Chapter 151

Damon

Maps covered the table in uneven layers, edges curling from heat and time. The wax seal on the latest council decree sat half-melted where I’d pressed it down hours ago, forgotten.

I couldn’t stop pacing.

Every few strides I circled back to the table, fingers brushing the ink-stained edges of the parchment I hadn’t been able to burn. Ella’s copy of the engagement contract. My name scrawled onto it in black and blood, binding me to a future I didn’t want.

Zane prowled in my chest, restless, low growls rumbling under every thought, escaping my throat when I couldn’t keep them contained. We should kill her, he hissed, sharp and insistent. Kill them all and take what we need.

“And leave Lila to die?” I muttered under my breath. My voice sounded harsh in the empty room. “No. Not until she’s safe.”

The scent of rain drifted in through the cracked windows. I wondered if Lila could still smell it from her chambers, if she hated this place as much as I was starting to.

I hadn’t seen her since the night before. The memory of her curled in the window alcove haunted me with her knees drawn to her chest, eyes blank, lips pressed tight like she’d swallowed every word she wanted to throw at me.

She didn’t trust me anymore, and I worried she would never again.

My fist slammed down on the edge of the table before I realized I’d moved. The wood groaned but didn’t splinter. Pain shot up my arm, grounding me for a breath. It was almost welcome.

The door opened behind me without warning.

“Close it,” I snapped, not looking.

The latch clicked shut. Silence followed, thick and sharp. I didn’t have to turn to know who it was.

Ronan’s scent hit me first: cedar and steel, faint traces of leather and the sweat of someone who’d been training hard.

I turned slowly.

He stood rigid just inside the doorway, broad shoulders squared, hands clenched at his sides. His expression was controlled, but barely; I saw the tremor in his jaw, the flare of his nostrils.

His wolf was close to the surface, I could feel it, prickling the air between us.

“Is it true?” His voice was deadly quiet.

“Is what true?” I asked, buying a second I didn’t deserve.

Ronan stepped forward, boots striking hard against the floor. “The engagement.” His eyes burned like flint. “Elena Ashford. You signed it, didn’t you?”

The words hung there, heavy with accusation.

Zane snarled in my chest, reacting to the challenge, but I forced him down. My hands curled into fists at my sides.

“It’s complicated.”

“No,” Ronan said, louder this time. “It’s simple. You signed away everything. You signed her away.”

The air between us crackled. Lightning flashed beyond the windows, white and blinding for a split second.

I took a slow breath, careful. “I did it to save her.”

Ronan’s laugh was sharp, humorless. “You call that saving? You’re killing her slowly, heart and soul.”

The truth of it hit harder than I wanted to admit. Lila’s silence, her hollow eyes, the way she’d stopped reaching for me…Ronan wasn’t wrong.

But he didn’t see the whole picture. He didn’t fully know what it cost to keep her alive in this den of vipers.

“She doesn’t know,” Ronan pressed, stepping closer. “Does she? You’re letting her think you chose someone else. That you—”

“Enough.” My voice cracked like thunder.

The room fell silent again. Zane pressed hard against my ribs, begging to lunge, to assert dominance. Ronan’s wolf rose to meet it, palpable in the charged air.

I didn’t want to fight with the only true friend I had left. But I couldn’t back down either. Not now.

“Be careful, Ronan,” I said, voice low, steady despite the storm inside me. “You’re walking a line you don’t want to cross.”

His jaw tightened. His fists stayed clenched. The silence stretched between us, growing brittle and dangerous.

And then he took another step closer. Ronan’s step echoed across the war room, daring me to back down or step up.

The space between us shrank to a few feet, every instinct in me screaming to meet him head-on. My wolf bristled, claws raking the inside of my skin, urging me to assert dominance, to crush the challenge before it spread.

He’s crossing the line, Zane snarled. End this.

“I won’t,” Ronan said, low and rough, “stand here and watch you destroy her.”

His words were a punch to my gut. I felt them deep, twisting in the same place where Lila’s hollow eyes had already carved me raw. My hands flexed at my sides, claws starting to emerge.

“She’s already destroyed!” I snapped. “Do you think I don’t see it? Every day I watch her fade, and every day I make choices you don’t have to. Choices you couldn’t.”

“You signed your name to someone else.” Ronan’s voice rose, ragged around the edges. “You let her think she’s alone in this. You’ve caged her, Damon. Do you even see what you’ve done?”

The accusation burned because he was right.

I stepped forward, close enough to feel the heat radiating off him. His wolf was fully at the surface now, sharp and restless. The air between us thickened, humming with the threat of violence neither of us wanted but both were ready for.

“She’ll die without the antidote,” I ground out. “Ella’s terms were clear: I agree to marry Elena, I get the cure. That’s the only way.”

“There’s always another way,” Ronan bit back. “You just can’t see one. You didn’t fight for one, and you didn’t fight for her.”

Zane roared in my chest, and I let it out. My pulse thundered in my ears. “I’ve fought every day since I claimed her,” I said, voice like gravel. “For her. For this Pack and a future where she’s not hunted at every turn. And you think I’d trade her for power? You think I’d—”

“She doesn’t know that!” Ronan’s voice cracked like a whip. “She only knows you lied!”

That cut deep. The truth of it left me raw, bleeding behind my clenched teeth. Lila didn’t know, couldn’t know.

Every time I saw her, I wanted to tell her everything, to beg her to understand. But I couldn’t risk it. One wrong word and Ella would ruin the only hope Lila had of a cure.

Ronan mistook my silence for guilt. He surged closer, chest brushing mine, eyes flashing with barely restrained fury. His breath came fast, sharp against my face.

“Tell me right now you love her,” he demanded. “Tell me this isn’t about the throne.”

I didn’t hesitate. “I love her more than my own life.” The words hung in the air, raw, unguarded, naked.

For a heartbeat, neither of us moved.

Then Ronan’s fist slammed into the table between us. The wood groaned under the impact, rattling maps and scattering carved markers across the floor.

“You love her,” he said, low and shaking, “but you’re breaking her anyway.”

Zane surged so hard I nearly let him out. My nails dug crescents into my palms, a thin sting of blood grounding me.

“Careful,” I warned, voice dropping into a dangerous growl. “You’re one breath away from treason, my friend.”

Ronan’s jaw flexed, but he didn’t back down. “Then call it what it is,” he shot back. “But don’t pretend this is love if you can’t tell her the truth.”

For a long moment, the only sound in the room was our ragged breathing and the crackle of the low fire in the hearth.

I took a step back first, not in surrender, but to keep from tearing the room apart. My voice came quiet, cold. “You will keep this to yourself. That’s an order.”

Ronan’s eyes burned, unyielding.

“As your King,” I added, steel in every syllable. “Not your friend.”

That did it. The shift was subtle but absolute, something breaking in his gaze. He stepped back slowly, the tension between us stretching thin before snapping altogether.

“Understood,” he said, voice flat.

Ronan turned and left without another word. The door slammed behind him, the echo reverberating through my bones.

I stood alone in the wreckage of overturned maps, scattered markers, the scent of anger clinging thick in the air. My chest heaved, my hands trembled, and for the first time in years, I felt truly unmoored.

Zane paced in my mind, restless and unsatisfied. He’ll betray you, he warned. He already has.

Maybe Zane was right.

But all I could see was Lila’s face and the widening chasm I’d carved between us.