DAMON POV
The knife stops an inch from my throat.
I don't even remember grabbing it. One second I'm watching Ember pick at her dinner across the table, and the next I'm in the kitchen with Dad's silver carving knife pressed against my own neck.
My hand shakes. The blade draws a thin line of blood.
"Damon?" Asher's voice comes from behind me. Careful. Like I'm a bomb about to explode. "Put the knife down."
I want to. I can't.
Because five minutes ago, I watched Ember flinch when I reached for the salt shaker. Just a tiny movement, so quick most people wouldn't notice. But I did.
She thought I was going to hit her.
And the worst part? Some sick piece of me wanted to prove her right.
That's when the memory hit—standing over my first mate's body while rogues laughed. Her blood on my hands. Too weak to save her. Too slow. Too useless.
I've spent five years making sure I'm never weak again. I hurt people before they can hurt me. I destroy anything that makes me feel.
Including tiny redheaded girls who smell like cinnamon and fear.
"The knife, Damon." Dad's voice now, using his Alpha command. Not forcing me, just... asking. "Please."
My hand opens. The knife clatters into the sink.
"What happened?" Dad asks quietly. Asher and Kael stand in the doorway, both tense like they're ready to tackle me.
"Nothing," I lie. "Just needed air."
I walk past them, past the dining room where Mom and Ember probably heard everything, straight out into the forest. I shift mid-run, bones cracking, fur bursting through skin. My wolf takes over, desperate to escape the thoughts crowding my human brain.
But even as a wolf, I can't stop thinking about her.
She's so small, my wolf had whispered at dinner. So breakable. We should protect her.
No. We should make her leave before she makes us weak too.
I run until my paws bleed. Until the physical pain drowns out everything else. Then I shift back, naked and shaking in the moonlight, and that's when I smell it.
Blood.
Fresh blood.
Human blood.
My wolf surges forward, tracking the scent back toward the house. Toward Ember's room.
I don't think. I just move.
Her window is open. The screen is ripped. And there's blood on the windowsill—not much, but enough to make my vision go red.
I climb through, my wet hair dripping on her carpet. The room is dark except for the bathroom light. The door is cracked open.
"Ember?" My voice comes out rougher than I mean it to.
A gasp. Then silence.
"I can smell the blood. If you don't answer me in three seconds, I'm coming in."
"I'm fine!" Her voice is high, scared. "Just... just cut myself shaving. Go away."
Shaving. Right. Except the blood trail leads from the window, not the bathroom.
I push the door open.
She's sitting on the floor in an oversized T-shirt, pressing a towel against her arm. Her eyes go huge when she sees me, and I realize I'm still completely naked.
"Get out!" she squeaks, looking away fast.
But I'm staring at her arm. At the long scratch running from her elbow to her wrist.
"What happened?" I crouch down, keeping distance between us. "And don't lie. I can hear your heartbeat."
Her jaw sets. For a second, she looks less like prey and more like something with teeth. "Someone tried to come through my window. I fought them off."
My wolf roars inside me. "WHAT?"
"Keep your voice down! I don't want to cause drama on my first day here."
"Someone tried to ATTACK you and you don't want to cause DRAMA?" I'm definitely yelling now. "Who was it?"
"I don't know. They were wearing a mask. But they said..." She hesitates. "They said wolfless trash doesn't belong in Crimson Moon Pack, and I should leave before I get hurt worse."
White-hot rage floods through me. Someone from our pack did this. Someone thought they could hurt what's—
What's ours, my wolf finishes.
No. She's not ours. She's our stepsister. Off-limits. Forbidden.
But my hand is already reaching for her arm. "Let me see."
"It's fine—"
"Let. Me. See."
Maybe it's the command in my voice, or maybe she's just too tired to fight, but she moves the towel. The scratch is deep, angry-looking. It'll scar if she doesn't treat it right.
Without thinking, I lean down and lick it.
"What are you—OH." Her whole body goes rigid.
Wolf saliva heals minor wounds. It's instinct, something we do for pack members. But the moment my tongue touches her skin, lightning shoots through my entire body.
The bond. The mate bond.
No no no no no.
I pull back fast, but the damage is done. My wolf is howling in recognition. My body knows what my brain refuses to accept.
This tiny, broken, wolfless girl is my mate.
Ember's staring at me, eyes wide. "What was that?"
"Nothing." I stand up so fast I almost hit my head on the sink. "Just... healing. Normal pack stuff."
"That didn't feel normal."
"Well, it was." I grab a towel from the rack and wrap it around my waist, needing something between us. "I'm telling Dad about the attack. We'll find whoever did this."
