Chapter 308

~Darien’s Point Of View~

The morning light filtering through the heavy velvet curtains felt like an intruder. It was too bright and too hopeful for a house that had become a mausoleum.

Darien lay perfectly still, his arm deadened by the weight of Heidi’s head resting against his chest. He didn’t mind. He would have let his limb wither before he moved and risked waking her from the only peace she had found in seven days.

His mind, however, was a battlefield.

He stared at the ornate molding of the ceiling, but all he saw was the jagged, violet flash of Morgan’s departure. It didn’t make sense. Nothing made sense anymore. He tried to reconcile the image of the twin brothers... the two halves of a single soul, with the cold and evil shadow Morgan had become.

They had been the golden pair. Even in the height of their mischief, Morgan and Grayson had moved in a synchronized, brotherly motion.

Or so Darien had thought.

Now, the memories were warping, turning sour and suspicious. He remembered the first night of their banishment when they were still in the woods, remembered seeing Grayson cornered with a vampire’s leech’s claws inches from his throat, and Morgan... Morgan had just been standing there.

He wasn’t frozen in fear; he was watching. He was observing his twin’s struggle with a detachment that had made Darien’s skin crawl even then. Darien had been the one to lunge in, to sever the vampire’s head before Grayson was gutted. At the time, he’d chalked it up to combat shock.

Now, he realized it was a dress rehearsal.

And the clearing. Morgan had claimed he killed every rogue, yet Grayson—the one he was supposed to protect with his life—was the only one who didn’t survive. It was too convenient.

The "accidents," the elevated fighting skills that felt less like wolf instinct and more like something ancient and forbidden... it was a pattern Darien had been too blind to see.

Why? Why would he want Grayson dead? Why would he want to strip their mother of her heart and their father of his legacy?

Tobias and Rayne both insisted that they didn’t know what had gone wrong, but the "what" didn’t matter as much as the "who." Morgan was a stranger.

Darien looked down at Heidi. Her breathing was shallow, her face pale even in sleep. It broke him to see her like this. She was a Moon-blessed who had lost three of her pillars in a single week.

Grayson was in the earth. Morgan was a ghost in the wind. And Amias... Amias was a hollow shell, wandering the halls with eyes that saw only his dead wife and his dying mother.

Clarissa was still clinging to life in the west wing. Amias had suffered his whole life, and even now he seemed to still be taunted by the Goddess. Clarissa was supposed to have passed months ago, yet she remained, silently witnessing the extinction of her family’s peace.

Beside him, Heidi stirred. Her lashes fluttered against her cheeks before her eyes—those beautiful, haunted eyes—met his.

"You’re doing it again," she whispered, her voice raspy from days of crying.

Darien forced a small, tight smile. "Doing what?"

"Thinking so loud I can hear it," she said, reaching up to trace the tense line of his jaw. "Don’t be so down, Darien. Not this early. We have a long day ahead of us. We have to be ready."

He caught her hand, kissing her palm. The scent of her... the faint jasmine and old grief—was the only thing keeping him grounded.

"I’m not down, Heidi. I’m just... calculating. I promise you, I will do everything in my power to ensure Tobias gets the full weight of the law today. He’s going to rot for what he did to Gray and this family."

Heidi sat up, the sheets pooling around her waist. She leaned over and pressed a soft, lingering kiss to his lips. It was a kiss of shared pain and desperate hope.

"Then let’s get ready. Justice won’t wait."

They dressed in silence, the air heavy with the ritual of preparation. Darien pulled on his charcoal-grey suit. He had to stay strong.

Isolde was locked in her room. Her heart shattered because Nash’s parents had forbidden their union, treating the Bellamys like a leper colony. Daphne, who was once the proud Alpha’s daughter, was a ghost now. Her vibrant energy was extinguished by the realization that her brothers and only sister were either dead, depressed, or monsters.

He was the only one left to hold the line.

"Ready?" he asked, reaching for Heidi’s hand as they approached the bedroom door.

She nodded, face set in grim determination.

But the moment they stepped into the hallway, the silence of the mansion was gone.

It was a cacophony of shouting, the heavy thud of boots on carpet, and the frantic clatter of armor. Guards were running toward the dungeon wing with pale faces pale and eyes wide with panic.

"What the hell?" Darien growled, pulling Heidi closer to his side as a group of warriors nearly collided with them.

"Darien! Heidi!"

Amias appeared at the end of the corridor. He was disheveled. His shirt was half-buttoned with his face a ghostly shade of white. He was moving with a frantic, desperate speed that Darien hadn’t seen in him for days.

"Amias, stop!" Darien shouted, intercepting him. "What is going on? Why is the guard in an uproar?"

Amias stopped, his chest heaving. He looked at Darien, then at Heidi, and the news in his eyes was so cold it felt like a physical frost.

"The trial is over, Darien," Amias rasped, voice shaky with a terrifying mix of shock and something that sounded like relief. "Father is dead."

Darien felt the world tilt. "Dead? How? His wolf gave out?"

Amias shook his head, his hand going to the hilt of the ceremonial blade at his hip. "No. He was murdered in his cell. This dawn. The guards found him... There was nothing left but his dead body."

The air in the hallway turned to ice. Darien’s grip on Heidi’s hand tightened until his knuckles were white.

It must be Morgan. It definitely was. He hadn’t just left. He had come back to finish the job.