Mated To My Mate's Worst Enemy (ARIA) novel Chapter 5

DAMON

"A week, she said. Maybe longer depending on what she finds." Margaret shifted her paperwork. "Is there something you needed her for specifically? I can pass along a message when she returns."

A week. Aria would be gone for an entire week, and she hadn't said a word to me about it. Especially with the way things had ended between us. I did not like it one bit.

My wolf howled in protest, clawing at my insides with sudden, inexplicable panic.

"No," I said slowly, shaking my head as I continued speaking. "No message. I'll talk to her when she gets back."

Margaret nodded and hurried off, leaving me standing alone in the hallway with that unsettled feeling spreading through my chest like wildfire. The uneasiness was getting stronger, was there something important that she was getting? Why would she go out again? I was better, there was no need for her to risk her life.

Something was wrong. I couldn't explain it, couldn't point to any specific evidence that Aria leaving was more than just gathering herbs, but every instinct I had was screaming that something was very, very wrong.

I pulled out my phone and called Aria's number. It rang once, twice, three times, then went to voicemail. Her voice—soft, musical, with that hint of sadness she never quite managed to hide—asked me to leave a message.

"Aria, it's me," I said, trying to keep my voice casual. "Margaret said you're out gathering plants. Just... call me when you get this, okay? I want to make sure you're safe."

I hung up and stared at the phone, waiting for her to call back.

She didn't.

The next three days passed in a blur of pack business and Sera's constant needs, which seemed to be multiplying on the daily. Her silver poisoning was getting worse—or so her physician claimed. She seemed fine to me, if a bit pale, but the doctor insisted she needed round-the-clock monitoring.

So I found myself at Sera's house more often than not, listening to her tell stories about our childhood, about the dreams she'd had for our future before she'd left for the human city.

"I never stopped thinking about you," she whispered one night, curled against my side on her couch, seeking comfort from me while she did when we were younger, much younger before we got separated.

"Even when I was trying to survive in that horrible city, pretending to be human, I dreamed of coming home to you."

I'd stroked her hair absently, making the appropriate noises, but my mind was elsewhere.

On a silver-haired omega who still hadn't returned my calls.

"Damon?" Sera's voice pulled me back. "You seem distracted."

"Just pack business," I lied.

But she'd seen through it, her eyes narrowing slightly, as her voice got furious.

"You're thinking about her, aren't you? That omega. Aria."

I'd stiffened. "She's on a gathering trip. I'm just making sure she's safe."

"She can take care of herself," Sera said, and there was something sharp in her voice now. "She's been doing it for years, hasn't she? Running around playing healer, acting like she's so important to the pack."

"She is important," I'd said before I could stop myself. "She saved my life."

"And now she's trying to guilt you into choosing her over me." Sera sat up, her expression hurt. "I'm your mate, Damon. Your true mate. Doesn't that mean anything?"

It should have meant everything to me, after all this time, I finally had the one person that I had wanted my entire life.

So why did my wolf keep howling for someone else?

I called Margaret again, demanding to know exactly where Aria had gone, what route she'd taken, which plants she was looking for.

"I... I don't know the specifics, Alpha," Margaret stammered. "She just said she needed to travel, that it was important."

"You're lying," I snarled, my Alpha command bleeding through. "Tell me where she went."

But before Margaret could answer—before she could be compelled to reveal whatever she was hiding—another call came through.

Sera again. Her breathing was labored, panicked.

"Damon, please, I can't breathe properly, I think I'm dying—"

I looked around Aria's abandoned cabin one more time, at the broken photograph, at the empty spaces where her life used to be.

Then I chose. I always chose.

"I'm coming, Sera."

I drove back to Sera's house, my wolf fighting me every mile, and I ignored the growing certainty that I'd just made the worst mistake of my life.

Behind me, in the empty cabin, moonlight streamed through the window and illuminated the corner where a silver moonstone necklace lay forgotten in the dust.

The expensive one I'd given her to replace her mother's pendant.

She hadn't even bothered to take it with her.