Alpha Damon (Sienna) novel Chapter 203

Ethan:

The night had crept in quietly, but the weight in my chest didn’t ease with the darkness.

No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t help but find myself getting lost in my thoughts, getting somewhat distracted. More distracted than I wanted to be.

I was leaning against the balcony railing outside my room, the cool wind doing little to numb the heat I felt rising beneath my skin. It wasn’t from anger. It wasn’t from the full moon drawing near either.

It was her.

Delilah.

The same woman I once saw as a threat, the same woman I told myself I wouldn’t trust no matter what. And yet, every time I passed by the infirmary… every time I caught her scent or saw her dark eyes flinch from pain, something in me twisted.

And when I saw her crying, something in me told me that there was a lot more about her than we knew. There was a side to her story to her that we did not know. That maybe we did not see.

I wasn’t supposed to feel this.

I couldn’t feel this.

She was not a person that I needed to sympathize with. She was an enemy, a current ally, but that was it. Once our benefits were done, once everything has changed, she was going to go her way. And I knew that maybe the next time we met, we were just going to be enemies drawing blood at one another.

“You’re thinking about her again, aren’t you?” Carter’s voice cut through the silence as he stepped up beside me.

I didn’t respond right away. Just kept my gaze on the stars.

“You need to stop,” he said flatly. “You’re playing with a fire that isn’t yours to control. You were like this with Sienna once, and look where that got you. You can’t really find yourself drawn to her sister. You know that she’s an enemy.”

“That was different,” I muttered. “As for her being an enemy, I don’t need you to keep reminding me of something like this whenever you find me staring into space.”

“Was it?” he snapped, then lowered his voice. “You cared for Sienna when Damon didn’t. Now you’re doing the same with Delilah. You have this thing where you want to save the ones who are most broken. And you have a thing to do and get with those who are forbidden for us. And I don’t think that you would expect anyone to allow it to be with Delilah.”

I clenched my jaw. “She’s not broken. And I don’t need to ask permission to be with someone that I know that I’m never going to be with. Thank you very much for the reminder.”

Carter stared at me. “She’s pretending not to be. You know how she is. You saw her, Ethan. That wasn’t strength today. That was a woman trying to hold herself together by a thread. And you think being there for her is helping, but it might be something she uses too. She did the first time she used something against Damon, against all of us. She looked at in the eye and lied. What makes you think that she’s not going to do it again?”

“She didn’t use me,” I said sharply. “I was the one who approached her because I felt a little sympathy towards her. But that is it and it ends there.”

“Yet,” he added coldly.

“I sent a scout team out,” Carter replied. “But the report stopped suddenly. It didn’t make it back through the usual channel. It’s like the message was cut mid-transmission.”

I exhaled sharply, tension crawling up my spine.

“You think he’s alive?” I asked.

Carter’s voice was heavy. “I don’t know. But if he is, we need to get to him before Giovanni uses him as leverage. And you know what happens if he starts using him to get information.”

A silence settled between us. One that didn’t sit well.

“We tell Damon?” I asked.

“Not yet,” Carter said. “Let’s confirm it first. If we give him false hope, it’ll destroy him. And Caleb has always been a friend. For him to turn out as a traitor in front of Damon, in front of anyone, would break the pack apart. You cannot afford that. Not in a time when we need to be united.”

“Then we are going to need to keep the search up, but Damon has to find out that we’ve have eyes on Caleb. Hiding something like this is not going to be on our side, regardless of what he might feel. He is the alpha. And the man that is kidnapped, if he is or that is betraying us, is his third beta. Even thinking about treason when it comes to this is a bad thing. And that is why we have to deal with it. It has to be done fast…”