Chapter 4: Ice In His Eyes
1167 Words
Damians Pov
Elena greeted us at the front steps, perfectly composed in a cream-colored dress that made her look every inch the Luna she was about to become.
This was what a Luna should look like… poised, beautiful, commanding respect without having to beg for it.
"How is he?" She asked as Aiden squirmed in my arms.
"Fine. Confused, but he'll adjust." I set him down, and he immediately ran to her, wrapping his arms around her legs.
"Mama, I'm hungry." His voice was muffled against her dress.
"Let's get you breakfast, sweetheart." Elena smoothed his hair back, that maternal gesture that came so naturally to her. She glanced at me over his head. "Was it necessary to bring him? To make him watch her leave like that?"
"He needed closure." I adjusted my cuffs. "Better he sees her go than wake up one day wondering where she disappeared to."
"That's not closure, Damian. That's trauma."
I felt a flicker of irritation. We'd had this discussion already, and I didn't appreciate having my decisions questioned. "Handle him, Elena. That's what you're here for."
Something crossed her face, annoyance, maybe, or disappointment, but it smoothed away quickly. She knew better than to push. "Of course, Alpha."
She led Aiden inside, already chattering about pancakes and his favourite cartoon, and I headed for my office, mentally cataloguing everything that needed to be done. Luna transition paperwork.
I poured myself a drink despite the early hour. The whiskey burned going down, sharp and grounding. Then I sat at my desk and opened the Luna transition documents.
The pack lawyers had drawn up the paperwork months ago, when it became clear that Lyra wasn't going to improve. That she'd remain exactly what she'd always been, adequate, but not exceptional.
My hand moved across the signature line with practised ease.
Done.
Lyra Hale was no longer my Luna in any capacity that mattered.
I'd tried with her. In the beginning, I'd genuinely tried to feel something beyond obligation. She'd saved my life, which created a debt that had to be acknowledged. Marriage had seemed the appropriate solution.
It should have been enough.
But she'd wanted more. Always more. More attention, more affection, more of the things I simply didn't have to give. She'd looked at me with those soft brown eyes full of desperate hope, and all I'd felt was the weight of her expectations crushing down on me.
Elena never looked at me like that. She understood that this was a partnership built on mutual benefit and compatible goals. She didn't need me to pretend emotions .
My phone buzzed, It was a text from Marcus: She's on the western route. Staying ahead of traffic., she should reach the territory border in about twenty minutes.
Another text: She's reached the border. Still driving west.
I set the phone down and reached for the next folder, and the door burst open without warning.
Marcus stood there, phone in his hand, his face drained of all colour. In the fifteen years I'd known him, I'd never seen him look like that. Even during rogue attacks, even when we'd lost pack members, he'd maintained his composure.
"Alpha." His voice shook. "There's been an accident."
"What kind of accident?" I kept my tone level, controlled, even as something uncomfortable shifted in my chest.
"Lyra's car went off the cliff road about fifteen miles west of the border." He swallowed hard. "The vehicle's completely destroyed."
The discomfort in my chest spread, tightening until it was difficult to breathe properly.
"Destroyed how?"
"It went over the edge at Widow's Peak. You know that turn." His voice cracked. There's a river at the bottom. The current's brutal this time of year."
I stood, my hands flat on the desk. "Send search teams. Every available wolf. Now’"
"Damian." Marcus's voice went soft, and I hated the pity in it. "The car's in pieces. There's blood... so much blood, smeared on what's left of the interior. Even with werewolf healing, no one walks away from that kind of impact. And if she somehow survived the crash, the river…"
"I said send the teams." The Alpha command roared through the room like a.
He flinched but pulled out his phone, already making calls.
I stood there, staring at nothing, that uncomfortable tightness in my chest spreading until it felt like I couldn't breathe at all.
She couldn't be dead. I'd just sent her away an hour ago. She was supposed to leave quietly, start a new life somewhere else, fade into obscurity where she couldn't complicate things anymore.
She wasn't supposed to die.
My phone rang. The caller ID showed it was from Border Patrol.
"Alpha Blackthorn." The voice was young, unsteady. "We're at the crash site. Sir, you need to understand, there's debris scattered for a quarter mile. The blood trail leads right to the edge where the car went over. This wasn't... this wasn't survivable."
"Keep searching." My voice sounded strange to my own ears. Hollow.
"Sir, with respect, there's nothing to find. The impact alone would have killed her instantly, and if it didn't, the fall into the ravine… Alpha, she's gone."
I ended the call and sat down slowly staring at the Luna transition documents on my desk, my signature still fresh on the page. Legal proof that I'd severed our bond, ended our marriage, and cast her aside.
And now she was dead.
The office door opened again. Elena, this time, moving with that careful grace she always maintained. "I heard. I'm sorry."
Was she? I couldn't tell.
"Aiden can't know," I heard myself say. "Not yet. Not until we're absolutely certain."
"Of course." She moved closer, her hand settling on my shoulder but the touch felt wrong somehow. "This doesn't change anything, though. Does it? You were ending things anyway. This is just... unfortunate timing."
"Unfortunate?" I repeated the word.
"Tragic," she corrected quickly. "I meant tragic. But in terms of the practical concerns there’ll be no custody battles and no complications with the transition.”
She was right. This was cleaner than a messy divorce would have been. No Lyra showing up at inconvenient times trying to see Aiden. No loose ends to manage.
So why did my chest feel like someone had carved it hollow with a dull blade?
Marcus reappeared in the doorway, his expression grim.
"Alpha." He held up a cracked, blood-stained phone. "We found this in the wreckage. It's Lyra's. The last call she made was to her parents about twenty minutes before the crash, she told them she loved them and said she was sorry for disappointing them."
"The crash investigator just sent his preliminary report." Marcus's voice dropped to barely above a whisper. "The brake lines were cut."
The room went very still.
"What?"
"It was severed clean, designed to fail at high speed on a curve." His eyes met mine, and I saw the question there. The accusation. "Sir, this wasn't an accident. Someone wanted her dead."
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