Damien doesn’t remember walking back to the packhouse.
One second, he’s kneeling in the dirt at the cliff’s edge, staring at the space where her scent vanished, lungs collapsing around a heart that won’t stop bleeding.
The next, he’s inside his office, door shut, lights dimmed, staring at a wall he’s never noticed before.
His ears ring, muted voices floating around him like echoes underwater.
Bram says something about patrols.
Sylas mutters about tracking dogs.
Someone else whispers, “Alpha?”
He can’t answer.
His wolf has gone silent.
The silence is worse than the pain. Worse than the snapping bond. Worse than watching her walk away.
Because his wolf has never been silent.
Not once.
Not even when Damien was thirteen and his father locked him in the training tunnels for three da
