Julian’s P.O.V.

I watch mindlessly as the spaghetti loses its tension, twisting and curving into its preferred state.

The sound of the heated water, bubbling in the pan the only sound to be found throughout the entire house.

Soundless. The entire house was soundless.

My ears twitch desperately to pick up on something other than the straining thumps of seven hearts. I closed my eyes and listened, praying to hear a laugh but the silence rings on.

I drag my attention back to the food, draining the spaghetti and dousing it with some olive oil. My heart squeezes knowing this was usually Peter’s favorite part.

But I was the only one cooking today. I rest the bowl on the side beside the mincemeat and cover them. Usually, it’d be time to call everyone to eat, but we hadn’t eaten a meal as a family since the day Damon left.

I close my eyes, pressing my hands to the countertop and let my arms hold me up as sadness blares its way through my chest. I feel the tears building behind them and let them fall, I cover my fist to silence the sobs.

I hadn’t seen my pup in a month.

I squeeze my eyes tight when the pain flares up in my veins. Regret rising high, drowning me with its thickness.

I shouldn’t have let him gone. Shouldn’t have let him leave in that state, foolishly thinking he’d come back. But he hadn’t, he hadn’t left a single trace to follow and disappeared.

I feel two arms slip around my waist and turn around to sink further into Aiden’s grasp. I sob against him, no longer able to keep quiet with his supportive arms caging me in.

He holds me tight, rubbing my back soothingly which his chest hiccups with his own small cries. I let my fingers dig into him as we mourn for the lost presence of our pup.

“I-I miss him s-so much,” I whisper through my cries and bite my lip when he pulls me closer.

“I miss him too,” Aiden promises, his voice heavy and cracked with emotion as I’d been since that horrible night. “But we’ll find him and we’ll make it right. We’ll fix this.”

“What if hunters get him Aiden?” I question, my voice fading off as anxiety crippled me. “What if w-we lose him?”

“We won’t. Damon is strong and smart, he will be okay.” He promises, pressing a kiss to the top of my head. “It won’t be like what happened to Emitt.” He whispers, somehow knowing my deepest fear without my voicing it.

“I can’t go through that.” I heave, images of Damon returning with scars or not returning at all turning me inside out. “Not with Damon. I-I can’t Aiden.”

“He’ll come home, Julian.” He comforts, leaning back to give him enough space to lift my wobbling chin up. My body squeezes its distress when I lay eyes on his tear stricken face. “If we don’t find him first, he’ll come home.”

I nod shakily. Forcing myself to trust in his words, forcing myself to believe that he was right and that Damon would come back.

Because the only other choice was to think of the worst and that was a black abyss waiting to take us all. Letting myself indulge in the thoughts of not knowing whether he was okay and safe or alone and in pain, just led to even more heartache.

I look up to Aiden and see the want in his eyes, the regret, and agony that hadn’t left him since we last saw Damon. It was one of the things which stopped me from placing a spec of the blame on him, knowing if I did it’d truly wreck him.

I’d told him, told him that the sooner we told Damon the better. But Aiden wanted to find a way to minimize the inevitable damage. Aiden wanted to protect Damon from himself and had failed time and time again to break the news to him because the truth was, there was no perfect time.

In the end, we’d ended him causing him the maximum amount of pain, shattering the entire family in the process.

But my biggest regret of all was telling him the same day he lost Amelia.

When she came looking for Damon, desperate to talk to him only moments after Damon left and told us what had happened. It completely dismantled any remaining stilts which held us up.

I pull away from Aiden, feeling uncomfortable in my own skin as Alex howled his torment.

I’d known something was wrong that night. Saw the dead look in my son’s eyes, those eyes just a little darker than my own. Seen the fractured crystals, the silent plea for help that was presented in the form of a frame dripping in blood.

I’d seen it, and I’d carried on anyway.

Carried on because I saw the blood, smelt the victims on him and knew it couldn’t carry on a moment longer. He was becoming something much too dark much too quickly, any longer and he would’ve fallen completely.

No matter how true the reasons, I still hurt him. Hurt him and broke him more than he already was and let him leave trying to hold all his pieces together.

Aiden reaches a hand for me but I push him away as the tears fall faster, push away until my feet pull me out of the room and away from him.

I find myself outside of Damon’s room, his scent comforting the torrential storm inside my chest as I pull myself closer.

