Heavenly Poison

Damien Gray

“Damien!”

Wayne’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts. When I looked up, I found him staring at me worriedly.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” I stated, and took the stapled sheets he was passing me.

“I called you three times. You’ve been distracted all morning,” he told me.

“I’m fine,” I repeated.

Wayne shook his head, but he didn’t question me about it. I appreciated that. I’d seen Sebastian already, and he hadn’t stopped bothering me about the state I was in. I hadn’t told him what happened between Emilia and me, but he was going to find out eventually.

“Alright, well, did you decide anything?”

“You already know my thoughts on it. I know that Lilly is your daughter. She can come here, but John isn’t welcome.”

“John isn’t going to let Lilly step foot into Mountain Peak without him,” Wayne said, looking stressed out.

“What if I let him in? Would it be just him? And if that were the case, does John think that if I really wanted to hurt Lilly, he would be able to stop me?”

Wayne growled, and took a few steps towards me.

“Lilly is my daughter,” he said, threateningly.

“I know, and I’m not going to touch her. But John seems to think that we’re going to hurt her. All I’m saying is that if I let him in, it’s very doubtful he could overpower us,” I rephrased.

“Then why don’t you let them in? If you think he isn’t any danger, let him through with my daughter.”

Wayne had used my own words against me. It was smart— I had to give him that. I was too tired to think properly. I hadn’t gotten any sleep the previous night.

After what happened with Emilia, I’d taken off. I slept— or attempted to sleep on the couch in one of the conference rooms. I couldn’t stop thinking about Emilia’s words.

I wanted to mate with her. She didn’t want to mate until I claimed her. In order to claim her, I had to accept to having a baby. It was a circle that was driving me insane.

I hadn’t been able to sleep and I hadn’t been able to think about anything else but that.

I wanted Emilia. It had taken me a while to come to grips with the fact that I wanted her more than I had ever wanted anything or anybody. But I wasn’t sure I wanted to sacrifice the little freedom I had left.

Taking over the pack was taking a lot out of me. I hadn’t prepared for it, like most of the other Alphas had. I was learning how things worked so late in the game. I was barely learning how to be an Alpha, even when I wasn’t a Wolf.

All sorts of thoughts kept running through my mind, and most of them confused me more than the one before.

“Damien!” Wayne called again, bringing me out of my thoughts for what seemed like the hundredth time.

“Are we done here?” I asked, getting up from the seat.

I felt anxious. I needed to go outside. My wings wanted out. I wanted to fly, far away from pack territory. I needed to clear my mind, and I was too close to Emilia to do so.

Wayne and I had taken up most of the morning settling the pack’s finances. Anthony had left things organized, and Wayne knew practically everything there was to know about Mountain Peak. I was really lucky to have him. He was making me learn everything, and it seemed like an endless amount of information.

I was taught from investments the pack had, to secret properties Anthony kept, to bank accounts in other countries, to what exactly Anthony had done to keep the pack rich and going.

“We’re done with pack material for today. What did you decide about Lilly and John?” Wayne asked again, sounding hopeful.

I sighed, shook my head, and slumped myself back in the seat.

“You can’t leave, not with how delicate things are with the pack,” I stated, because I didn’t want Wayne getting any ideas about taking off and meeting with them.

I couldn’t risk having Wayne out there. Wayne knew Mountain Peak like the palm of his hand, but that wasn’t just it. He and I had actually become very close. Even though I still had some doubts— most thanks to his relationship with Lilly, who belonged to the enemy pack— I knew that Wayne loved Mountain Peak.

“I’m not planning on it. You need me here, and I want to stay close to home. Maggie would never forgive me if I took off,” Wayne said.

Maggie, his mate, was nothing like Wayne. I had only seen her a few times, but I usually kept a smile on my face when I did. She was a very bright and happy person. Maggie liked Emilia, I knew that. It was another reason I found myself liking Maggie more.

“I will stay with them the entire time, Damien. You won’t have any problems from John.”

