---- Chapter 37 Damien POV: The voice in my head was a chilling whisper from a nightmare | thought | had escaped. Ice flooded my veins. "Lyra? What do you want?" | snarled through the Mind-Link, my joy curdling into pure dread. Her mental laugh was a sharp, ugly sound. "What do | want? | just wanted to congratulate the happy father. You seem to have landed on your feet." "How did you find me?" | demanded, my wolf growling low in my chest. "You're not as clever as you think, Damien. You left a trail. But that doesn't matter now." Her tone suddenly shifted, the false sweetness falling away to reveal something raw and broken underneath. "My baby is gone." The words hung in the psychic space between us. | was stunned into silence. As much as | despised her, the thought of a pup dying... "What happened?" | asked, a flicker of genuine concern breaking through my anger. "He's dead!" she shrieked in my mind, the sound so full of ---- anguish it felt like a physical blow. And with her shriek came a flash of imagery-a grimy, cheap room, the smell of stale liquor, and the sight of her pup, cold and still in his cot. It was her memory, her guilt, weaponized and aimed at me. "And it's your fault! You promised you would take care of us! You promised!" "That's not my fault, Lyra," | shot back, the memory of her carelessness with the Silver dust flashing in my mind. "You were a terrible mother. You never cared about him." "| cared!" she sobbed, a torrent of insane grief and rage pouring through the link. Another flash-Alpha Marcus, laughing as he pushed her towards one of his warriors, her own pup's faint cries ignored in the next room. "You left me! You threw us away for her! For your precious pure-blood prince! And now you have a son, and | have nothing!" | tried to reason with her, a foolish, desperate attempt. "Lyra, listen to me. What about Marcus? The Alpha you left with? Settle down with him." Her laughter was hysterical, unhinged. "Marcus? He never wanted me. He passed me around to his friends like a party favor. My baby... my baby died on a night when | wasn't even there. He was alone." The sheer horror of it left me speechless. She had lost everything, and her broken mind had found its target. Me. And by extension, Elara. ---- "You will feel what | feel, Damien," she whispered, her voice dropping to a terrifying, calm resolve. "You will know what it's like to have everything and then lose it all." "Lyra, don't do anything stupid," | pleaded, my heart hammering against my ribs. "It's too late for that," she said, her voice laced with a chilling finality. "| won't let you be happy. What | can't have, you can't have either." 5 And then, the link went dead. She had cut me off, leaving me alone in the silent hallway, the cold terror of her threat wrapping around my soul like a shroud. She knew. She knew where we were. And she was coming.