I stop with an aching heart when I find Peter curled on his bed, his long hair draped over his trembling shoulders as he clung to the sheets. His small sobs muffled by the sheets he glued himself to, small pleas to Goddess breaking through.

“P-Please p-protect my b-b-big b-brother.” He stutters through his sobs, the sound tearing my chest open.

Peter spoke less and less with Damon’s absence. The disarray sent the family into, shattering the once stable grounds he depended on.

“C-Come h-home D-Damon.” He spoke out loud as if to Damon directly. “I-I won’t g-get you i-in t-trouble anymore. I’ll s-sleep w-with you e-every night, s-so you w-won’t be l-lonely a-anymore. I-I’ll p-protect you, p-promise.”

Sorrow rippled through me at Peter’s broken pleas, the regret blossoming because we hadn’t only hurt Damon but the kids as well.

I wipe at the tears as I take rushed steps towards Peter, determined to comfort him. But the moment my hand rested on his back, Peter pulled away. The action sends a dagger through my heart as I watch him push away and off the bed.

He stares at me, a deep frown settling on his face despite the apology that rested behind his eyes. He takes slow steps away until he rushes out of the room, his door slamming behind him with a subsequential lock.

My head sinks in my awaiting arms at the turmoil all around me. I wanted to be strong for the kids, wanted to help them get through this and yell them it would all be okay.

But I could barely deliver the same courteous for myself.

“Dad.” I look up and blink away the fresh tears to look at Levi. His eyes were red and his face turned in a sad smile as he walked to me. “Didn’t find anything today either.”

The hope drains out of me as he comes to sit beside me, his arms wrapping around me to hug me as he began to sway us.

Levi had come home shortly after Damon fled, he’d planned to come long ago to help Damon adjust once we told him about postponing his role as alpha. But Damon had run and now Levi was home, tacking time from his own pack to look for Damon.

We all went out every day with any of the pack who were willing to help. Levi and Jayson looked together, spending most of their time doing so since the house was always dripping with misery.

“No scent or signs of him.” He whispers and I nod in understanding.

Signs of him meant bodies. There were no bodies or mass massacres that signaled Damon. None besides the one we found directly outside the pack the night it all happened.

“It’ll be okay,” I promise, trying to be strong despite the way my mouth shook from my own words.

“I don’t think he’ll ever trust me again,” Levi admits quietly and I pull him to me. Running a hand through his black hair as he breathes heavily against me. “I should’ve told him.”

“Your father shouldn’t have told you, shouldn’t have involved you in this.” I correct firmly, not allowing him for a signal moment to carry this burden. “This isn’t your fault Levi.”

“He asked me and I lied to him.” He says shakily. “He won’t forgive me for that.”

I look up in time to see Jayson enter the room. Eyes filled with worry as he looks at Levi, he waits patiently fingers twitching to comfort his mate.

“He will,” I argue gently. “He loves you Levi and that won’t change, he’ll come around.”

I signal for Jayson to come and he quickly slips next to Levi, taking him into his grasp from his opposite side. Levi melts into his arms and I stand to give them some privacy.

Goddess was gracious to give Jayson as a mate to Levi, especially now when he was so close to breaking under the guilt that didn’t belong there.

Jayson bellowed through it for the both of them, looking every chance he could to find someone that he didn’t necessarily get along with.

I let my legs take me out of the house and let the shift set its course. My four legs land on the earth’s floor, making pebbles jump from the force, and take off.

I race through the pack, ignoring all other wolves and let my speed ignite a white flame throughout the expanse of land. The minute I’m outside the border, I put my nose to the ground and try to track his scent.

I knew his scent, I could never forget it. Damon’s scent always contrasts his character, a warm rosy fragrance that made my heart flutter. It was a scent he carried from the day he was born when I held him in my arms and he laid there silent and observant.

Damon grew out of that character with age and time. He’d grown loud and boarish, a comical boy with bright blue eyes and blonde hair which made everyone laugh. Even if sometimes his methods were foul, his heart was always in the right place, we saw that.

But in recent years, Damon had returned to his earliest ways. He’d grown quiet, barely laugh or spoke not unless he was on either side of the spectrum – extremely happy or deadly mad.

He’d caged into himself and I didn’t try to get him out. Not when all I could see was the blood dripping off the bars and the bodies which surrounded it.

I wish I had. I wish I tried a little harder, talked to him when he tried to push me away. I wish I hugged him more, wish I held him tight against me so he would never want to let go.

But I hadn’t and now I was paying the price.

