Bound By Moonlight to My Mates (by Sofange Daye) novel Chapter 62

Damon

The drive back from Southpaw feels longer than it is. My hands stay tight on the steering wheel the whole way, knuckles white, eyes locked on the road while Leah’s words echo in my skull.

“Eternal life. Eternal guilt. Every lifetime ends the same way.”

Charlotte.

I grip the wheel harder. I can’t tell her. Not yet. Not when she’s already unraveling before my eyes. Not when she’s still fighting to breathe. When she is barely able to keep her head above water.

When I finally push open the apartment door, the smell hits me first: stale air, unwashed clothes, and the faint, sour tang of despair. The curtains are still drawn. Jake’s boots are by the door, but he doesn’t come to greet me.

He’s sitting on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, head bowed. And there she is, curled up beneath the blankets like a shadow of herself.

Charlotte.

Her hair spills across the pillow, messy, dull. Her breathing is shallow, but steady. At first, I think she’s asleep, but there’s a stiffness to her shoulders that makes my stomach knot.

“Where the fuck did you go?” Jake hisses in my direction.

He is mad, and rightfully so. I walked out with no explanation. But I had stayed here… I can’t watch her wither away. When I first met her, she was strong and stubborn with a sharp tongue. Now, she is nothing more than a shell of what she used to be. I will bring her back even if it means dying alongside her.

“I went back to Southpaw for information,” I reply flatly. “I needed to know more. I needed to know what she is.”

“Did you learn anything?” Jake asks quietly when I explain where I have been.

I close the door and lean against it. “Yeah. I found something.” My voice comes out rougher than I mean it to. “Southpaw’s clean because of old wards, because they are the original pack of knights. But that’s not…” I stop myself. My jaw locks. Don’t tell him. Don’t tell her.

Jake looks up at me, eyes hard. “But what?”

I cross the room and drop onto the chair by the window. “Alpha Ronan,” I say instead. “He’s a prisoner in his own pack. Elder Samson staged a coup. Half the wolves are sick; the rest are scared. They’ve injected him with wolfsbane. He’s fading.”

The sound that comes from the bed is sharp enough to slice the air.

Charlotte bolts upright, her hair falling into her face. Her eyes are wide, glassy, burning with something between fear and fury.

“What?” Her voice cracks. “What did you just say?”

Jake moves like he’s going to steady her, but she shoves his hand away and swings her legs over the side of the bed, the blanket pooling at her waist.

“Tell me,” she demands. “What happened to him?”

I stand, every muscle in my body tense. “Charlotte…”

“No!” she snaps, voice shaking. “Don’t you dare try to keep this from me, Damon. Everyone is keeping things from me. Theo, Ronan, even my own fucking wolf. Tell me what is going on.”

The room feels like it’s shrinking. She is asking me not to keep things from her, and I am holding the biggest secret. My eyes scan over her body, trying to remember what she looked like before all of this, but it is getting harder to see. My Charlotte is gone, now, her hands trembling where they clutch the edge of the mattress, and fear consumes her eyes.

“Ronan’s alive,” I say finally. “But barely. They’ve got him locked down. He’s branded a traitor for not killing you when he had the chance. Elder Samson’s taken full control.”

Her face goes white.

For a heartbeat, none of us moves. Then she pushes to her feet, swaying. Jake rises too, reaching for her, but she brushes him off like he’s smoke.

Her voice drops to a whisper. “I have to go to him.”

And in that instant, I know she’s already planning it. Running off, throwing herself back into danger for the man who rejected her first. Maybe I have it all wrong. Maybe Theo is not the demon in this story.

My stomach turns to stone because she has no idea that Ronan’s fate isn’t the only one hanging over her head.

“We can’t just march in there,” Jake replies. “These things need to be planned out carefully.”

Charlotte stomps her foot before dropping herself back onto the bed. “There has to be a way to get in and out. A way to go without being seen.”

She presses the tips of her fingers into her eyes. I am sure she is fighting back tears, but when she looks up, there is a new determination in her face. “Theo,” she whispers her name.

I bristle at the sound of it. “No,” I growl. “Not him.”

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