The drive to Isabella’s estate was a journey back in time. We left behind the modern, clean lines of Damien’s territory and drove deeper into the ancestral heartlands of the Blackwood pack. Here, the trees were older, their branches heavy with moss and memory. The estates we passed were not just houses; they were fortresses of stone and tradition, each one a testament to centuries of unbroken lineage.
Isabella’s home was the grandest of them all. It wasn’t a castle, like Damien’s, but a sprawling, ivy-covered manor house that seemed to have grown out of the earth itself. It was beautiful, undeniably, but it was a cold, unwelcoming beauty. It was a house that valued history far more than the people living in it.
As the car crunched to a halt on the gravel driveway, Damien turned to me, his hand covering mine. His touch was a small, warm anchor in the chilling formality of our surroundings.
