Perhaps she was just caught up in the moment—a heated moment brought on by the use of her magic out there in the valley last night, and then proceeding to heal me with her abilities. Even I was shocked by the way she hungered for me, and I should have known that it was too good to be true. She said she can’t trust me yet. Things couldn’t miraculously change overnight, and I’d be too presumptuous to expect it to change so quickly.
That’s why I decided to give Sophie space and distract myself with something else—something productive that won’t leave me feeling hopeless or useless.
Gulping hard, I make my way to the kitchen to prepare breakfast, with the mental note to keep a plate aside for Sophie for when she wakes up. As if on cue, Heinrich reaches out to mejust after I’m done eating, sending me a mind link to inform me that the council has gathered in Silver Stone territory.
***
The tension is razor-sharp in the Silver Stone meeting cabin, the other alphas gathered there with their betas, along with the council members and the research team. This meeting is for the purpose of debriefing everyone about last night’s attack, and I can only report on as much as I was conscious for, while everything else is almost new to me as Heinrich tells them the rest.
Conan is oddly quiet while he sits in a corner, arms folded, a look of indifference on his face—nearly resentful, his eyes wildly unfocused as if he’s drunk on poison. Even glancing at him churns my insides, like my inner wolf can sense that there’s something wrong with him.
I can’t pinpoint what it is. All I know is that something is off with him, and his presence feels wrong, his scent feels wrong, and he doesn’t even want to be here. I glance at Heinrich, and he gives me a knowing nod before he continues.
“Miss Sophie took care of the demons for us. There were four of them, and we would have been toast if she weren’t there,” he says.
“The human is proving to be valuable to us,” Elder Bernard concedes as he leans forward. “Perhaps we have been wrong to have reservations. If this is true, it means the theory was correct.”
“Yes,” Amos agrees, jumping into the meeting at last. “While the south area seems to be coming alive again, with heat signatures showing up in places that were previously as extinct as the Ashclaw Pack, the demons seem to be aware of this aswell. We don’t know much they know, or if they’re tracking Sophie because of it, but we need to be proactive. She will have to be made aware of who she truly is. It’s no coincidence that she was able to heal both the alpha and beta of Red Moon.” Amos turns to me. “How have you been doing with regaining your powers?”
“Better,” I say, curling my hands on the table as I stare at them. “But Sophie isn’t ready to learn who she is, nor is she ready to train. She needs time. This isn’t something that can be sprung onto her.”
“We don’t have time, Alpha Damian,” Elder Mortimer argues. “The attacks are becoming more frequent.”
“She’s already proved to be an asset to this fight. If she is the key…” Heinrich adds, but I shake my head at him.
“It’s time you know the truth…” I say with a sigh, before going on to explain how I knew Sophie in the past when I met her at the hospital, and share with the council our history, in the hopes that they can see why Sophie has so much resistance. “And this is why she needs time.”
It’s like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders, and the news is met with different responses.
“It’s no excuse.”
“She needs to understand that this is bigger than any of us.”
“We’ll give it a week,” Amos relents as he places a hand on my shoulder. “A week for her to come around before we call her into an official meeting with the council.”
“Thank you for understanding, Amos,” I tell him with a nod, grateful that he has enough compassion for the current state of Sophie’s emotions.
He nods his understanding. “We cannot rely on her powers while she’s not in a good place emotionally. Her powers are different, unlike anything we’ve seen, and we have to be careful with them.”
Uncle Joel steps in. “In the meantime, Red Moon will have to strengthen our defenses and double down on training. If Damian’s power is awakening, we can use it to our advantage.”
“Yes,” I concede. “If I am getting stronger, then so will the rest of the pack.”
The meeting comes to a close, with Conan barely saying a word before leaving with his beta and grandfather. I say my goodbyes to Heinrich before leaving with James, and that’s when Amos and his team decide to join us back to Red Moon territory.
“There’s something we need to check,” he says as we walk toward the Red Moon clinic. “Something with James.”
The Red Moon clinic is unusually quiet when we arrive, as there aren't many patients requiring treatment—not since Sophie took over. I feel her presence nearby, but we don't head in her direction, and we proceed to an empty room, the sterile scent of antiseptic layered beneath something older, like iron and ash and the faint, lingering bitterness of demon residue that never quite leaves the walls anymore. James walks ahead of us, his stride steady but cautious, as if his body remembers too well what it felt like to be trapped between waking and death. Amos and two members of the research team fan out immediately, pulling gloves over their hands, murmuring to one another as they prepare instruments and scanning tablets that hum softly when powered on.
I stay near the doorway, arms crossed over my chest, my mind already racing ahead of what they might find. Thisisn’t curiosity. It’s dread. I’ve learned to recognize that feeling—the same one that crept in when Sophie burned demons to ash, when the land itself leaned toward her like a living thing recognizing its master.
I should be relieved, but with so much weighing on Sophie being the key to defeating the demons for good, I can't rest. My inner wolf won't rest until I know she's safe, yet she always seems to be the one on the frontline of danger.
James sits on the examination table without complaint as Amos gestures for him to bare his forearm.
“We detected something unusual when you woke,” Amos explains, his tone careful. “Residual energy readings that shouldn’t have dissipated on their own. The demon corruption usually lingers. It embeds itself in the victim's bloodstream. That’s why so many of our wounded don’t recover.”
The word “linger” twists something sharp in my chest. I think of James lying motionless for months, his body healed but his spirit trapped, as if something had wrapped itself around his soul and refused to let go.
