Alpha Damon (Sienna) novel Chapter 146

Flashback:

The fire cracked like a living beast, devouring everything it touched with no remorse.

I stood at the edge of the villa’s courtyard, my hands curled into fists, eyes burning just as much as the building before me. The flames had already spread to the second floor, licking at the wooden beams, dancing along the stone like it had always been waiting for this moment. My men stood back, wary. Silent. They knew better than to speak to me when I was like this.

And yet none of them dared move.

Not with her standing there.

Tatiana.

Or the name she gave herself to hide from me… Marissa.

She stood at the front gates of the burning villa, her dress torn, her face streaked with soot and ash, eyes wild with defiance and something far worse…

Conviction.

“Step back,” I ordered, my voice low but sharp as a blade. “You’ll burn with them. You are going to lose your life for their sake.”

Her eyes snapped to mine.

“I will, if that’s what it takes,” she hissed. “If that’s what I have to do to protect them from you. If that’s what it’s going to take to save them from whatever bullshit you’ve done, then I’m more than willing to take that as a consequence.”

I took a slow step forward, firelight casting her face in gold and red. She was still breathtaking. Still too beautiful for her own good. Still mine, even after everything.

“You can’t be serious,” I muttered, shaking my head. “You would trade yourself for her? For Evelyn? That Luna who never deserved your help? For a child that isn’t even yours? You are going to give your life for people that you don’t want to even belong with.”

Her eyes sparked. “That child is innocent. That boy didn’t ask for your war, Giovanni. He didn’t ask to be born to this. And Evelyn… she didn’t destroy you. You did. Neither one of them destroyed you. Neither one of them approached you. You just became greedy with power, with lust or anger. You’re destroying yourself. I’m not going to allow you to destroy those that are innocent. Especially not on my watch.”

I felt the heat behind me, smoke thickening in the air.

“You don’t get to make me the villain,” I said, my voice cracking with a bitterness I hadn’t allowed to surface in years. “You left me. You took my daughter and gave her to another man. You ran to an Omega when you were living like a queen by my side.”

“Because you would’ve destroyed her, just as you would have destroyed me.” she said softly. “You would’ve raised her to be like you. Cold. Ruthless. I didn’t run because I stopped loving you, Gio…”

She turned away from me.

My legs wouldn’t move.

“Tati…”

She ran.

Straight into the blaze.

I heard her scream once as she vanished into the smoke.

I saw the orange light illuminate her silhouette as she threw herself through the collapsing beam to reach the back room, where Evelyn was trapped, holding that infant in her arms. The woman who I swore to kill with her heir that she gave to him. Her son gave him strength and that is not something that I wanted. It stabilized his position while it weakened my claim and I was going to take them both. My woman stopped that.