Page 9 of Renegade Kingdom
Why did it have to be me?
I owed Damon everything. He’d saved me when I was just a feral kid with nowhere to go. He’d given me a home, a family, a purpose. He’d been the first person to look at me and see something worth saving.
Why did I have to be the one who might kill him?
We didn’t even know if he was strong enough to survive the change. The nightmare could have broken him down into nothing but a shell of himself by now. The way Damon seemed to be getting stronger lately, more lucid, it could all be a lie. Just the nightmare fucking with us for fun, making us hope before it ripped that hope away.
For all we knew, Damon was already gone. Fighting a losing battle inside his own head while we stood around debating options that wouldn’t matter anyway.
Holden would know what to do.
The thought came unbidden, and I almost laughed at the bitter irony of it. Holden, the general who’d trained us, led us, sent Damon to this realm in the first place. The man I’d followed without question for years.
Even if he was the one who’d gotten Damon into this mess.
Maybe he’d had a plan for Nymeria. Maybe he would have known how to save Damon. He had to have had something in mind, right? I’d followed him for years, trusted him with my life and the lives of my brothers. Holden would never have sent his men into a situation like this without some kind of plan. Without an exit strategy. That wasn’t who he was.
But the man Alyssa described, the general who’d betrayed her, who’d used her and manipulated her and thrown her away when she stopped being useful, that didn’t line up with the man we’d known. The man we’d trusted.
Had he been playing us the whole time?
He couldn’t have been. There was no possible way he could have known it would all turn out like this. No way he could have predicted that we’d end up here, in this realm, fighting a war that wasn’t ours, watching our brother get eaten alive from the inside by something we didn’t understand.
Right?
I shook my head, trying to dislodge the thoughts. It didn’t matter now. Holden wasn’t here, and we had no way of contacting him. Whatever his plans had been, we were on our own.
I’d been walking without paying attention to where I was going, and when I looked up, I realised I’d wandered away from the perimeter entirely. My feet had carried me back toward the centre of camp, toward where Damon sat with the children.
The wolf had been pulling me there the whole time. Subtle, insistent pressure that I hadn’t even noticed until now.
Pack,he said again, softer this time.Hurting. Needs us.
I stopped. Stared at Damon’s back, at the familiar set of his shoulders, at the way he sat so still and watchful.
I couldn’t do it. Not yet.
I turned away.
Instead, I found myself walking toward a figure standing alone at the far edge of camp.Alyssa. She was watching the distant glow of the pyres on the horizon, her arms wrapped around herself like she was trying to hold her pieces together. The orange light painted her profile in shades of fire and shadow.
She didn’t turn when I approached, but I knew she’d sensed me. The bond between us hummed with awareness, a warm pulse of recognition that I was still getting used to.
“Can’t sleep?” I asked, coming to stand beside her.
“Can’t stop thinking.”
I understood that. My own thoughts had been chasing themselves in circles since the battle ended, never settling, never letting me rest.
We stood together in silence, both of us staring at that distant orange smear on the horizon where our dead were still burning. The silence between us wasn’t uncomfortable. It never was with her. There was something about Alyssa that made me feel like Ididn’t have to perform, didn’t have to be the alpha or the leader or the one with all the answers. I could just... be.
“I can’t face him,” I admitted finally. The words came out rough, dragged from somewhere deep and shameful. “Damon. Every time I look at him, I don’t know if it’s him looking back. I don’t know if I’m talking to my brother or to that thing wearing his face.”
Alyssa didn’t judge. Didn’t tell me I was wrong or weak or failing in my duties as an alpha. She just nodded slowly, her eyes still fixed on the horizon.
“I understand,” she said quietly. And I knew she did. She understood avoidance. Understood the terror of facing something that might break you. “But Dean... he needs his brothers right now. Not an alpha. Just his brothers.”
“What if I can’t tell the difference anymore?” The question came out raw, more vulnerable than I’d intended. “Between being his brother and being an alpha. What if I’ve forgotten how to be just Dean?”
