Alpha Damon (Sienna) novel Chapter 223

“But he didn’t belong to you,” I said sharply. “He wasn’t one of your warriors. He wasn’t a part of this pack. You don’t need to honor him, he was your enemy.”

“No, I do not.” Kael said, his gaze steady. “But he died protecting what this pack stands for. And that makes him one of us now. His last move was to keep you safe was to show us that he stood by our side, on our side, one way or the other, though he might have not said it out loud.”

I pressed a hand to my chest, as if I could stop my heart from breaking further. I closed my eyes to stop the tears from falling, but they betrayed me as they did.

“He will be buried here, I know that Giovanni sent him here to be ashamed, cast aside, but I will not do that.” Kael continued. ” I will give him a proper burial. Not as an outsider. Not as an enemy. But as a friend. He will not rot in some forgotten field. He will rest with honor. He deserves that.”

I couldn’t stop the tears this time.

The words, simple, solid, final, broke something open in me that I had locked away the second I left Giovanni’s estate. I had braced myself for cruelty, for silence. Not kindness.

And certainly not from a man like him.

“Why?” I asked, my voice cracking. “After everything I’ve done? After who I am? Why do you all keep treating me with kindness? Why don’t you try and kill me or try and end me? Put me in place? You, Damon, Sienna…. Why? I don’t deserve any of this. Certainly not from you.”

Kael looked at me, and there was something in his eyes that I hadn’t seen in anyone’s but Nikolai’s.

Understanding.

“Because grief doesn’t care about bloodlines,” he said. “And neither does sacrifice. Whatever darkness you came from… it doesn’t define you. It doesn’t define him either. What defines you is what you become, your choices that you made. And I can see now that you are doing your best to make the right ones. You were broken and he made sure to break whatever innocence that you had in you. But now you are fighting to stand strong against everything that he tried to teach here. You are trying to teach yourself to be something different.”

I bowed my head, my hands trembling in my lap.

For Nikolai.

For Lysandra.

And maybe, one day, for myself too.

“I will.” I whispered. “Even if it is the last thing that I will do, I will do my best to honor his blood. No matter what the cost is going to be.”