To hear his father's words—words previously dismissed as madness by the shattered remnants of a once-militant head—come from Selena's clear, steady voice was a jarring experience. As though she had somehow managed to reach back in time to give voice to a ghost haunting his family. The ink on the page is his father's, but the blood described belonged to the son only. Somehow, at that moment, the curse felt one with reality, more tangible than even during the agonizing metamorphosis. He watched her, expecting the revelation of madness in his family would finally run her away. Instead, turning the page. "Well, let's see what else your father knew," she added; focusing entirely on it. It is the most astonishing example of courage he has ever witnessed. She didn't flinching nor recoiling. She leaned in. For the rest of that day and into the night, the penthouse became a sanctuary for obsessive research. It was a bubble of shared focus, intensely charged between the sofa and windows glittering beyond with the lights of the city. He would read passages aloud, rough-voiced with Selena scribbling at its furious pace, pen flying across the page of her notebook. She ordered the chaos and synthesized timelines, lists of names, cross-references through journals; her family legacy was transforming pain into actionable intelligence.
The journals were horrifying records of a life spent in terror. Paranoid rambling entries talked about the phases of the moon and a weakness in bloodline. Yet, interspersed between the ravings were moments of surprising lucidity. He had studied very well his own mortal condemnation. There were specific drawings of symbols-the intertwined silver crescents of the clan which cast out their ancestor, the snarling iron wolf of the war faction. There were personal family trees, post different names circled with red and notations saying "Turned" or "Lost to the beast." It was an account of a secret war fought in the margins for many generations. Hours confluence into the next. The sofa narrows between them as they lean over the same book, shoulders brushing. Each time they touch, a jolt of quiet electricity passes through him. It wasn't that savage, possessive urge of the beast; this was something calmer, a steadying current of calm, which soothed the chaotic energy under his skin. In her presence, he felt more like a human being, more in control than he had since the attack. The irony was lost on him; the woman who was his greatest vulnerability was also becoming his only anchor.
Here, she suddenly exclaimed, tapping a page in a thirty-year-old journal. "He refers to a few names quite a bit. Corvin. Said he was an Elder of the Night Weavers, the lore-keepers. And lived in New York, neutral so to speak, an archivist." "I have never heard of him," Damien said. "Your father says Corvin maintains a secret library, a repository for werewolf history, and it's available only to those who know where to look," Selena continued, fire gleaming in her eyes. "He calls it the Lycaeum. Here it is, Damien. This is our first real lead. If this place exists, if this Corvin is still around, he might have answers about the prophecy." He looked at her while she spoke, really looked at her, and saw the toll it took on her to have spent a marathon session with him. The flames in her eyes were still there, but they were flickering. She had gotten dark smudges of exhaustion under her eyes, and her movements were beginning to slow. She had been solely running on adrenaline; it was starting to run out. An alien instinct stirred within him. It was not the Alpha's need to possess but the simple desire of a man to care for someone.
"Enough," he said, his voice softer than he intended. She looked up, startled. "We're close to something—"; "And you're about to collapse," he countered, standing up. "You need to eat. You need to sleep." He went to the kitchen, a part of the penthouse he rarely used, and felt strangely out of place as he made them both coffee and toasted some bread. Simple, mundane, yet much more significant than any multi-million dollar deal he ever closed in his life: he was actually taking care of her. When he came back, she lay sprawled on the sofa, head tilted back, eyes shut and notebook on the chest. She had fallen asleep. The fierce determination that so often masked her face was soft and vulnerable in repose. He stood over her for quite some moments, feeling a wave of protectiveness overwhelm him. She stepped unhesitatingly into his nightmare. She fought for him, for them, and he had given her nothing but danger and fear. A cashmere blanket was draped over her, having gently taken the notebook from her chest. As he did this, though, his gaze was caught by the pages of the journal, which she had been reading. His eyes followed the meticulous script, and a single paragraph of the page leapt out at him, a sentence that he had previously overlooked. Cold wind passed over him.
The Marking of the mate is the most revered and dangerous rite of the Alpha. It is not a gesture of affection, but an act of binding, of soul-forging that will unite them eternally. A bite upon the flesh during a moon's peak will infuse her with all his essence. It will grant the Alpha unparalleled focus, tie the beast to her, and enhance his might. But that price is hers to pay. Once marked, her scent becomes a beacon, a lighthouse in the darkness, visible to all of our kind across continents. She can never be lost. And she can never again be hidden." Still, Damien gazed at those words, the truth of them hitting him with the force of a physical blow. Very act that would bestow him not only control over the beast but also the ultimate bond between her and him would create a permanent, inescapable target on her back, a bright beacon drawing the gaze of all his enemies to her. It was a horrible, impossible choice-his control or her safety. Looking at her sleeping, peaceful form, he knew it was not a choice at all.