36 Chapter 36
36 Chapter 36
Damien’s POV 1
The taxi ride to Sera’s apartment felt like the longest twenty minutes of my life. Adrian had finally stopped crying, but he remained pressed against my side like a small, warm anchor, his tiny hand clutching my shirt.
“Mr. Damien?” he said quietly as we pulled up to the modest brick building. “Is Mommy going to be okay?”
“She’s going to be fine,” I assured him, though my chest tightened with worry I couldn’t quite suppress. “Your mommy is very strong.”
Ophelia answered the door before I could even knock, her dark hair disheveled and her eyes red-rimmed with exhaustion and stress.
She looked like she’d been running on pure adrenaline for hours.
“Thank God you found him,” she breathed, immediately reaching for Adrian and pulling him into a fierce hug. “I was so scared, little man.
Are you hurt? Are you okay?”
“I’m okay, Aunt Ophelia,” Adrian mumbled against her shoulder, his voice muffled but steady. “Mr. Damien found me in the forest and
brought me home.”
Ophelia’s eyes met mine over Adrian’s head, gratitude and something deeper shining in their depths. “I can’t even begin to thank you,”
she said, her voice thick with emotion. “When I realized he was missing…”
“Where’s Sera?” I asked, scanning the small apartment for any sign of my mate.
Ophelia’s expression darkened. “Unconscious in her bedroom. I found her at the school-she’d been beaten pretty badly.”She’s running a
fever, probably from shock and exhaustion. I was just about to run to the pharmacy for antibiotics and pain medication.”
My wolf snarled at the thought of someone hurting Sera, but I forced myself to remain calm for Adrian’s sake. “Go,” I said, gently
touching Ophelia’s shoulder. “I’ll stay here with them until you get back.”
After Ophelia left, I found myself alone in the tiny apartment with a four-year-old who was clearly trying very hard to be brave despite
everything he’d been through. Adrian sat on the edge of the couch, swinging his little legs and stealing nces at me like he wasn’t quite
sure what to make of having a stranger in his home.
“Are you hungry?” I asked, realizing I had absolutely no idea how to care for a child. “I could… make something?”
Adrian’s face lit up with cautious hope. “Could we have mac and cheese? That’s my favorite.”
How hard could mac and cheese be?
Twenty minutester, I stood in Sera’s tiny kitchen surrounded by what could only be described as a culinary disaster. Somehow, I’d
managed to burn water-actually burn water-while simultaneously overcooking the pasta until it resembled mushy cardboard and
creating a cheese sauce that had the consistency of rubber cement.
“Mr. Damien?” Adrian’s voice drifted from the doorway, where he’d been watching my attempts at domesticpetence with the fascinated horror of someone witnessing a train wreck in slow motion. “I think the pot is smoking.”
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Indeed it was. Thick, acrid smoke was rising from the saucepan where I’d attempted to create what the box had optimisticallybeled “creamy cheese sauce.” The smell was somewhere between burned milk and melted stic.
“Okay,” I said, waving a dish towel frantically at the smoke detector that was now beeping with the persistence of an angry bird. “New
n.”
I turned off all the burners, opened every window in the small kitchen, and turned to face Adrian with what I hoped was an apologetic
smile. “What do you say we order pizza instead?”
Adrian giggled-the first genuinely happy sound I’d heard from him all evening. “You’re not very good at cooking, are you?”
“Apparently not,” I admitted, running a hand through my hair and leaving it more disheveled than before. “I’m better at ordering people
around than I am at making food.”
While we waited for the pizza to arrive, Adrian showed me his room with the serious demeanor of a child giving an important house
tour. His bed was a twin size covered with a dinosaurforter that had clearly seen better days. Drawings covered the walls-stick
figuresbeled “MOMMY” and “ME” in careful block letters, along with what appeared to be various prehistoric creatures rendered in
crayon. 1
“This is my favorite,” Adrian said, pointing to a drawing that featured two stick figures standing under arge yellow circle. “That’s me
and Mommy under the sun. I made it for her birthday.”
“She’s lucky to have such a thoughtful son,” I said softly.
“I wish I had a daddy too,” Adrian said matter-of-factly, settling onto his bed and hugging a stuffed wolf that looked like it had been loved
nearly to death. “Mommy says maybe someday we’ll find him, but I think he might not want to find us.”
“Why would you think that?”
Adrian shrugged with the casual philosophy of childhood. “Because if he wanted to find us, he would have already, right? Mommy’s really
pretty and really nice. If he knew about us, he’de back.””
When the pizza arrived, I found myself sitting on Sera’s worn couch with Adrian curled up beside me, both of us eating from paper
tes while some animated movie yed on her small television. It should have felt awkward-I’d never spent time with children before,
had no idea how to talk to them or what they found interesting. 1
Instead, it felt strangely natural. Adrian chattered away about school, his friends, and the book his teacher was reading to the ss,
asionally pausing to ask me questions about being an Alpha or what it was like to run a bigpany. His curiosity was endless and refreshing,
By eight o’clock, Adrian was yawning despite his best efforts to stay awake, I carried him to his room, helped him brush his teeth in the
tiny bathroom, and tucked him into his dinosaur-covered bed.
“Will you check on Mommy?” he asked sleepily, his small hand curling around my finger. “Make sure she’s not sick anymore?”
“I will,” I promised, pressing a gentle kiss to his forehead.
I made my way to Sera’s bedroom, carrying a bowl of the soup I’d managed to heat withoutpletely destroying and a ss of water I’d optimistically hoped might help bring down her fever. What I found when I pushed open her door made my heart stop in my chest.
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Sera was lying unconscious on her small bed, still wearing the clothes she’d fled in-a simple blouse and dark pants that were now torn
and stained with blood. Her face was pale except for the violent purple bruise blooming across her left cheek, and I could see dried
blood at the corner of her mouth.
When I set down the soup and reached for the edge of her shirt to assess her injuries properly, I discovered that her bra had been torn
nearly in half, the delicatece shredded beyond repair, showing her naked breast.
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