Alpha Damon (Sienna) novel Chapter 218

Sienna:

I didn’t breathe until the infirmary doors shut behind us.

I couldn’t, no matter how hard I tried, seeing her like this was not something that I could just easily swallow.

Delilah stood beside me, her jaw clenched and her knuckles bloodless where she gripped the back of the chair Lysandra now lay curled in. She hadn’t left her side since they arrived. Not even for water. Not for air. Not for a single second.

It was as if her leaving Lysandra’s side meant that Lysandra was going to lose herself.

She looked… broken. She barely responded to Evelyn’s gentle touch, didn’t flinch when the medics checked her pulse or lifted her arms. Her wrists were bruised. Her skin was paper-thin. There were scabbed-over wounds along her arms, her ribs too visible beneath the oversized shirt Delilah had wrapped around her.

The woman that I once knew was this pack’s Luna was not here anymore. The woman who was lying in front of me was severely broken. She did not even know her name. I did not think that she did, at least not until Delilah had said it.

“She’s severely dehydrated,” the nurse whispered. “Malnourished. We’re starting fluids now, but…” She trailed off. I already knew the rest. She didn’t need to say it. They did not know how they were going to manage to help her. Gone with everything that she seems to have been through, not with the trauma. I understood why Delilah wanted to leave so quickly, and I understood why she looked frightened.

I stepped back, letting them work.

Delilah’s eyes met mine across the room. There was something different in her gaze now. Something stripped bare. She didn’t look like the woman who had once tried to destroy me, who played games with Damon, who was raised in shadows.

She looked like an innocent woman, though she had played and manipulated so many people. Around, there was a speck of innocence in her eyes, a speck of brokenness that could not be denied.

A girl who had lost far too much far too young and was trying, desperately, not to lose what little she had left.

“She needs sleep,” Evelyn murmured to me as she approached. “And Delilah, she’s refusing to eat. Stubborn like someone else I know. I believe that you can speak to her. She too needs to recover.”

I glanced down at my hands. I didn’t answer.

“Stay with her,” Evelyn added softly. “She might not ask, but she needs someone. No matter how painful that might be, she might need you by her side and understand what you might feel about it. But do it this time.”

I nodded and crossed the room to Delilah’s side. Her hand was gently stroking a loose curl from Lysandra’s temple, a motion so heartbreakingly tender it made my throat burn.

“She’s stable,” I said gently. “The nurses are doing everything that they can.”

“I know.”

“You should rest.” I said. Her eyes hearted in response, and her response came firmly. I raised an eyebrow. “No.”

“I used to think Giovanni was a monster to everyone except me. Like I was the exception. Like his twisted love meant something. But the truth is… he raised me to break people. I thought I was strong. I thought I was the weapon. But I was just another piece in his game.” She said, her eyes welling up with tears. “I thought that I was special to some extent. I just turned out to be something that he could easily discard once he was done with.”

I sat down beside her.

“You’re not anymore,” I said quietly. “You get to choose now. He chooses his fights well, and he chooses to break those that do not follow his rules. Now you’re not part of his rule. You are part of what you want to be. And you are part of something that you can be. You can break everything that you’ve been raised to know, and you can stand on your feet.”

She didn’t cry. I don’t think she could. But her hand slid into mine, the weight of it warm and shaking.

We sat there in silence for a while, listening to the rhythmic beeping of machines and the quiet rise and fall of Lysandra’s breath.

Outside the house, the sky was darkening again. Clouds were forming and I did not need to look out the window to realize that it was going to be a stormy night. The wind was already picking up.

But in here, it felt like the first dawn we’d had in a long, long time.

“Get some rest, I really do believe that you need it. No one is going to hurt her and she’s not going to go anywhere but you too need to rest.” I said, my voice softening. “Otherwise, you’re not going to be able to fight and right now we are going to need all the arms that we can have. No matter how hard it might seem.”