"No!" She scrambles up. "Please. It'll just make things worse. Everyone already hates me for being here. If you make a big deal—"
"Someone attacked you in your room!" How is she not getting this? "They threatened you. They HURT you."
"And you've been hurting me since I got here!" The words explode out of her. "You and your brothers have done nothing but make me feel like trash. So forgive me if I don't trust you to suddenly care now!"
The truth hits like a fist to the gut.
She's right.
I've been cruel to her. Viciously, deliberately cruel. Because I thought if I made her hate us enough, she'd leave before this could happen. Before the bond could form.
Too late.
"I'm sorry," I hear myself say. The words feel foreign in my mouth. "I've been... I'm sorry."
She blinks like I just spoke a different language. "What?"
"I said I'm sorry. For how I've treated you. I—" How do I explain that I hurt her because I was terrified of caring? That weakness got my first mate killed, and I thought being cruel would keep me safe? "I had my reasons. Bad reasons. But still."
Ember's eyes search my face. Looking for the trap, the trick.
Smart girl.
"I'm still telling Dad," I say finally. "You can hate me for it. But I'm not letting someone hurt you and get away with it."
"Why?" Her voice is small. "Why do you care?"
Because you're my mate, and I'd burn down the world before letting anyone touch you.
But I can't say that. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
"Because you're pack now," I say instead. "And we protect pack."
Before she can argue, I'm out the window, shifting mid-jump. I hit the ground running, following the attacker's scent trail. It's faint but there—masked by something, but not completely gone.
The trail leads to the pack house. To the women's quarters.
To Sienna's room.
Of course. Kael's obsessed little shadow. The she-wolf who thinks she owns him.
I should tell Dad. Should do this officially.
But my wolf is still howling, rage and possession mixing into something dangerous. Someone hurt our mate. Drew her blood. Made her scared.
I shift back, pull on the spare clothes I keep hidden near the pack house, and knock on Sienna's door.
She answers in silk pajamas, hair perfect even this late. Her smile is sweet poison. "Damon. What a surprise."
"We need to talk."
"Of course. Come in." She steps back.
The moment the door closes, I have her against the wall, hand around her throat. Not tight enough to hurt. Just enough to make my point.
"You went into Ember's room tonight."
Her eyes widen. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Don't. Lie." I lean closer, letting my wolf surface. "I can smell you on her windowsill. So here's what's going to happen. You're going to stay far away from my stepsister. You're not going to look at her. You're not going to breathe near her. And if you EVER touch her again, I will make you wish you were never born."
"Your stepsister?" Sienna laughs, breathless. "Is that what we're calling her? Because the way you and your brothers look at her isn't very brotherly."
My hand tightens just a fraction. "Stay. Away."
"Or what? You'll tell Kael? He'll take my side over some wolfless—"
The bathroom door opens.
Ember walks out, fully dressed now, phone in her hand.
"I recorded all of that," she says calmly. "Your confession. His threat. Everything."
Wait. What?
Ember walks right up to us, tiny and terrifying. "I followed you, Damon. I'm not helpless, even if you all think I am." She looks at Sienna. "I have proof you attacked me. I'll give it to Alpha Marcus tomorrow. Or..." She pauses. "You can leave the pack. Tonight. Quietly. Your choice."
Sienna's face twists with rage. "You little—"
"Choose," Ember says softly. "But know that if you stay, I'll make your life exactly as miserable as you tried to make mine."
There's steel in her voice. Fire in her eyes.
My wolf purrs in approval.
Sienna must see something in my face, because her confidence cracks. "Fine. I'll leave. But this isn't over."
"Yes," Ember says. "It is."
We leave together, silent until we're back outside. Then I stop, looking at this tiny girl who just backed down a full-grown she-wolf.
"You followed me."
"You were going to do something stupid."
"How did you know?"
She shrugs. "You have that look. Like you're about to burn everything down."
She's not wrong.
"Thank you," she says quietly. "For caring. Even if you're mean about it."
"I'm not—" I start, but she's already walking away.
I stand there like an idiot, watching her go. My mate. My tiny, breakable, terrifyingly brave mate.
This is bad. This is so bad.
Because now I know the truth. And there's no going back.
My phone buzzes. Text from an unknown number: "Your brothers felt it too. The bond. Meet at the den. We need to talk about what to do with our little problem."
I look up at Ember's window. She's silhouetted against the light, and even from here, I can see her touching her arm where I licked it.
Where I marked her, even if she doesn't know it yet.
Problem isn't the right word.
She's our mate. Our future. Our everything.
And we're the three Alphas who spent weeks making her life hell.
How do you win back someone you broke before you knew they were yours?