of them collapsed within minutes of reading. It was a case of the wrong woman, wrong date or most times wrong everything. So I learned to treat the reports with zero expectations.Raines knew this about me now and matched the neutrality I treated the reports with.He came in that afternoon while I was in the middle land dispute that had been sitting on my desk for two weeks."Another update from the western teams," he said."Leave it." I said wit
Chapter 72 Damon POVThe conversation should have ended.I had already said more than I intended. I told her more than I had told anyone in years, including Cal, who had been beside me through most of those years. Admitting that returning would mean becoming another version of me was already past the boundary I usually held. Much to my surprise, the conversation didn’t end under the weight of the subject unlike other times.Annabelle sat across the table with her hands around her cup and said nothing. There was no random dart of her eyes towards me or silent shifting on her chair. She was comfortable with the silence, something told me she liked it, not like most people who counted the time till it elapsed. I had been around enough people to know the difference, and the difference mattered.I kept talking and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why."some people need help" I said. "People I trained. People who trusted me." I looked at the table. "Some of them apparently still do.
Chapter 71 Annabella POVI woke at three in the morning and didn't know why. I rubbed my groggy eyes as I looked around. I was about to close my eyes to in a bid to force myself to when I heard the faint, deliberate sound of someone moving downstairs. I sat up immediately, alert and still as I listened intently. The footsteps were light and sounds contained. The thud in my chest quietened the moment I realized who the footsteps belonged to. Damon.Something was bothering him. Over the course of last week, I had noticed things: There were longer silences at meals, he moved his food around his plate more than he ate and the way his expression closed when I entered a room unexpectedly, like a man minimizing something on a screen. I never broach the subject and in typical fashion, he never said a thing.I wasn't planning to ask tonight either. I pulled on a cardigan and went downstairs.He was at the kitchen table with nothing in front of him. He just sat down in the low light, staring i
Chapter 70Damon POVI was at the back, breaking logs when I heard someone come up my balcony. I made my way there and meet no one. Besides the welcome mat was an envelope. My heart thudded immediately. This wasn’t a good sign. I already knew who the letter was from without opening it. Tobias had always been big on security and precautions, two messages in less than two weeks said a lot. My mind went back to the last letter that was now ash and scattered to wherever the wind had taken them. Burning the letter was the easy part, forgetting the responsibilities it conveyed was the harder game.I opened the letter immediately as I entered the house. I sat down on the dinning table as I scanned through the letter. His message was still coded which hinted that he was still thinking about security. His tone this time was urgent, almost on the verge of desperation. I could almost see the pleas jumping out of the page.He said that Corvus had opened talks with the alphas of other packs ab







