Greykin Valley

| 49 | The Last Option

⥐ ⋞ ☽ ⋟ ⥐

| Damon |

The silence grew heavier with despair and grief as the hours passed. Kane's pack had left the arena, the monster was returned to its cage, and no one said a word since Sebastien's outburst. The sun rose, snow was falling, and some of Damon's packmates had let sleep take them.

But not Damon. He sat there...staring from the back of the cage at the bloody ground where Bly had been torn apart. It was his fault. He should have known that Kane would do something like that—like turn up after his hunting party to capture him and his pack. He should have been ready for it, and because he wasn't, Bly was dead, and the rest of his pack was soon to follow.

There was no way out, was there? Jackson couldn't find the inimă, nor could he break the silver without it. His pack couldn't overpower the guards—there were too many of them. And even if they did get out of the cage, there was an Amarok a hundred meters across from them. They couldn't deal with that monster, wolf forms or not.

"Dad?" Remus asked sleepily.

He looked down at his son, who lay on the ground beside him.

"What are we gonna do?"

Damon exhaled deeply and rested his head against the wall behind him. "I don't know, son."

The Alpha then looked over at Jackson, who was sitting close to Wilson with a look of despair on his face. He was blaming himself, wasn't he?

He looked at Remus. "I'll just be over there with Jackson."

Remus nodded.

Damon got up and went over to his mate. He sat beside him, moved his arm around his shoulders, and pulled him into his embrace. "It's not your fault, Jackson," he told him quietly. "I don't blame you, and nor does anyone else."

Jackson moved his arms around him and held him tightly. "I couldn't do it," he mumbled sadly, burying his face in Damon's shirt. "I should've tried harder."

The Alpha sighed and nuzzled Jackson's head. He didn't have enough emotional energy to try and convince Jackson that it wasn't his fault; he felt exhausted and overwhelmed with guilt and dismay. He'd spent hours trying to figure out how to his pack out of Kane's territory, but there was nothing anyone could do.

But sitting around and waiting to die wasn't an option, either—it couldn't be. If he gave in, his ancestors would be ashamed of him, and he wouldn't soil his bloodline's name with a defeat so humiliating. This wasn't the first time he'd been captured by hunters—or people using silver was a better way to put it. However, that was when his pack was much larger, and they weren't all in the same cage as him.

He huffed in frustration and leaned his head against the wall.

Jackson lifted his head and looked at him. "What?"

Damon slowly shook his head. "I can't let my pack die here. I can't let you die here," he said as he stared sullenly into his mate's eyes. "But I can't come up with a way to get everyone out safely."

"But you'll figure something out, right?" Jackson asked him.

"I don't know," he admitted shamefully as he looked down at the ground.

Jackson slipped his hand into Damon's, and when Damon looked at him, his mate's despondent frown grew thicker. "I can try to connect to the inimă again. Maybe—"

He shook his head. "Julian said Kane has a whole lot of hunter equipment, and these bars and collars is evidence enough of that. Wherever they have the inimă, it's likely that they've stored it someplace they know you can't access it."