Alpha Damon (Sienna) novel Chapter 265

Ethan:

Her words didn’t leave me.

They stayed, burned, in my chest like embers under skin. I tried to ignore the feeling, I really did, but it was impossible. After everything, I did not know what came over me. I did not know how it was going to be able to handle it, but I knew this. I did not want to leave it unhandled.

I didn’t even try to train after she walked away. I couldn’t. I took a step back when she was training and once she was done, I left. My body could fight, but my mind… it was stuck in that look she gave me. That edge of betrayal under all her fury. The pain and the anger.

I meant what I said.

And maybe that was the worst part.

Because it hadn’t started as anything serious. Not at first. I thought that it was nothing more than a game, that the two of us were enjoying each other. But when I looked at her, when I saw her looking at me, when I saw her softening towards me… I did not understand what happened, not to me and not to anything that I knew.

All I knew was this Delilah was different. She was willing to fight. She was willing to stand. And I…? I broke something in her, something that I did not think existed, a feeling or an emotion that I did not want to believe was there.

A walking war, wrapped in silence and sharp edges. A woman who knew No Fear. A woman who knew blood since the day that she understood how she would be able to hold a knife. She knew what death and she knew what it was to fight. She knew what was lost and what was gained.

And somehow, I made her feel like she was small. Like she was someone I could pity. I hadn’t even realized I said it, until I saw the way she looked at me after. Until I saw her pain in her eyes. Until she stepped back, refusing to allow me to approach her.

That look still wouldn’t leave my head.

My hands stayed clenched at my sides as I rounded the hall toward the east wing. I didn’t know where I was going until I saw her, Sienna. The one person that I knew would hate me for this, and yet the one person that I knew would help me solve it. Little did I know that I was going back to the one woman that I thought that I would never go back to. A woman that I believed myself to be in love with. An idea that I wanted, a perfection that I saw.

She was holding Isla in one arm, her other hand resting on the stair rail, calm and collected as always. She looked up just as I approached.

She must’ve seen it on my face. She was well aware that something had happened. I knew that the warning that she gave me the other day told me so.

The crack.

The quiet fall.

“Can I talk to you?” I asked, my voice barely audible. “I don’t know who else I can talk to, and I think that you’re the one person who can help me with this.”

Sienna’s brows lifted in surprise. She shifted Isla against her hip and nodded once.

“Of course,” she said. “I can assume the issue starts with the letter D.”

I followed her into the side room, the one she used when she needed to get away from noise. It was empty. Still.

She sat. I didn’t.

“She hates me now.”

“No,” Sienna said gently. “She’s hurt. And she doesn’t trust you. But hate? No. If she hated you, she wouldn’t have cried. She wouldn’t have allowed herself to feel her pain.”

My throat tightened.

“She cried?” I whispered.

Sienna nodded. “She did everything she could not to. But yes. She doesn’t know that I saw or that I know, but I’m not blind and the walls have ears in this place. You broke something in her that she did not think existed. You made it real and her eyes and suddenly it just chattered. Now you need to fix it.”

The silence hung between us.

“Then what do I do?” I asked. “Tell me, Sienna. I’d take on a thousand enemies for her. I just… I don’t know how to take on her. Hell, I would rather I find myself in battle than deal with this anger.”

She stood and walked over to me. She placed a hand lightly on my arm.

“You don’t fight her,” she said. “You show up. Quietly. Consistently. You take every wall she builds and meet it with truth. But more than anything, Ethan… you let her see you bleed. Because she’s tired of being the only one with scars. Anyone would be in her place. I don’t blame her and that is why you need to stand up to it. Because trust me, she is willing to forgive. She was willing to give a chance. You just need to prove to her that you’re worth it.”