The Captain's Forbidden Mate

Episode 32: THE QUESTION

LENA

Damien chose the coffee shop this time. Neutral territory, he called it. His words weren't incorrect when he said that there were no cameras on the walls, other students studying nearby, not an empty restaurant or a crowded party.

He was already waiting for me when I entered, two cups of coffee on the table, as if he had known what I would want.

"You look tired," he said.

"I have had a few rough days."

"I know," he replied, watching me as I took my seat, analyzing me, perhaps, for my next words, for the reaction he would get out of me. "An emergency council session was called by Cole's father. Word tends to get out, despite the best efforts of those trying to keep it contained, you know, in this world, Lena."

I was scanning the room, as it was now second nature to me in the last few days, taking in any sight, any detail that might seem slightly out of place, searching for any sign of danger. Cole and Noah sat two tables away from us, close enough for help if it was needed, pretending to research something on a laptop that neither of them was actually reading.

"You look nervous," Damien said, watching me as I took in my surroundings.

"I have reason to be," I said shortly. "You would know that better than most people, wouldn't you?"

He didn't disagree.

I didn't answer that unspoken question, and instead, looked him in the eye, as Astra had taught me to look people in the eye during training.

“I have a question,” I said. "And I want you to answer honestly."

There was something in his eyes flicker of something like fear, but not quite that. More like caution. "Ask."

"Your grandfather was responsible for the m******e against my family," I said, watching him closely as I said that. "Is this true?"

"Yes." There was no hesitation in his voice.

"Did your grandfather have a brother?"

This question seemed to catch him off guard. He didn't show it on his face, but his grip on the coffee cup in his hand tightened, his knuckles paler than before. "What are you talking about? Why are you asking me this?"

"Just answer the question, Damien."

It took him a moment to answer. When he did, his voice was quiet. "My grandfather had an older brother. His name was Aiden." He said the name slowly and carefully. "He went missing the night of the m******e. My family never talks about him. I assumed he had died during the war, and that he was one of many whose names had been lost to time, along with the details of that terrible night."

"What if I told you that he didn't die that night?" I asked him, watching his face closely, like the anonymous texter had told me to do. "What if I told you that he was with my mother, before the m******e? That he had known her, and been close to her?" I paused, gauging his expression. "What if someone believes he was trying to warn my family, that night, instead of attacking them?"

For once, Damien was speechless. It was the first time I had seen him truly shocked, instead of just performing the mask he wore for so many others, not even his practiced charm softening his expression this time.

"That is ridiculous," he finally said, and his voice was barely more than a whisper. "My family would have told me. Someone would have told me."

"Would they?" I asked softly. "Wouldn't that be the sort of thing that families would keep quiet about? So as to not be portrayed as the monsters in this situation, and so that a good man's name wouldn't be dragged through the mud by accident?"

Damien was silent for a long moment. He looked down at his coffee, now cold on the table between us.

"My grandfather always seemed to get this strange look on his face when anyone asked about Aiden," he said quietly. "I thought it was simply grief, but perhaps it was guilt."

Perhaps it was guilt, I thought bitterly. Perhaps it was guilt because it was his brother that had died that night, not Aiden's, but there was no way to be certain. Perhaps that thought would always be a possibility, because it didn't change much either way. The m******e would always be there, a part of us, and no matter what, it would always change us. It would always change everything.

"It is entirely reasonable to assume that if it had been him, then the m******e would not have happened," I said. "That perhaps your grandfather would have survived if it hadn't been for the attack, if Aiden hadn't interfered, if Aiden hadn't been trying to protect us rather than the other way around."

"It was a m******e," Damien said, more firmly this time. "That isn't something that just happens without a killer, without a murderer, without a person willing to take those lives." His grip on the coffee cup tightened again. "My grandfather fought in the war, but he was just following orders. It was no different for him than it was for anyone else."

"He could have refused the orders," I said simply.

"Perhaps he could have," Damien said, and he didn't sound convinced himself. He was staring down at the table, and he absently rubbed his jaw. "My father never talked about Aiden, either. Not really. I asked about him once, when I was around ten, perhaps younger. All he told me was that Aiden was a hero, that he had died fighting for the pack." His jaw tightened. "That was all he ever said about it. And I never asked again."

"Why?" I asked. "Why didn't you ask again? Why didn't you push him, if it was so important to you?"

"Perhaps because it stopped being important to me?" He looked up at me, his expression almost vulnerable. "Perhaps because the less questions I asked, the less I knew the better? I'm beginning to think that perhaps I don't know as much as I thought I did about my family."

"Neither do I," I said. "Neither does Cole, apparently, and neither does anyone , really."

"So what are we going to do about that?" I asked him.

"I don't know yet." He was silent for a moment, watching me. "I think you need to find out the truth, for your own sake, rather than anything else."

Damien nodded slowly, making some sort of decision behind his eyes, though I could see the determination in his expression. It was there, but it was shadowed by something else, something I couldn't quite place, though it wasn't quite doubt either.

"I need to know more," he said, loud enough for Cole and Noah to hear him at the next table. "About the photo, about what you know."

He pulled a phone out of his pocket, checking the time, his expression darkening. "I need to call my father anyway, before I lose my nerve, before he can convince me to do something else."

"Damien." I reached out, catching his arm before he stood fully. "Be careful. Whatever this is, it is bigger than just your family, your pride, or your secrets."

"I know," he said, looking down at my hand on his arm, almost grateful for my warning. "Thank you. For asking me, for not letting me keep lying to you."

He left without another word, leaving the coffee that he had not touched sitting on the table, and taking his phone out as soon as he reached the street to call his father. I sat in the chair he had left, watching him walk back toward the sun that had broken through the clouds for the first time in days. I would have liked to say I felt good, triumphant somehow, having gotten something real out of this meeting, having been able to get him to c***k, to admit something meaningful, something that Cole or Astra or anyone else could use. Instead, I felt hollow, and somehow sick, as if I had torn some part of him out and taken it with me, leaving something worse in its place.