Chapter 7

• I hadn't made it far down the driveway when I heard the car behind me. The headlights swept across my back, and then Damien's SUV pulled up alongside me, crawling at walking pace. He rolled down the window.
• "Get in the car, Evelyn."
• I kept walking, my arms wrapped around myself against the evening chill. The burns on my stomach throbbed with every step, but I didn't care. I just needed to be away from him, and most importantly away from the people I called my family.
• "I said get in the car."
• "I need air. I feel sick." It wasn't a lie. The thought of being trapped in a small space with him right now made my throat close up.
• I heard the car door slam, and then his footsteps were behind me, quick and heavy on the pavement. His hand closed around my arm and spun me to face him.
• "Let go of me."
• "You're being ridiculous. You can't walk all the way home from here."
• "Watch me." I tried to pull free, but his grip only tightened. My wolf snarled inside my chest, pressing against my control.
• Before I could react, he bent down and threw me over his shoulder like I weighed nothing. I beat my fists against his back, but he ignored me completely, carrying me to the car and depositing me in the passenger seat. He buckled the seatbelt across my chest before I could escape and slammed the door shut.
• By the time he got back in the driver's side, I had stopped fighting. There was no point. He was stronger than me, and we both knew it. The silence in the car was suffocating. I turned my face toward the window and watched the trees blur past, refusing to look at him.
• "Eve." His voice was softer now, almost gentle. "What's going on with you tonight?"
• I didn't answer. His fingers flexed on the steering wheel. I could feel his frustration building through the bond, mixing with something else. Something that almost felt like guilt, and that made me almost chuckle. I knew for a fact he did not feel any sympathy towards me, after what I knew about him.
• "Talk to me. Please."
• The laugh that escaped my throat was bitter and hollow. "Talk to you? About what, Damien? About how my family treats me like garbage? About how you just stood there and watched?" I finally turned to look at him, and I saw him flinch at whatever he saw in my face. "About how you looked at her?"
• He didn't ask who I meant. We both knew.
• "Eve—"
• "Do you even care about me anymore?" The words came out raw and broken, and I hated myself for how vulnerable they sounded. "Or am I just convenient? Just something you keep around because of the selfish interests you hold?”
• I could still remember how it felt when I realised that he was only with me because of the pack shares he wanted to get from my father. He and Kieran were lucky I had not exposed their backstabbing asses to everyone during the dinner.
• Damien’s expression crumbled as he parked the car by the side of the road. For a moment, he actually looked like the man I used to love, the one who had held me through nightmares and promised me forever.
• "Of course I care about you. You're my mate and my wife." He reached over and touched my cheek, his thumb brushing away a tear I hadn't realized had fallen. "I'm sorry about tonight. I'm sorry about the soup, about your family, about all of it. Let me take you to the hospital and get that burn looked at."
• He leaned in to kiss my forehead. I turned my head and let his lips meet empty air. Something flickered in his eyes like frustration, maybe, or wounded pride. But he swallowed it down and started the engine again without another word.
• We drove in silence for maybe ten minutes before his phone started buzzing. He ignored it the first time, and the second. On the third call, he sighed and tapped his earpiece.
• "What is it?"
• I couldn't hear the voice on the other end, but I watched his face transform. The guilt and tenderness vanished, replaced by sharp concern.
• "Slow down. What happened? Are you hurt?"
• My wolf's ears pricked up. I knew that tone. That was not the voice of an Alpha dealing with pack business. It felt more personal.
• "Okay. Okay, don't move. I'm coming." He ended the call and pulled the car over to the side of the road again so abruptly that I had to brace myself against the dashboard.
• "I have to go," he said, not meeting my eyes. "There's an emergency."
• "What kind of emergency?"
• "Pack business." The lie came so easily. "I'll send Marcus to pick you up. Just wait here."
• He was already reaching across me to open my door. I stared at him for a long moment, then climbed out without protest. There was no point in arguing. He had already made his choice.
• "I'll make this up to you," he said through the window. "I promise."
• He was going to Riley. I knew it with absolute certainty. She had called crying about some emergency, and he had dropped everything, even dropped me, to run to her side.
• And the worst part was that he actually believed I would still be here when he got back. That I would wait like a good little wife, patient and forgiving, ready to accept whatever scraps of attention he decided to throw my way. I pulled out my phone and called Simone.
• "Hey, I need a ride. I'm on Hillcrest Road, about a mile from the Morgan estate." I paused. "And I got my mother's ID."
• "Holy shit, you actually did it?" I could hear her grabbing her keys. "I'm on my way. Twenty minutes."
