Damien didn't hesitate the moment Felicia and the boys were safe. He turned to Xavier, his eyes blazing with determination and fury like a wildfire spreading through a dry forest.
"We're going back in," he declared, his voice firm and resolute.
Xavier nodded in unison, his expression just as fierce, like two warriors ready to charge into battle. "Lucien and Georgina are still trapped. We're ending this tonight, once and for all."
Felicia, still weak and exhausted, gripped Damien's arm with a desperate intensity, her eyes pleading with him to be careful. Her voice was barely above a whisper, but it was filled with worry and a deeper, more primal fear.
Damien gave her a sharp nod, his thumb brushing over her knuckles for a fleeting moment, like a promise of protection. "I will. Keep the boys safe, we'll be back soon."
And with that, he and Xavier vanished into the night, leaving Felicia to guard the boys like a mother lioness protecting her cubs.
***
The secret Danielle’s fortress still reeked of blood and sweat, the stench of battle heavy in the air like a thick fog. Damien and Xavier moved swiftly, their wolves on high alert, every step calculated and precise, like soldiers on a mission. They knew Danielle wouldn't let Lucien or Georgina go without a fierce fight.
The place reeked of fear and despair. Dark corridors, Gothic towers, half-abandoned chambers. She—half wolf, half vampire—had lived here for years, hiding from the world. First, when her funeral was staged in childhood and she was forced to disappear alone into the forest. Then again, when she was cast out from Damien’s pack.
Now there was no doubt about her vampiric nature—everything pointed to it.
Her palace was difficult to find. Hidden from the world between cliffs and forests, it lay in a valley where the sun never shone. Daniella kept her brother’s pregnant woman here—the same brother who had turned his back on her in childhood and pretended to believe in her death, though he knew she was alive.
She also held his two children within these walls, secretly hoping she could raise true heirs of her own kind.
The place was calm.
Damien and Xavier reached the lower dungeons, the air thick with the stench of silver and magic, heavy with the weight of despair.
Lucien was chained against the wall, his body battered and bruised, his eyes glazed over with exhaustion, like a man on the brink of collapse.
Next to him, Georgina sat hunched over, shielding two small, trembling figures behind her like a protective shield. The twin girls.
Damien's chest tightened like a vise, his heart pounding in his chest. They were so small, their eyes wide and terrified, clutching onto their mother like lifelines.
Lucien's head snapped up when he saw them, his eyes flashing with relief like a beacon in the darkness.
"Damien," his voice was rough, like a man who'd been through hell and back.
Damien moved quickly, slashing through the silver chains binding Lucien's wrists like a hot knife through butter.
Lucien collapsed forward, but Damien caught him before he hit the ground, holding him up like a lifeline.
"Can you fight?" Damien asked, his voice urgent, like a general rallying his troops.
Lucien let out a sharp exhale, nodding despite his shaking body, like a man summoning his last ounce of strength.
"Yes."
Xavier knelt beside Georgina, checking her over like a medic tending to the wounded.
"Are you hurt?" he asked, his voice soft and gentle.
She shook her head, clutching her daughters close like a mother hen protecting her precious brood.
"I'm fine. But we need to get out of here. Danielle—she's coming," she warned, her voice low and deadly.
The moment she said it—
A low, bone-chilling growl echoed through the chamber, like thunder rumbling in the distance. The air shifted, turning thick, heavy—unnatural. A dark presence loomed behind them, like a monster emerging from the shadows. Danielle.
Or rather—the monstrous form she had become, like a creature from a nightmare.