“You think this is a scheme from Dylan?”

“No, I don’t think so. Lillian and I both want to see each other.”

“Why now?” I asked, suspiciously.

“If you are going to join Layton in this fight against Dylan, then I want to see my daughter before any of the Alphas attack. I want to make sure she’s doing fine. She’s my baby girl,” Wayne said.

“Alright,” I agreed, because he was right.

It seemed like Wayne had been about to argue with me some more. When it clicked that I had relented, he nodded at me. I could see a smile tugging on the corners of his lips.

“They are your responsibility. I’m not worried about Lilly. She’s your daughter, and she used to be part of the pack. For all intents and purposes, she’s still a member of our pack. It’s only Dylan’s third in command that worries me.”

“John won’t try anything,” Wayne quickly added.

“I hope so. Now I have to go and tell Layton about this. He’s not going to be happy.”

On my way outside, I bumped into Sebastian. It seemed like he was distracted with something, more than likely with bad thoughts because his forehead was creased. When his eyes landed on me, the frown on his face deepened.

“You look like crap,” he said, stopping in front of me.

He blocked my path. Every time I tried to sidestep him, he stood in front of me.

“I dropped Tania off at the mansion.”

“Okay,” I nodded.

“Emilia was crying,” he carefully said.

Sebastian hadn’t been home all morning. He had been trying to avoid Emilia, and it seemed like I was doing the same thing.

Hearing about her crying though, it unsettled me. I had been feeling strange all morning long. Some of the emotions running through me were mine, but the rest were coming from Emilia.

I hadn’t considered the bond as inconvenient as I did that morning, when I couldn’t stop thinking about her because I also couldn’t stop feeling her.

“I’m going to go see her,” I said, distantly.

I was looking up at the sky. It was a nice day out. The strange weather Sebastian and I created the day before had made the local news. Thankfully, people were seeing it as inaccurate weather predictions. I didn’t need anyone looking into it.

“When?” Sebastian pressed.

“Weren’t you mad at her?” I asked, frowning at his persistence.

Sebastian gave me a frown of his own, and he crossed his arms over his chest. He was trying to intimidate me— that much was obvious.

“We already talked about this,” he said, sounding very serious.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I replied, evasively, and started walking away.

Sebastian followed after me, but I could tell that he was getting annoyed. He called me several times, but I just ignored him and kept walking away.

“You can’t be doing this to her,” he told me.

Sebastian had said the same thing already. It hadn’t been effective then, and it wasn’t going to be effective now.

“I thought you didn’t want to be here, and you didn’t like Emilia,” I replied.

Sebastian grabbed my arm and pulled me back, roughly bringing me to a halt. I didn’t know whether it was what he wanted or he hadn’t noticed the deadly grip he had on my arm.

He was looking at me more serious than I had ever seen him before. When I paid closer attention to him, I noticed that Sebastian actually looked tired. His usually mischievous blue eyes looked misty, and there were bags under his eyes. His pale skin did nothing to hide the purplish color around them.

“You look tired too,” I commented.

“Do you want to leave?” Sebastian asked, ignoring my words.

“What?”

His question had caught me off guard. The way he had spoken made me nervous for some reason. I didn’t know if that was Emilia’s feelings shooting through me, or if it was my doing. By then, Emilia’s emotions were too mixed up with my own.

“You heard me. Do you want to leave this place? If you do, all you need to do is tell me and I’ll pack our suitcases,” he said.

His tone was harsh, and he was frowning at me. He seemed more than just upset.

“I’m just throwing your words back at you,” I said, defensively, and turned away from him.

When I tried to take a step, I realized I couldn’t move. Sebastian was holding me in place. It didn’t matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t break the hold he had on me. He was staring at me intently. I could tell he had all of his energy focused on keeping me in place.

“Let me go.” I spoke through gritted teeth.

When I tried to move my hand, it only made a wave of energy run through my body. It shook me up more than I already was.

“I’m stronger than you. You’ll get hurt if you keep trying that,” Sebastian warned me.