• I ended the call and started walking downhill. The gated community was quiet and empty, all manicured lawns and tall hedges hiding mansions full of people who would never notice a woman walking alone in the dark.
• My wolf was restless, pacing inside my chest. She didn't like being abandoned. She didn't like being vulnerable, and neither did I.
• When I rounded the corner, I suddenly noticed some voices coming from the corner, and it sounded like children. There were three kids clustered at the edge of a small pond, pointing up at a tall oak tree. One of them, a boy of about eight, was attempting to climb the trunk while the other two shouted instructions from below.
• "Be careful! You're going to fall!"
• "I almost got it! Just a little higher!"
• I looked up and saw what they were after. It was a small quadcopter drone tangled in the branches, its lights blinking feebly.
• "Hey!" I called out, jogging toward them. "That's dangerous! Get down from there!"
• The boy ignored me, stretching his arm toward the drone. His foot slipped on the bark, and my heart lurched into my throat.
• "Please," a small voice said beside me. I looked down to find a little girl tugging at my dress. She couldn't have been more than five, with wild curly hair and huge worried eyes. "Can you help us get it down? My brother's going to hurt himself."
• I crouched down to her level. "I'm not very good at climbing trees, sweetheart."
• Her lower lip trembled. I glanced at the controller clutched in her small hands, then back up at the drone. My mind was already calculating angles, reminding me of the time that I volunteered to design medical drones for emergencies.
• "But I am pretty good with machines," I said. "Can I try something?"
• The boy in the tree scoffed. "It's stuck. I already tried flying it out like a hundred times. The branches are too thick."
• "Then you won't mind if I give it a shot." I held out my hand to the little girl. "May I?"
• She handed over the controller, and I studied the drone's position for a moment. It was wedged between two branches at an awkward angle, the rotors tangled in leaves. A straightforward approach would just drive it deeper into the mess. But if I reversed the rear rotors while tilting the nose down…
• My fingers moved across the controls with practiced precision. The drone whirred to life, shaking loose a shower of leaves.
• "It's not going to work," the boy called down smugly. "I told you, it's—"
• The drone shot backward out of the branches and burst free into open air, and the children erupted into cheers. I guided the little machine in lazy circles above the pond while the kids clapped and shouted. Something tight in my chest loosened just a little. For a moment, I wasn't Evelyn the disappointment, Evelyn the unwanted, or Evelyn the broken. I was just a woman flying a drone in the evening light, making children laugh.
• I stepped backward to get a better angle, tilting my head up to watch the drone climb higher. But then, I walked straight into something solid and warm. I spun around, startled, and my heel caught on a loose stone. The world tilted sideways. I grabbed blindly for anything to stop my fall, and my fingers closed around expensive silk.
• A tie. I had grabbed someone's tie.
• My weight pulled it tight against his throat as I stumbled into him, and we both staggered back until his shoulders hit the stone wall behind us. I ended up pressed against his chest, one hand still fisted in his tie, close enough to feel the rumble of his surprised exhale.
• I looked up. He was tall. That was the first thing I noticed.
• Tall and broad-shouldered, with dark hair that fell across his forehead and a jaw sharp enough to cut glass. His eyes were fixed on mine, dark and deep and utterly unreadable. My wolf went completely still inside me. Not with fear, but with something else entirely.
• "I—" My voice came out strangled. I realized I was still choking him with his own tie and released it quickly, stepping back so fast I almost tripped again. "I'm so sorry, I didn't see you there."
• "Clearly." His voice was low and smooth, with a hint of amusement underneath.
• "It's crashing!" one of the kids screamed. "The drone's going down!"
• I whipped around, my heart lurching. I had dropped the controller and the drone was spiraling toward the trees, completely out of control. Before I could move, a warm hand closed over mine. He had picked up the controller and pressed it into my palm, his fingers guiding mine to the right position on the sticks.
• "Tilt left," he murmured near my ear. "Now pull back."
• I followed his instructions without thinking. The drone leveled out at the last second, skimming over the treetops before climbing back into the sky. The children cheered again, but the sound seemed very far away.
• I was annoyingly aware of his chest against my back, of his hand still wrapped around mine, of his breath stirring my hair. My wolf was doing something she had never done before. She was not snarling, not pacing, but leaning toward him like a flower toward sunlight.
• The drone settled gently onto the grass. The children rushed to collect it, their excited voices fading into background noise. I turned slowly, and found him watching me with an expression I couldn't name.
• The streetlights flickered on around us, casting soft light above us. A breeze scattered petals from a nearby cherry tree, and they drifted down around us like pink snow. I looked up into his eyes which were as dark as midnight and as deep as the ocean, and I forgot how to breathe.