Chapter 259: Chapter 259 – Daisy is the problem. And you are the blind one

Nobody saw it coming. Not Damon, and not even Voren himself.

One second Voren was standing by the door, and the next his boot connected with Damon’s side with enough force to send him clean off his feet and onto the floor in a heap.

The sound of it was sharp and ugly in the quiet room. Voren stood over him, chest rising and falling, and there wasn’t a single flicker of apology anywhere on his face.

Damon lay there for a moment, letting the pain move through him in waves, giving his wolf just enough room to start working on it. He stared up at the ceiling and breathed. And then slowly, provokingly, he started to smile.

"So I hit a nerve ha?" He pushed himself up onto one elbow, his voice rough but steady. "Good to know." His eyes found Voren’s from the floor. "What, you gonna kill me now? Go ahead. Get it over with. Because I’m telling you right now, I’m not backing off."

Something moved in Voren’s eyes, the color bled out of them completely. That deep, absolute black that meant whatever filter he normally kept between instinct and action had gotten very, very thin. He moved —

’Stop.’

Bloodfang’s voice hit like a hand to the chest.

’He’s doing this on purpose. He wants her to hate us. Think about what happens if you put him in the hospital. Seraphine would stay to take care of him. She won’t go with you to the city. Is that what you want?’

Voren went completely still.

He stood there in the middle of Damon’s room with his hands at his sides and the blackness slowly, draining back out of his eyes, and he hated how close he’d just come to falling for it.

Damon had read the board better than he’d given him credit for. One badly wounded Beta and Seraphine would dig her heels in and refuse to go anywhere until the man was on his feet. She was wired that way whether she admitted it or not.

’Thank you,’ he said to Bloodfang.

He straightened up. Rolled his shoulder once. Let the rest of it settle back down into somewhere manageable.

"You’re her eyes in this pack." His voice had come back to its normal register, low and unbothered, like the last thirty seconds had been a minor inconvenience. He looked down at Damon without expression. "And I’m right there beside her in the city. Every single day." He turned for the door. "Good luck with that."

The door closed behind him.

Damon stayed on the floor a moment longer than he needed to, jaw clenched tight, every word he’d wanted to say still piling up behind his teeth. The biggest coward in this whole situation was standing on the other side of that door and somehow still walking away looking like the winner.

He pressed his palm flat to the floor and pushed himself up. He had to see Seraphine to initiate his next plan. Voren would not get away with this. Either he confesses his love for Seraphine or give her the room to breath. That would give her the open mind to see other available options.

✦༶✦༶✦

The rain had stopped.

The evidence of it was everywhere — puddles spreading wide across the grounds, the smell of wet earth hanging thick in the air, broken branches scattered across the paths.

Omegas were already moving through it with quiet efficiency, clearing debris, gathering fallen leaves, putting the pack back together the way they always did after a storm.

On the upper landing, Ravyn stood at the railing with both hands resting on it, watching Daisy run the track below with the other four. His face was still. His mind was somewhere else entirely.

"What did you want to talk about?"

Ravyn turned fast, faster than he’d have liked, and found Voren standing a few feet away. He hadn’t heard him coming. Hadn’t felt him approach. That alone said something about where his head was.

"You move quiet when you’re annoyed." Ravyn studied his face. "What happened? What did Damon say?"

"Nothing important." Voren moved to lean against the railing beside him, eyes going out over the grounds below. "Business stuff. Asking about connections." He inhaled deeply. "He already has shares with me, so I don’t know what else he wants."

"Ambitious." Ravyn almost smiled. "I’ll give him that."

"Mm." Voren let it drop and turned slightly. "I don’t have much time. Before I take Sera to eat, I need to track down those rogue assassins. I can’t leave this territory without knowing who sent them."

Ravyn’s expression changed. Something uncomfortable moved through it, the look of a man who knows he dropped a ball he shouldn’t have dropped. "I’ll come."

"No need. I’ll handle it." Voren’s eyes stayed on the grounds. "And Sera won’t want you around anyway."

Ravyn absorbed that without argument. His fingers tightened slightly on the railing, then released. He was quiet for a moment before he spoke again, and when he did his voice had that particular quality it got when he was trying to sound reasonable about something he’d already decided.

"I hope you understand now why I could never be attracted to her." He paused briefly. "Seraphine is heartless, Voren. Daisy isn’t fully recovered. Anyone with eyes can see that and still she’s out there in the rain running track."

Voren said nothing for a moment.

He kept his eyes straight ahead, watching the figures below, and he thought about the last two days and even this morning. About what he’d seen and what he’d heard and what he’d quietly filed away without mentioning to anyone.

He thought about the version of Seraphine that Ravyn had been feeding him for years. Cold, selfish, calculating, and he thought about the woman who’d sat on the edge of his bed tonight and let him dry her hair and tried very hard to pretend she didn’t need anyone to do anything for her.

Those two women were not the same person.

"I disagree with you." He said it simply, without heat. "And I’m not saying that lightly. For a long time, I took your word on who she was because I hadn’t spent real time around her after she declared her love for you that day. I had my own reasons for keeping distance."

His jaw tightened slightly. "But two days, Ravyn. Two days around her and I’m already seeing things that don’t line up with what you’ve been telling me for years."

Ravyn turned to look at him fully. "Voren—"

"From where I’m standing," Voren continued, still looking out, "Daisy is the problem. And you are the blind one."