bChapter /bb219 /b

    Xander POV

    I stay sitting and stare at my reflection in the phone. The lines around my eyes are more noticable, something that I didn’t have when I met Serafine. I won’tin though, it’s a reminder of the life we built together, of how much I fought to win her back. The room is still silence, it hums though with the sound of the old vents and asionally the faint noise of movement in the halls above me.

    For a while, I sit here, just listening to my own breath. After a moment, I write the letter, and line by line, I make sure it speaks the truth, one which can destroy his entire pack and have him stripped of his Alpha title. It’s clean, firm and the truth. I don’t gloat, I don’t leave anything out, and I don’t use words that makes it sound like I’m gaining pleasure from

    this.

    I write it so he can sign it and sleep and wake and still be a man who can look at his pack when the sun rises. If he doesn’t then this is a war that will kill him, his alliances will refuse to stand by him, and he knows that means he will fall.

    When finish the letter I send it instantly. I don’t regret killing Damon, I guess because I killed for a lot less before. Before Serafine, death was a thing I was used to, something I used to use to move forward, to gain power.

    Standing up, I cross to the window and push it open. The night air pouors in, it’s cool and wet, and it smells of fir, there’s a faint hint of rain as well like it’s sooning. The Hollow sits beyong the trees like a breath I can’t seem to let out. Somewhere belong, the cells breathe with torch smoke, and my sons voice. Sometimes, the thing that isn’t my sons voice

    as well.

    Behind me the office door clicks, and Serafine steps inside with soft feet and the red around her eyes she tries to hide. She’s exhausted, even I can see it. We’re not sleeping, we’re both waiting on news of the Warlock. The issue is, even when I tell her to sleep she doesn’t.

    I get it, she’s a mother, ione /ichild is sent away to be protected another stays here but is slowly dying beneath a darkness.

    “She’s asleep,i” /ishe says. “I walked by and heard her moving, so I sat with her until she fell aslepp. She kept waking and asking me to repeat the same thing, like she needed to hear it, that he loved her. That he did not mean it. I told her the truth until she slept. She should never have stepped foot down there.”

    “Good,” I say.

    She looks at the phone on my desk, “Who called, I’m amusing someone has for you to be in here.”

    “Damon’s fatheri.” /i

    Her mouth ttens. “What did he want?” She looks at me, and I can see the worry in her eyes that this a war, it’s not going

    to be. I’m not foolish enough to kill if it’s not safe.

    “To threaten war,” I say. “He wanted his voice heard, he wanted everyone to hear what I had done to his son.”

    “And now,i” /ishe asks.

    I meet her eyes. “Now he will sign a letter. He will waive his rights to retaliate and ept his failures.”

    09:34 Sat, 30 Aug

    She closes her own eyes and exhales. “You always do this,” she says. She’s tired, and fond, but there’s anger in her as well, it’s her, it’s how she loves. She hates me for this, but she loves me for fighting and not just walking away like what Damon did wasn’t important. “You walk that knife ande back with your feet still attached.”

    “Because that’s the only way, and because someone has to walk it,” I say. I step closer to her. She fits under my hand the way she always hás. Pulling her closer, my hand strokes along her hair, and she settles against my chest like she’s home. She is, whenever I hold her, she’s home. “I will station men at April’s door. I will sleep here, then I’m closer, that way if Eryx wakes differently, they can get to me faster. You need to sleep, please.”

    She nods slowly before stepping away from me and slipping back into the hall. There’s the noise of her robe dragging along the wooden floor, and I sigh looking around myself. I close the window and let things settle down. Resting my hands on the desk, I lower my head, and let every muscle remember that it’s human, it’s not immortal, and everything needs time to crash.

    For a brief moment, I close my eyes and focus hard. I focus on the sounds around the house and zone in one two. I hear both sounds together. April’s breathing, from where she sleeps in Eryx’s bed, soft and settled. Along with the chains that bind Eryx that he’s clearly pulling against because the darkness is making him believe that he can break free if he just tries enough. Between both of the sounds, is a measure of time that feels like road that I can’t seem to name yet.

    I sit, and lean back in the chair. I’m meant to be sleeping but it’s impossible. Instead, I watch every hour pass, I watch as the lights in the hall click in the darkness, the dim light spilling wide. I can’t work, I’m too exhausted but I also can’t sleep. So I lean back, stare up at the ceiling and wonder how bad things can get now. If the warlock never shows? Then what? We have to face this alone, and hope that we’re strong enough to defeat the Hollowed Queen. If we’re not, this world will no longer exist.

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