Breed Me, Daddy Alpha-Chapter 297

Damon

I will tell you the truth. Lying here in my own blood, I thought this was it. I thought this was the end.

When that blade drove into my side, when I smelled the silver in my own veins, when I felt the ground rise up to meet me because my body could no longer hold itself upright, I thought my story stopped here, in this dirt, under this moon, with Darren’s grin carved into my memory like the last cruel joke before death.

But dying is not as quiet as they tell you it is. No one ever talks about the noise.

The pounding of your own pulse in your ears. The sound of your breath dragging in and out of lungs that no longer want to cooperate.

The rushing in your head that makes you feel like you are underwater, sinking fast, while the world above you keeps moving.

And then there was his voice.

My wolf.

(Damon.)

He did not yell. He does not need to. His voice cut through everything, the ringing in my ears, the pounding of my heart.

I told him the truth the same way I will tell you now. "We are dying," I said. I could not speak it out loud because my mouth barely worked, but in my head, the words were there. Honest. "Do you understand me? This is the end."

He went very quiet after that. He let the words sit there like he was giving me the chance to hear how pathetic they sounded out loud.

And then, in that low, dangerous tone that has lived in my blood my entire life, he said, (Do not insult me with that kind of talk again.)

I almost laughed. Even half-dead, I almost laughed, because only my wolf would sound irritated instead of afraid while I was bleeding out into the soil.

"I cannot feel my legs," I told him. "I can barely breathe. The silver is in my blood. You know what that means. Healing is impossible. This is not like every other fight we have walked away from. This is the one that kills us."

"You truly believe that?"

That was what my wolf said to me after I told him we were dying. His voice came too relaxed with none of the panic you would expect from someone standing on the edge of death.

It almost made me angry, the way he sounded so damn sure of himself while my blood was soaking into the soil beneath us.

"Yes," I told him because I was not about to lie to the creature who shared my skin. "I truly believe this is the end. I have silver in my veins, my body is failing, my mate is running through the woods terrified out of her mind, my brother is standing somewhere laughing like a demon while the pack I swore to protect falls apart around me. What else am I supposed to believe? Tell me."

He went silent for a moment.

Then he spoke.

(Damon Thornvale, listen to me and listen well because I will not say this twice. I have shared this body with you since the day you drew your first breath.

(I have hunted with you, fought beside you, killed for you, and carried your rage when it was too heavy for you to hold alone. And never, not once in all those years, have I heard you speak the way you just did.

(You sound like a man already digging his own grave. Do you know what that does to me? Do you know what it feels like for me to hear the Alpha I was born to serve speak like a coward ready to surrender?)

"I am no coward," I snapped because even half-dead I would not let anyone, not even the voice inside my own head, name me that.

(Then stop talking like one!) he roared so loudly in my skull that my entire body jerked on the ground even though I could barely move.

(You think this ends here? You think one knife, one night, one traitorous brother is enough to finish us? Look at me, Damon. Look at what we are. We have torn through armies. We have painted cities in blood. We have stood on bones and ash and called it victory, and now you want to tell me this is where we fall? This little betrayal? This handful of rogues and people you banished crawling out of the dark? Do not insult me.)

"You felt that blade the same way I did," I told him. "You felt it sink into us over and over until we hit the ground. You feel the silver burning through every vein right now. Do not stand there and tell me this body is not finished because we both know it is."

(Oh, I feel it. I feel every inch of it, Damon. Every flame, every cut, every drop of blood leaving us. I feel the weight of this body the same way you do. But you want to know the difference between you and me? You are ready to die with it. I am not.)

I closed my eyes because the trees above me were spinning, and every time I tried to lift my head the whole world tilted sideways.

"She is out there," I said, my chest tightening until it hurt worse than the wound itself. "Lyra. She is running through the woods carrying our children, and I told her to run because I knew I would not be getting up again."

(And you think she will forgive you for that?) he snapped so fast it cut right through me. (You think she will forgive you for leaving her in a world this cruel? For leaving your pups before they even open their eyes? For handing your crown to the same traitor who put you in the ground? Is that what you think?)

My throat felt tight, my jaw clenched until it ached, because no, she would not forgive me for that. Not in this lifetime or the next.

"You think I want this?" My voice shook so hard it did not even sound like mine. "You think I want to be lying here while she is out there with nothing but fear in her hands? I want to stand. I want to fight. I want to tear Darren apart until there is nothing left of him but the stain he leaves behind. But I cannot even feel my own damn legs right now."

(Then borrow mine,) my wolf snarled. (Borrow my strength. Borrow my rage. Borrow every dark and furious thing in me that has been waiting years for a night like this. Because I promise you, Damon, if you let me up, if you stop whining like some broken man in the dirt and let me stand, we will show them what it means to provoke the Alpha of this pack.)