A shiver ran down my spine at his words, and despite the deep, gnawing ache in my chest, a part of me couldn’t stop the instinctive pull toward him. Stay close. Don’t let go.
When we finally made it to the bathroom, Magnus was still holding me as though I were something delicate, something precious. His grip on me was firm, like he was holding something far more fragile than just a woman. “You want me to help you wash up?” he teased, the words carrying that playful edge I had learned to both fear and crave.
I blinked slowly, still half-dazed from the overwhelming emotions of the day. My eyes met his-no words, just an understanding. I pushed him away, almost instinctively, and didn’t say anything. I didn’t need to.
Instead, I simply looked at him, letting the cool air hit my face. Magnus just sighed in response, his fingers grazing my chin before he turned away and stepped out. He knew me too well-knew how to handle me, when to back off.
He was back moments later, though, carrying fresh clothes for me, including a nightgown that made me flush once I saw it. I glanced at him with narrowed eyes. “Why did you bring this?”
Magnus kept his gaze averted, his voice teasing as always. “What? You like going without, don’t you? I don’t mind either way.” He didn’t meet my eyes, though I could sense the tension coiling beneath his words, the barely contained frustration.
I huffed, pushing him out of the room, the irritation and embarrassment coloring my face. “Out.”
Third Person’s POV
As soon as Magnus stepped into the room, his expression shifted. The warm, teasing mask he wore in front of Aysel was quickly replaced with the cold, ruthless mask that he showed the world. He pulled out his phone and dialed, his voice low and commanding.
“Has Moonvale Pack made contact with the project in the East District?”
A mocking tone came through the line. “What’s wrong? Did Moonvale Pack piss you off? I hear they’ve been pushing for this project-it’s been their main focus for years now. And I also hear their young heir has been on it for nearly three years.”
Magnus’s eyes narrowed as he clenched his fist around the phone. “Fire the team. Give it to their rivals-Redmoon Pack.”
He heard the laugh at the other end, an amused edge to the words. “You’re not holding a grudge over Moonvale, are you? And this project… it’s the key to their transformation.”
Magnus’s jaw tightened, his wolf stirring beneath his skin. He could feel the surge of power, the primal urge to tear down every obstacle in his path. His voice was like ice as he responded. “They can’t manage their own family. They’re unfit for anything. And while we’re at it, give them something to occupy their time. They’re getting too comfortable.”
He didn’t need to explain further. Too comfortable meant a threat. A threat that had been a constant-Aysel. The one person he was willing to break his principles for. The one person his pride couldn’t touch.
The project in the East District wasn’t just a business opportunity-it was a statement. A message to Moonvale, to anyone who dared to try and threaten what was his.
Magnus took a breath, forcing his wolf back into submission. He turned toward the kitchen, his hands tightening as he decided to brew ginger tea. He would need to calm the storm brewing in his blood before it consumed him.
Meanwhile,Aysel’s absence from Moonvale left an uncomfortable void in Damon’s mind.
He had called Aysel earlier, but her phone had been unreachable. He had no idea where she was, but one thing was clear-she was no longer at the pack’s compound. A deep sense of worry crept into Damon’s chest as he sat in his car, the frustration gnawing at him.
His phone buzzed in his hand, and he looked at the screen-it was Celestine. For a split second, he debated ignoring it. The tension between him and Celestine had been suffocating lately, and the thought of dealing with her made his stomach churn. But the phone kept ringing, insistent.
Finally, he answered, his tone clipped. “Celestine, what’s wrong?”
The voice on the other end was trembling, barely a whisper, but there was no mistaking the panic in it. “Dariusz… it’s thundering. I’m scared. Where are you?”
Damon froze. The mention of that name hit him like a physical blow. The mention of Dariusz dredged up memories-too many memories that were suffocating, and overwhelming. He gripped the steering wheel, his vision blurring as the memories of Dariusz’s pain hit him like a flood.
The weight of a life lost.
For years, Damon had carried the weight of his actions with Aysel-the fact that he could never seem to be enough, to be there when it mattered. But now, this-this responsibility for Celestine’s fragile state-was too much to bear. Her broken mind, the lies she wove, and the cold, unspoken guilt that followed him wherever he went, were all pulling him under.
But he couldn’t leave her in that state. Not when her broken heart was a reflection of his own.
When Damon arrived at Moonvale Pack, Fenrir was waiting for him by the door. The tall, brooding heir of Moonvale looked at Damon with sharp eyes that saw far more than anyone would like to admit.
“She’s not here,” Fenrir said, his voice flat, but there was a touch of concern behind his gaze. “She left earlier… and she hasn’t come back yet.”
Damon’s jaw clenched, a bitter laugh escaping his lips. “Of course she didn’t come back. Why would she? She has a right to see how her
‘boyfriend’ is flirting with other women.”
Fenrir didn’t respond, though the weight of the situation hung heavily between them. They both knew what Damon had failed to do. They both knew what had been slowly eating away at Aysel-the fact that Damon could never fully commit, never fully be the one she needed. His mind flashed back to all the ways he’d failed her.
“Celestine’s upstairs,” Fenrir muttered, not looking Damon in the eye. “Maybe you should go see her.”
Damon turned on his heel, fury rising in his chest. The image of Aysel-alone in that damn cemetery, drenched from the rain, her pain thick in the air-tore at him, like claws scraping at his skin. But before he could turn around and leave, Celestine appeared in the doorway.
Her fragile body pressed into him with the urgency of a wounded animal. She clung to him like he was her only lifeline. “Dariusz, I need you,” she whispered, her voice high with desperation.
Damon froze, feeling as though the weight of his entire existence had shifted in that one moment. He couldn’t push her away-not like this. Not with her fragility hanging on him like a curse.
