Chapter 221: Desperate
Ever since then, Jane had made a weekly habit of chipping away at Magnus’s iron nerves with gentle, hesitant pleas to reconcile with his uncle. Yes, Hugo was far from blameless, but he was an old man now, and Magnus would only live to regret letting time run out. His wife never forced the issue outright, but her sorrowful, expectant looks could pierce through any armor he wore.
Now, feeling the full crushing weight of fatherhood on his own shoulders, Magnus understood his uncle far better. Being a parent wasn’t merely about showering cubs with expensive gifts and surrounding them with round-the-clock guards. It meant answering relentless, innocent questions like: “Daddy, how can my sister fit inside Mommy’s stomach? How did she even get in there?” or “Daddy, the thunderstorm outside is scary! I’m sleeping with you guys tonight, and Damian is too!” or “Daddy, I saw Uncle Sayan kissing Aunt Rianna on the mouth—ew, there was spit! Why did he do that?!”
And a thousand other things to which the formidable Alpha simply had no answer.
Jane often saved the day with her quiet wisdom, but Magnus had come to realize one undeniable truth: being a good father was infinitely harder than leading an entire pack. He knew a hundred precise ways to snap an enemy’s neck, but he hadn’t the faintest idea how to properly soothe a crying child who had simply scraped his knee. After all, Magnus had never wept as a boy—he had only raged and screamed.
His biological son was entirely different. Matthias would burst into tears if a pet goldfish died, marching up to him with a tearful plea to bury it in the courtyard, and even deliver a eulogy over the fresh mound about how much he had loved the scaly thing.
Matthias was undeniably softer than he had been. Magnus knew the boy would harden with age, but his children carried far more humanity in their hearts from the start. Even in the wild, fractured cub Damian, there was more light than Magnus had ever possessed.
Magnus only desperately hoped to become the kind of steadfast father his children could rely on when the world grew truly unbearable. So far, he was doing a terrible job—Damian had driven himself to the brink of collapse without ever coming to him for help.
True, Magnus didn’t know what to do with a child’s tears, but he knew precisely how to tame and direct fury. And if he was going to be a father, his primary duty was to guide his cubs so that when they committed their first bloody slaughter, he would be the first person they called to ask how to dissolve the body, scrub the blood, and forge an airtight alibi.
“We’re here,” Magnus said, his voice low as he pulled into an empty pier that had finished undergoing repairs a few weeks prior.
Damian jumped out of the car without a word and marched obstinately along the beach, never once looking back. A sharp pang tugged at Magnus’s chest at the sight of the small, lost silhouette, but as painful as it was to watch, the boy needed to endure this now. Locking the SUV, Magnus followed at a measured pace. The boy walked stubbornly along the water’s edge toward an asphalt road, and along it to the far edge of the coast.
For two straight hours, they trudged through the heavy sand. The Alpha saw clearly that the child was exhausted, yet he kept trailing behind, watching the boy’s small sandals sink deep into the beach with every step.
The stubborn cub refused to give up, marching silently toward the nearest settlement—an old coastal cottage village. When they finally reached it, a local man carrying a fishing rod and a plastic bucket stepped out of a garden gate toward them.
Damian immediately sprinted over to him.
“Hello! Have you seen a little girl around here?!”
“What girl? A lot of summer residents live here, I can’t keep track of everyone,” the man said, startled, looking down at the sweaty, breathless child before casting a wary glance at the massive, dark-eyed man looming right behind him.
“Her name is Amelie! She’s a bit shorter than me, and she has blue eyes!” the boy blurted out in one breath, staring up at the fisherman expectantly while clenching his tiny fists white.
“No… I’ve never even heard such an unusual name around here, kid…” the man stammered, scratching his head beneath his cap in confusion.
“I see…”
As they continued through the deserted dirt lanes, they encountered various locals, and every single one offered the exact same answer. No one had seen or heard anything. No one knew a thing.
As evening approached, Damian was openly stumbling from sheer exhaustion, yet he stubbornly kept going down a broken road deeper into another vacation settlement. Magnus followed behind him like a silent shadow, feeling no fatigue whatsoever.
Meanwhile, Jane had already blew up his phone with messages, frantic with worry that they had been gone for so long.
Distracted by his vibrating phone, Magnus missed the exact second when an exhausted Damian finally lost his footing. Tripping over a sharp rock, the boy collapsed heavily onto his knees. A heartbroken, desperate sob tore through the quiet, empty lane.
Quickly shoving the phone back into his pocket, Magnus stepped forward with cautious care. He watched as the child made no attempt to stand, sitting directly on the dusty road, pulling his scraped knees to his chest and burying his face against them, weeping bitterly.
“Does it hurt?” the Alpha asked gently, coming to a stop beside him.
“Go away!” Damian cried out, choking through his tears.
“Shall we head home?”
“How can I go home to warmth and food when she’s out there somewhere, terrified and alone?!” The boy sobbed even harder, gasping for air.
“If you run out of strength and die of exhaustion on some dirt road, you definitely won’t find her,” the Alpha sighed heavily, sitting down beside him on the cold ground.
“What if she’s already dead?”