Alpha Damon (Sienna) novel Chapter 195

Delilah:

I didn’t expect him to come.

I did not expect him to be willing or to be able to look me in the eye without flinching.

The door creaked open slowly, and the scent that followed was unmistakable. Power. Command. Pain masked in composure.

I straightened in my place, despite knowing and swearing that I wanted nothing more than to end the man. I found myself submitting, involuntarily.

Alpha Kael.

I turned my head slowly from the window, the dull ache in my side still pulsing from the bullet. He stepped into the room without a word, shutting the door behind him. His arms were crossed over his chest as he looked at me. Strong, dominant, powerful and charismatic. All the traits that were supposed to be in an alpha.

“You,” I hissed, my voice laced with venom. “You’re the last person I ever want to see. And you are the last person that should have dared to enter my room.”

He didn’t speak.

Not at first.

His gaze roamed over my figure, over the gauze wrapped around my side, the dried blood crusting at the edge of my shirt. But he didn’t say a word of sympathy, nor did he apologize. Of course he wouldn’t.

“You have no right to be here,” I snapped. “You let her die. After everything, I am back here because I need your son’s help, but I wouldn’t wish nothing more than to have him dead.”

He still didn’t speak. Instead, he crossed the room with a silence that unnerved me. When he reached my bedside, I instinctively flinched, pressing myself back against the pillows.

“Don’t touch me…”

But he raised his hand and gently cupped my cheek.

I froze.

His thumb brushed the edge of my temple, and in the next breath, I felt the shift.

His power surged through me, warm, intense, dizzying.

Images flooded my mind.

I was inside his mind…

He was opening his mind for me to be in his memories…

Flashback:

A younger version of my mother, Tatia, stood on the doorstep of the Lockwood estate, soaked from the rain. Her belly was round, her eyes wild with fear. Kael opened the door, alarm in his expression.

“Please,” she had begged. “He’s after me. He’s after my child. If he finds me, if he finds out about this, he’s going to kill us all.”

Kael stepped aside instantly, guiding her in. Evelyn looked at her for a moment before getting up from the couch, opening this place for her, offering a blanket when she sat.

“Does he know where you’re going?” He looked like he knew her. He did not ask questions. He was as if he knew who she was talking about.

“He doesn’t know I ran. I did not have another option. I can’t allow my child to live in that darkness. I don’t want to. I refuse it. Please.” He looks at Evelyn who nodded, giving him a gentle smile.

“I’ll protect you,” he said. “I swear it. As long as I breathe, I’m going to keep the two of you safe.”

The memory flickered. Shifted.

A fire.

Screams.

Kael on the ground, blood seeping from a wound in his side. A younger Damon, barely a toddler, crying somewhere in the distance.

I gasped, my body jerking forward, but Kael’s hand remained steady.

He stepped back.

“That’s what happened,” he said softly. “That’s what he never told you. That’s the truth that he’s been keeping from you for years. He’s been playing you, designing you for his own favor.”

“You’re lying,” I breathed, but my voice broke.

He looked at me, his eyes fierce but calm. “Your mother saved my family. She died for us. Giovanni made sure you would grow up hating the ones she gave her life to protect. That was the story he chose to feed you. He knew what he would be doing with a story like that and he knew what he would be creating.”

My lips trembled.

“He took her from her family. He took her from her daughter. He made her watch as he killed the man that she chose to love.” Kael continued, voice rough. “You were only a baby when he took you. He erased every part of her he couldn’t control. He made sure that we couldn’t find you. We looked for you. We searched everywhere. Your mother searched everywhere. But he made sure to keep you hidden.”

I wanted to scream. To throw something. But the weight of what I’d seen… it was too much. Too real.

“You let her burn,” I whispered. “You all watched as she burned alive.”

“I didn’t,” he said. “I couldn’t stop her. And I’ve lived with that every day since. But I want you to know this. She did it because she wanted to weaken him. I saw her pride in her eyes when she did it. I saw her strength and I vowed since that day that I would protect your sister. I did not know that you were alive. Had I known, I would have done everything in my power to make sure that he does not lay a finger on you again. I would have made sure that you were back here, but I did not know.”

His eyes lingered on mine a moment longer.

Then he turned.

“Now you know the truth,” he said. “What you do with it… is your choice. But I know now that at least my own conscience is clear. You are not left in the dark. Not in the way that he wanted you to be…”

And then he walked out of the room, leaving me in a silence that felt heavier than any wound I’d ever known.