The door shut quietly behind him as Celestine led him inside, her fingers trailing over his chest. She didn’t know, didn’t care, that Damon was still thinking of Aysel, of the woman he could never quite reach.
“Stay with me tonight, Dariusz,” Celestine whispered, her breath hot against his skin as she spoke. “I need you.”
Damon’s gaze flickered. Stay with her. The words felt foreign on his tongue.
But that was the thing about obligations-they were never easy to break.
“I’m here,” Damon said, his voice low and steady, though every part of him longed to be elsewhere. With Aysel. The woman who had been bound to him, like a wolf to its pack.
Celestine smiled faintly, her golden hair damp against her flushed cheeks as she tugged Damon Blackwood toward the bed. “Dariusz,” she whispered softly, eyes bright and pleading, “will you stay with me until I fall asleep?”
Her voice trembled, fragile as spun glass. Then her fingers drifted to her throat-pale skin marked by faint, reddish claw lines, as though a wolf’s grip had lingered too long. Her expression turned troubled. “Aysel got angry with me again today,” she murmured, her tone heavy with regret. “Tell me, Dariusz, what can I do to make her forgive me? Maybe we should just… get married soon.”
Her eyes lit with sudden hope. “If we marry, I’ll have a reason to move out of Moonvale territory. If I leave, Aysel will come home again. She won’t have to see me anymore.”
Her tone was so earnest, so gentle, that even Damon couldn’t find the heart to contradict her. She believed she was doing it for her sister’s sake-for Aysel, who had once been her packmate, her blood, and the one she’d wounded most deeply without even realizing it.
But Dariusz was gone. The male she spoke of-the one she believed she still loved-had perished years ago, swallowed by the sea and the storm.
And Damon could not bring himself to tell her that truth.
The words stuck in his throat, dissolving into a low sigh. “Let me tend your wounds first.” His tone was steady, measured, the way an Alpha handled a frightened wolf.
Celestine’s eyes softened. “You’re so good to me, Dariusz…”
Her hand came up, brushing along his jaw with the intimacy of a lover. “When you’re here, I’m not afraid anymore. You’ll stay with me, won’t you? Always?”
The touch of her skin burned. Damon flinched slightly, guilt flickering in his amber eyes, but his voice remained calm.
“I will,” he said quietly. “I’ll stay.”
It was a promise he’d made a thousand times before, one that chained him more tightly than any oath.
Third Person’s POV
Ever since Dariusz had died to save him, Celestine had become Damon’s burden-his guilt made flesh.
Years ago, before the storm, the three of them had been inseparable. Dariusz, charming and brilliant, with a laugh that could calm even the fiercest Alpha; Celestine, radiant and impulsive, adored by everyone; and Damon, whose sense of duty had always come before his heart.
That was why they’d gone out to sea together that night. The waves had been high, but Dariusz had smiled as though he could tame the storm itself. He’d always been that way-drawn to danger, a wolf chasing the horizon.
When the storm hit and the ship began to sink, Dariusz had fought like a god. He saved Celestine first-dragged her through the freezing surf to a shattered lifeboat, his strength waning with each pull. He saved the others too. And when Damon went under, pulled down by a broken mast, Dariusz had gone back.
He’d gone back-and never resurfaced.
When Celestine awoke days later, she learned what had happened. The shock broke her. She’d tried to follow him into the waves more than once. Each time, Moonvale’s healers brought her back-shaken, empty, her wolf howling for a mate that was no longer there.
Until one night, after another failed attempt, she woke from near drowning… and the first face she saw was Damon’s.
Her shattered mind had filled in the missing piece. Dariusz. The one who had saved her. The one who would always protect her.
Damon had tried, in the beginning, to tell her the truth. He’d tried to bring healers, mind-menders, to coax her back from the edge. But Alpha Remus and Luna Evelyn had forbidden it. Celestine, they said, could not endure another shock. Her wolf was too fragile. The healing had to be gradual-or she’d lose herself completely.
And so, Damon stayed. Bound by guilt, bound by memory.
Every time she called him Dariusz, he felt the weight of the sea again-the cold, the roar, the sound of a life slipping away beneath the waves. And every time she smiled at him with those luminous eyes, he thought of Aysel Vale, standing alone in the rain, unaware of how deeply the past still chained him.
He was the Blackwood Alpha-strongest in the East-yet powerless to free himself from the ghost of another wolf’s love.
Damon had once sworn under the sacred moon to protect Aysel. But oaths made in moonlight often burned like silver when broken.
After Dariusz’s death in the Sea of Storms, the packs called it destiny. Yet Damon knew better. Dariusz had died saving him. The weight of that debt was carved into his bones – and into Celestine Ward’s madness.
She no longer recognized the world as it was. In her broken mind, she saw only her lost mate. And when she looked upon Damon, she saw Dariusz reborn.
The healers said her spirit had fractured under grief, that the scent of the sea and the sight of silver light could drive her into a frenzy. But no healer dared tell her the truth: that her beloved was gone. The Moonvale Pack forbade it.
And so Damon bore the lie.
He stayed at her side when her heat surged without control, when her wolf howled for the one who would never answer again. She would cling to him, call him by another name – “Dariusz, my moon, my mate”-and he would lower his head, letting her scent wash over him like chains.
He could not refuse her. Not when he owed her so much. Not when every breath he took reminded him that Dariusz had died to save him.
Even his father, Lord Blackwood, had said coldly, “Our pack cannot raise an heir accused of ingratitude. You owe her blood and peace.”
The Moonvale Pack had long since turned their grief into accusation. Aysel, the true daughter of Alpha Remus, stood alone against it. She was born of the same blood as Celestine, yet treated like an outcast. Every wolf in Moonvale whispered that Aysel killed
Yuna.
And so, Aysel carried the stain.
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