He wasn’t taunting me though, which was what I expected. He narrowed his eyes at me, and took a step closer to where I was standing.

“Release me.”

“Answer my question first. Do you want to leave?”

Once again, I put all of my energy into getting my body to move. Although I was able to move my fingers, it was the only thing I could manage.

“No, of course I don’t want to leave!” I snapped, and my wings unintentionally flew out from my back.

When Sebastian saw them, he cocked an eyebrow at me.

I tried to shrug, but I couldn’t. He had to release me. The fact that he was calming down and effortlessly holding me in place angered me.

“If you don’t want to leave and if you want Emilia, you need to quit this shit about running away every time that she says something that scares you!”

“You don’t know what she told me.”

“I don’t have to know. I don’t want to be here,” he said, emphasizing each word. “You chose this for us. You wanted to take over the damn pack. I supported you. I will always support you.”

“Good, because I need you,” I told him, honestly.

“I had plenty of time to think last night, Damien” he said.

He was using my full name. He rarely ever did. Hearing him say my full name put me on alert of just how serious he was being.

“Yesterday, you got pissed off with something she said. You ran away.”

“Yesterday wasn’t the first time I got mad with something Emilia says. That girl could piss off a saint.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. He wasn’t getting to the point, and his words against Emilia weren’t exactly helping.

“What exactly did you think about?” I slowly asked.

“I always keep control of my emotions. I have to stay sharp for the both of us.”

“Not last night,” I reminded him.

“I don’t like talking about our parents. It will happen again if she starts asking questions that I don’t want to answer.”

“So you can get angry whenever you feel like it, but I can’t?” I asked, in a mocking tone.

“Emilia can piss me off all she wants and I can run away from her all I want. Do you know why, Damien?”

I didn’t answer anything. He was going to tell me whether I wanted to hear him out or not. I was glaring at him, but the look on his face told me he was just as pissed off as I felt.

“She’s not my mate, she’s yours. You don’t have the same liberties I do.”

What he said— it shut me up. His words stung in a way that I couldn’t even being to understand.

“Release me,” I repeated in a low voice.

And he listened. But he didn’t just release me. He walked away. Sebastian gave me one last look and walked away, shaking his head at me. I thought he was going to keep arguing with me, but it seemed like had said what he wanted to say.

I made my walk back to the mansion as slowly as I possibly could. The scolding Sebastian gave me only confused me more than I already was. I felt a pressure from him I had never felt before.

Since Tania was with Emilia, I was in no hurry to get back home. I assumed Tania and Emilia were talking. I could feel Emilia crying, or at least the despair she was feeling.

My chest hurt, my thoughts were a mess, and I felt like I wanted to throw up. For some reason, it made me want to cry. The last part had to be Emilia’s doing. She was projecting her emotions at me so strongly, I felt like I didn’t have any control of myself.

When my vision clouded, I noticed that I was indeed crying. I cursed at myself. The closest things to me were trees, and I took all of my anger out on them. I punched my fist against a tree repeatedly, until it toppled over.

Once it was in the ground, I kicked it multiple times. After I was breathing heavily, I ended up feeling bad for destroying the poor tree. If Cassidy had been there, she would’ve gotten mad at me for knocking the tree down, and killing it. Cassidy, just like Sebastian, would’ve been mad at me for what I was doing to Emilia.

If anyone had caught sight of me during those moments, they would’ve thought I was crazy. I felt like I was going crazy. When I felt another wave of pain shoot through my chest, I brought my wings out.

My shirt had already ripped away, so my wings effortlessly came out. I took a few deep breaths, preparing myself for what I was about to do.

When I felt the tears trying to fall, I flew full speed against the tree closest to me.

The tree shook when I collided against it, but I didn’t knock it down. Just one more push would’ve done the trick. I could feel blood trickling down my forehead, and my arms and chest were scratched and bloodied from the impact.

It hurt enough to keep Emilia’s emotions away from my mind and my body.