Witnessing her walk over the threshold into his house was like watching a judge enter a courtroom to deliver a sentence. A cold, hollow dread lurched in Damien's stomach. He'd faced down hostile boards, corporate raiders, and federal investigators-but none made him tremble with fear as he did now, standing barefoot in his living room. He had expected her to look terrified, disgusted, or even triumphant. Tears? Accusations? He had steeled himself for all that. But the look in her dark eyes of obviously intense scrutiny and deep calm was unexpected. She was looking at him not as a monster to be afraid of, but as a multifaceted equation she was determined to solve. The absence of fear in her gaze was more unsettling to him than any weapon she might have carried. It meant she was neither here to run nor to scream. She was here to demand answers, and she wasn't leaving until she got them. The silence burgeoned between them, thick and laden with everything that had happened in the past twenty-four hours. He knew it was upon him to break it. The power belonged to her; he only had the choice of how to surrender.
"I'm sorry, Selena," he said, beginning with a voice still rough and damaged. The apology sounded pathetically inadequate, almost like a pebble thrown against a mountain of terror he had inflicted. "For everything. For last night." She hadn't even bothered to dignify the apology with a reply. It was a nicety she didn't feel was worth her time. She stepped a few feet deeper into the room, her gaze gliding over him, taking in the fatigue, the faint, healing scratch on his cheek. Her eyes were the keen eyes of a journalist cataloging evidence. "You can save your apologies," she said in an even, firm voice. "I don't want your remorse. I want the truth. All of it. Let's start with the most important question." Stopping about ten feet in front of him, in a safe distance, yet dominating the vast expanse behind her. "What are you, Damien?" The question hung in the air, simple, direct, and deadly. She hadn't said werewolf. She hadn't called him a monster. She had condemned him withhis own heart. Turning from her, unable to withstand the intensity of her gaze, he walked to the window and stared down at his city, once a kingdom, now a mere reminder of life that could never be his.
"I went on a hunting trip," he began in a subdued voice, telling the story to the city beneath. "In the Carpathians. There was a blood moon." He told her everything, and the floodgates of his confession had opened with words from deep within, securing a secret all his life without even knowing it existed. He spoke of the astoundingly large wolf, of the attack, the searing pain that transcended anything just wound-related. He spoke of waking changed, the world becoming an overpowering raw assault of sensory input. The rage, the loss of control, the war between the new predatory instincts and the faint memories of the man he used to be. "It's... a curse," he finally managed, feeling that word old-fashioned and silly in his mouth. "An affliction of my bloodline. Stories I used to dismiss as lunacies of a paranoid father. A recessive gene, a dormant virus... I don't know what it is. All I know is that the wolf that attacked me... it didn't just injure me. It activated it. It woke it up." Finally, he had the courage to glance over his shoulder at her. He figured he'd see her stepping away from him, handmoving to grab her phone, probably to call the cops or perhaps to call her editor. She hadn't moved. She was there, listening, furrowed brow of concentration, expression an utter focus. She was not processing this like a normal person. She was processing it like a story, fitting the pieces together.
"So last night," she stated, not questioning but arriving at a definite conclusion. "That was your first time?" "Yes," he said, with an aftertaste of bitterness sown from shame. "I didn't know what to expect. I thought I could control it. I was wrong." He turned to face her fully, stripping to the soul. "I didn't mean to come for you, Selena. I was trying to get away when I spotted you on the street, and this... pull... it became undeniable. The beast... it recognized you." He watched her face as he had braced himself for the dam of composure to break and her revulsion finally come to bear. It never did. With the steadiness that was both terrifying and — to a desperate bit of him — most comforting, she absorbed the impossible truth. She was the only other soul on the planet knowing his secret, and she was still standing there. Not running. "The beast," she said quietly, testing the word. She moved in closer, step by step, shortening the distance until she stood perhaps a few feet apart. "The one that attacked you. Was it just like you? A brute animal?" "No," Damien said, shaking his head. "It was sentient. It looked at me in judgment. It was passing something onto me. A weight."
With those last words, all at once, the confession was out. There lay the truth, with all its ungainly supernatural glory, between them. He had handed her the weapon and the ammunition. All she had left to do was pull the trigger, and he would become ash along with his life, empire, and everything else he had built. He was waiting for her verdict. Her eyes swept through his, the search for something he could not name. Finally, she spoke; not about his business, not about the secret, not about the monster he was, but about her. "In your dreams," she began, her voice losing its hard journalistic tone, becoming more intimate and curious. "Before we ever met. You said the beast recognized me. You called me your mate. What does that mean, Damien?"