Chapter 130: ¹³⁰: Hope

Chapter 130: 13?: Hope

"That is nowhere near the truth, Athena!" Damian’s voice was firm, almost sharp with determination as he gently lifted my chin, forcing me to stop looking away from him.

"That pack is your father’s. You are the only one who deserves to be its Alpha, and I am telling you; you are not responsible for the horrible actions those people committed."

"But, Damian, it hurts!" I said, fighting desperately to hold back my tears. My voice comming out hoarse, trembling beneath the weight of everything I had been trying so hard to suppress. "It hurts knowing that I have lost my everything and I can’t do anything about it. I don’t even have my wolf now. I am so miserable, so weak, so pathetic!"

The words spilled out before I could stop them. For days, those were the thoughts that had been eating away at me. Every time I remembered my pack, my father, Harry, Romana, and everything that had been taken from me, the same feeling returned - the horrible certainty that I was powerless.

Damian’s expression immediately hardened. "Athena, you’re none of those!"

His words cut through my thoughts so suddenly that I stopped speaking. I looked at him through the tears blurring my vision, and for a moment, I found myself able to only stare at him.

"You don’t have your wolf for now," Damian continued, his voice calmer but no less certain. "And we can’t face those bastards right now. But this time won’t be the same."

His hands slowly lowered from my face, but he didn’t look away from me. "You will soon have your wolf back. We will soon be stronger than them. You will claim what is supposed to be yours. You will give them the hell they deserve."

There was something different in his voice when he said those words. He wasn’t saying them merely to comfort me. He sounded as though he genuinely believed every single word.

"And the only way you can do all that," he continued, "starts with you stopping yourself from doubting who you are."

I fell silent as I felt something inside me shifting. It was strange. I had spent so long rejecting every hopeful thought that tried to enter my mind. Whenever someone told me that things could become better, my mind immediately found a reason to disagree. Whenever someone told me that I was still strong, another voice inside me reminded me of everything I had failed to protect.

But this time, Damian’s words didn’t feel impossible. They gave a small spark to something inside me, something I hadn’t felt in days.

Hope.

It was faint, almost fragile, but it was there. A part of me was telling me that maybe I needed to listen to him. Maybe I didn’t have to immediately reject every word simply because my mind had become accustomed to expecting the worst. I took a slow, shaky breath, trying to steady myself.

Damian noticed the change in my expression, but he didn’t interrupt me. He simply waited until I was ready to listen again.

"You don’t have to be able to go right now and fight all those strange wolves in your pack for you to be the deserving Alpha of your pack," he said. "You don’t have to prove your worth by standing in front of them today. You don’t have to consider yourself unworthy just because you’re not strong enough to face them right now." His gaze softened. "Right now, it is just the start of that journey."

I swallowed hard. Those words settled somewhere deep inside me. The start, maybe that was what I had been forgetting.

I had been looking at everything I had lost and expecting myself to somehow have the strength to take it all back immediately. I had been judging myself for being wounded, for not having Anna beside me, for not being able to return to my pack and fight the people who had taken over my home.

But maybe I wasn’t supposed to do all of that right now. Maybe right now, surviving was enough.

Damian paused, studying my face as though he was searching for something in my eyes. Perhaps he had noticed it to, the tiny flicker of hope that had begun building inside me while I listened to him.

He took a deep breath, giving both of us a moment to process everything he had said. His expression remained serious, but there was warmth beneath it now.

"Right now, you have to get up and start telling yourself that none of this was your fault," he said slowly. "You have to start believing that you will come back stronger."

His eyes remained locked with mine. "That the next time you face them, you will be strong enough to not let anyone take what is meant to be yours from you."

I stared at him silently. For the first time in what felt like forever, those words didn’t sound like an impossible dream. They sounded like something I could someday believe.

Those words felt like the final piece of something I had been desperately trying to put back together inside myself.

They were like the last nail in the coffin of all the doubts that had been consuming me. For the first time in days, I felt as though my mind and my heart had finally heard the words they had been searching for.

It felt as if a huge metal door of self-doubt and insecurity, one I had unknowingly built inside my mind, had finally been knocked down.

And behind it was something I thought I had lost. Hope... Not the kind of hope that made me believe everything would magically become perfect again. It was smaller than that, but somehow more powerful. It was the hope that I could fight again. That I could reclaim my rights. That I could someday return to my pack and face the people who had taken everything from me.

I closed my eyes for a moment, allowing the last few tears to slip down my cheeks before taking a deep breath. "You are right, Damian!" I finally said.

When I opened my eyes again, I looked directly at him. My voice was still slightly hoarse from crying, but there was a different determination behind it now. "Right now, I have to fricking get myself together and start doing what is needed."

"Exactly!" A smile finally appeared on Damian’s face. It wasn’t a huge smile, but the relief in his expression was obvious. His shoulders seemed to relax slightly as he looked at me, as though he had been waiting for me to say those exact words. "Right now, you have to get up and enjoy the beautiful sunset among these beautiful wildflowers, just like I intended for you to!"

He squinted his eyes and pointed toward my back with them, clearly trying to draw my attention to the scenery around us.

A small smile tugged at my lips. For a few moments, I had completely forgotten where I was.

I had been so consumed by everything that had happened to me that I had forgotten there could still be moments like this, moments where I could simply stand somewhere beautiful and breathe without thinking about everything waiting for me.

"Okay," I said, finally feeling my legs properly again as the frantic beating of my heart slowly began to stabilize with the rhythm of the cool air surrounding me. "But there is one thing stopping me from doing that."

"What?" Damian’s brows furrowed in confusion.

That expression immediately made my smile grow wider. I glanced down at his hands, which were still resting against my face, and then looked back at him.

"You have to leave me so that I can get up and turn around!" I said as a chuckle escaped me.

For a second, Damian simply stared at me. Then his eyes widened slightly as he finally realized what I was talking about. His hands were still holding my face. The realization seemed to hit him all at once.

He let go of me in literally nanoseconds, pulling his hands back as if he had suddenly remembered that they were there.

"Uhm..." He cleared his throat, looking slightly embarrassed. "I was still in character and didn’t realize."

He immediately straightened himself and got to his feet, seemingly eager to move past his ridiculous excuse. Then, without wasting another second, he extended his hand toward me to help me stand.

I couldn’t help but find his reaction funny. "Character?" I repeated, raising an eyebrow.

I took his offered hand, allowing him to help me carefully to my feet. As I stood, I instinctively placed my free hand over my bandaged abdomen, making sure I didn’t put too much pressure on my injured body.

"What character?" Damian’s lips twitched as though he already knew where this was going. "The character of you being so nice to me, even though you were literally not talking to me a while ago for some unknown reason?"

Once I was steady on my feet, I released his hand and clasped my arms together and tilted my head slightly, watching him.

Although I had my own little hint about what might have caused his earlier behaviour, I still wanted to hear the reason from him. Iwanted to be sure.

Damian’s expression changed almost immediately. The amusement that had been there moments ago faded slightly, and his eyes shifted away from mine for a brief moment. The smile on his face also weakened.

"I had planned to not talk to you for a little while," he admitted. His voice was quieter now. "But you clearly needed me, so how could I not talk to you again?"

The words were gentle at first, but by the time he finished speaking, his tone turned slightly sour.