Damon's P.O.V
I ask, my voice cracking slightly as I try to kickstart my heart again. "He's okay isn't he?"
"He's healing."
That's not okay. He's not okay.
"The pack won this match but word is spreading, quickly." He explains, his features dipping with sadness. "People have heard that you have not taken your position as alpha, they know you're not there and aren't afraid to challenge anymore. More packs want to challenge us for the number one position, all with younger, stronger alphas."
"I w-"
I stop myself, tongue running dry at the reminder that I couldn't step in even though I wanted to. I let my talons sink into my palms, needing something to steady me against the sting of my mocking thoughts. Each one hitting me like fresh whiplashes as everything I'd pushed away for the last two months comes rushing back in all at once.
I am not alpha.
They lied to me.
They didn't believe in me.
They think I'm a demon.
"You need to come back." Mekhi finishes, his eyes searching mine desperately as the rage tries to take over. "You need to come home and take your place as alpha."
Zero regards for life.
"I can't," I reply through gritted teeth, speaking the words from my own lips felt like declining my responsibilities. "My parents won't let me."
"They will now." Mekhi pleads but I shake my head. "They have to Damon or they'll keep getting hurt."
"They won't!" I snap back making him quiet immediately.
I knew my parents well enough to know they didn't go back on their word and they wouldn't go back on this. Besides, even if I showed up, they wouldn't change their minds just because they needed me.
They wouldn't use me like that, I knew that much.
"Then at the very least, call them Damon." Mekhi protests with growing vigor in his tone. "The pack is suffering without your presence, but more importantly, your family is suffering without you. They miss you, Damon."
I close my eyes. Focusing on the rapid rising and falling of my chest as all the air comes flooding into my lungs, making things blur suddenly. I try to slow my breathing, trying to focus on something other than the way his words cut me open, draining me of all my anger and left me empty with only hope.
"They miss me?" I ask hesitantly, opening my eyes to see his face.
"Damon your family is falling apart without you," Mekhi reveals, mixing the hope with guilt to create something bitter within me. "Every single one of them is suffering without you. The pack barely sees Hagen or Josey, they've kept themselves locked inside of the house.
Peter doesn't even speak to me anymore, no matter what I do he won't talk and your sister Felicia and her mate, they came back to look for you."
"Felicia came home?" I ask taking a desperate step forward.
"She's refusing to leave until they find you, she searches every day with her mate."
My heart lurches, memories of Felicia and I flickering through me, bring distant emotions to the surface to completely consume the anger. Memories of Felicia taking care of me, fighting for me, looking after me... the knife she gave me.
I press a hand over my chest, yearning for the erratic thumping to stop as it pushes against my fingers. Theo whines and howls, instincts reaching forth desperately with the need to be reacquainted with my home and my family. To fix all that I'd left shattered behind and make sure they were all okay again.
I just wanted them to be okay, to be happy.
But in all the pain there was joy, a sick twisted spec of joy that was relieved that they mourned my presence on noticed my absence. I knew it was wrong but it made everything, just a little bit easier.
"And my parents?" I press hopefully, hope that fades the moment his face drains with agony.
"You're parents aren't doing well Damon." He whispers gently as if sensing one wrong word could break me more than I already was. "The pack doesn't see them much anymore but each time we do is worse than the last."
"Worse?" I ask hesitantly, not wanting the answer but knowing I needed it.
"They're different now, different without you." He says with softening eyes. "Damon you're their firstborn child, they haven't heard from you in two months and they don't know where you are. Haven't you thought about how that would affect them?"
I hadn't.
I couldn't even imagine them missing me through the clouds of pain when the agony was raw and the anger was poignant. I hadn't contemplated a scenario where they felt a missing element without me, hadn't considered how my absence would hurt them.
But things were different now, being here with Will, with her light and affections had made the rage reticent and the misery I'd held onto within my heart, airy.
Will was mending me.
Now, within clouds of enmity, I could see how it'd hurt them, my parents. I could see how my parents, who were so loving and protective, would feel heartbroken with my disappearance. I could imagine the tears and I could feel the pain, especially the one that would've festered within them at my parting words.
You did this to me.
A shaking hand covers my mouth while my body begins to fracture, muscles breaking down, skin tearing and eyes gleaming as an image of my father's torments expression revealed itself without the anger.
He looked destroyed and I'd done that.
"I can tell you've clearly got something happening here." Mekhi continues, reminding through my guilt of Will. "So please just call, for now, let them know you're okay maybe, that you're safe."
I nod mindless, the image of my father's face clearly displayed in my mind and haunting in it's besieged state.
"I'll check back in a couple of days, seriously think about coming home, Damon. When I agreed to help you, I didn't think you'd be away for such a long." Mekhi admits while bending his head a little to meet my downcasted eyes. "I didn't expect to be trying to hide your from the world's greatest witch."
Wait a minute, what?
"Aunty K is trying to find me too?" I question in surprise after lifting my head, eyebrows narrowing from his words.
Aunty K had always been close with Felicia, not me, she hadn't ever shown any real interest in me or anyone else but Felicia.
"Yes, and it is a serious bitch trying to fight her off, especially since she likes a challenge and knows someone is hiding you." He sighs dramatically, rolling his eyes several times. "I've been interrogated many times man and the only reason I'm keeping her off you're scent is because Nikola is helping me hide you. He's doing most of the work against her now, I'm in charge of everyone else."
"Nikola?" I exclaim with a deep frown. That made no sense, that kid cared about nothing in this world but Hagen and that was a fact.
"Yeah, only because I take him with me when I go to check up on Peter so he can check on Hagen," Mekhi says while rubbing his face. "He is highkey contemplating trapping you in the pack to make Hagen happy, but he's a selfish bastard and loves the alone time with the kid. Point is, it's hard as hell hiding you from two alphas, the greatest witch and a pack with over ten thousand people. I'm fucking dying Damon."
"The pack is looking too?" I question unsurely.
"Damon, most of the pack is trying to find you." Mekhi sighs tiredly. "Did you think that after an entire year of getting to know them, that not a single one would start to like you?"
I blink once at this before doing it again, shock making me mute with his absurd words.
"The pack wants to find you too, not only your family." Mekhi finishes with a small smile. "We want you home."
Home.
The pack lands which ran for endless acres, the ones I'd grown up in and learned everything I cared about in. The ones where I learned to run as a wolf, the ones where I watched my fathers be the best alphas on the planet, with the goal of one day being the same. It was where I learned the history of the wolves, where I met other species who were welcomed in the safe haven that our pack had become. Home was the pack and I loved it.
Everything I knew revolved around the pack but I never imagined it would stop spinning without me.
I look up at the sky, staring at the moon with silent prayers for Goddess' wisdom to lead me to where I needed to be and what I needed to do. For her to show me the pack that would end with everyone being safe and happy, but not only the wolves I cared for but the human that'd cared for me.