I slow my rushed steps, looking around to find myself in a foreign spot. A small stream licked its way down the earth’s spine and the trees swayed quietly.

I could smell him here but knew it was an old scent. Too old and faint to lead me much further, so I laid myself down, curling into my form as I pressed at our link.

It was like slamming into a brick wall time and time again. No progress to be found no matter how hard I tried. He’d locked the key on his side and closed the door on all of us.

No amount of searching helped, not when Damon didn’t want to be found. I lift my head and howl loudly, the sound racking its way through the woods so loudly I trembled. I howled and howled, eliciting hundreds in response as wolves responded to their alpha.

But not Damon. None came back which belonged to my beautiful pup.

My howling died down and I shifted. The tears were still there and ran uncontrolled as my mind plunged me through endless memories of Damon and me.

“Daddy, I won!” Damon shrieked happily as he ran straight through his friends and to me. Jumping into my arms, his little boy covered in sweat. “I won! I won!”

“I saw, you were absolutely amazing Damon!” I cheered pulling him back to press a kiss to his cheek making him giggle breathlessly as he smiled brightly. “Fastest little wolf out there!”

Damon smiled. A wide grin that made my chest fly with delight as he bounced in my grip, screaming his victory for the world to hear.

A shaking smile breaks me from my memory as I clench the grass, praying for Goddess to bring that smile back to me. To bring that light back to him too, to make every as bright as it once was

“Dad! It hurts!” Damon screamed as he writhed on the floor, his bones cracking casting him into a play of pure agony that I was forced to watch. “Dad, please! Make it stop!”

“I-I can’t.” I stuttered. Heart in my lungs, stopping me from breathing as I watch my son shift helplessly. I reached to touch him but Aiden’s rough grip pulled me back.

“You can’t touch a wolf during their first shift, you know that Julian.” He growled, his own pain showing clearly as he held me to him.

“He’s only twelve. He’s too young to be going through the shift.” I protested, eyes filling as I watched my son go through the worst type of pain for a wolf. “He just a pup.”

Damon’s blue eyes held mine, pleading and begging to make it stop. He’d spent an hour in that pain, spent an hour on the ground crying for us to help him to make it stop but we hadn’t. Couldn’t.

Then he rose a wolf. He’d stood up on shaking legs, his piercing blue eyes swatting from side to side as he adjusted to his wolf.

He wore a beautiful, white coat that made my heart soar as I sobbed and crashed into him. I shifted with nothing but pride in my chest as I looked at a miniature version of myself. I rubbed myself against him, my heart leaping with absolute adoration as we circled one another.

He was like me. The single image made my smile carry for all the weeks to follow. I couldn’t even admire his strength to shift when he had a coat so white and pure.

I’d taken on the task of helping him adjust, not letting anyone else close, snapping at them if they dared. Because he’d come out like me and it was something for us to share, just Damon and I.

Damon was all too pleased and snapped as well if Aiden tried to join in on the fun. He wanted me to teach him how to be a wolf. He wanted me to teach him how to be fast, to dodge natural obstacles. Teach him how to enjoy the force of the wind and the rush of the run.

And I had. I’d taught him well and when we were done. He hugged me so tight I chocked on my own tongue. He squeezed me and buried himself against my chest were his head reached at the time.

“Thank you, dad.” He whispered, his voice showcasing his glee.

“You’re going to be the best alpha this world has ever seen.” I’d promised, holding his face in my hands. “Youll be amazing, I know you will.”

“I’ve got the white coat to prove it!” He exclaimed with a bright smile that made me laugh.

“Exactly, white wolves are the strongest and you are just that, the strongest.” I praised and smiled even wider when his eyes shone with pure, unphased joy.

“I love you, dad.” He whispered, eyes shining with unshed tears.

“I love you too Damon.”

I hoped and pray that he knew that now. Wherever he was, I hoped he knew that I loved him and that I never stopped, never would.

Hoped he knew that I was waiting for him at home, that I was looking for him day and night, that I missed him too much to think of anything else.

I knelt and prayed to Goddess. Begging her to protect him, to keep his mind sharp and his eyes open. For him to be safe and sound until he let himself be found.

Come home pup…

————–

I may or may not have shed one or two tears for my baby Jewels. Maybe.

Thoughts????

A couple of you guys requested this little peek into the family without Damon so I hope you enjoyed it.

Comment and vote thoughts, you know I love hearing them.

Until next time,
Byeeeeeee humansssssss