Selena stormed back into the hall, her heels striking the marble floor with sharp, angry sounds that echoed through the now-quiet space. Each step landed with deliberate force, as if she were trying to crack the floor beneath her feet. The echoes followed her, amplifying her fury that had replaced the earlier celebration.The birthday decorations still hung from the ceiling—gold ribbons drooping slightly, fading lights blinking unevenly, and half-cleared tables scattered with abandoned glasses and plates. What had once glittered with promise now felt mocking, like a cruel reminder of how completely the night had slipped from her control. What was supposed to be a night of triumph had collapsed into humiliation, leaving behind nothing but fragments of a plan that had failed spectacularly.Most of the guests had already left. The music had stopped long ago, and the lively laughter that once filled the hall had vanished, replaced by uneasy murmurs and the occasional scrape of a chair.

Damien barely slept that night.Sleep came in short, broken fragments, slipping away almost as soon as it arrived. Pain throbbed relentlessly through his body, a constant reminder of everything he had lost. It wasn’t just the physical pain—the soreness, the stiffness, and the ache that pulsed through him whenever he shifted. That pain was manageable. Familiar. What consumed him was deeper and far more corrosive.It was the pain of humiliation.The kind that sank into his thoughts and refused to loosen its grip.Every time Damien closed his eyes, he saw Logan’s face. Calm. Cold. Unyielding. Logan hadn’t raged or boasted. He hadn’t needed to. He had simply stood there, steady and untouchable, dismantling Damien’s world piece by piece before walking away without a backward glance.That image burned itself into Damien’s mind.A man who had taken everything from him—and suffered nothing in return.By morning, the exhaustion had done nothing to soften his thoughts. Instead, it sharpened

Damien barely slept that night.Sleep came in fragments. Each time his eyes closed, images returned uninvited: Justin Wolf’s steady gaze, the faint hum of power beneath his skin, the knowledge that he was no longer standing outside the world he had envied for so long. By the time morning crept in, Damien gave up entirely, sitting upright on the edge of the bed, his hands clasped together as if grounding himself in the reality of what he had become.Ever since he had walked out of Justin Wolf’s office with the seal of the Wolflins burned into his memory, something inside him had shifted permanently. Fear—something that had followed him like a shadow ever since Logan entered his life—had finally loosened its grip. It hadn’t vanished completely, but it no longer controlled him. It no longer whispered doubts into his mind or froze his limbs at the thought of confrontation.In its place was something darker and sharper. A confidence that didn’t rely on hope or chance, but on certainty.

As soon as Damien and his two men retreated from Logan’s house, the atmosphere inside their vehicle was thick with fury and disbelief. Damien sat rigidly in the back seat, his jaw clenched so tight it ached. His hands trembled—not from fear, but from humiliation. Never in his life had he experienced something so utterly baffling. He had gone there confident, empowered, certain that Logan would fall at his feet within seconds. Yet the opposite had happened. The image replayed over and over in Damien’s mind: the swords slipping from their hands as though they had been rejected by an unseen force, clattering uselessly against the floor. Logan had stood there, unmoved, calm—almost amused. That expression haunted Damien more than any threat ever could. “This doesn’t make sense,” Damien muttered under his breath. One of the men beside him shifted uncomfortably. “Sir… I’ve never seen anything like that before.” Damien shot him a sharp look. “Then keep quiet.” As the vehicle sp

Upon hearing that there was a problem, Damien was a bit afraid.The feeling caught him off guard. Fear was not something he was used to acknowledging, especially not since his initiation. Ever since that night—since the ritual, the vows, the surge of power that had flooded his veins—he had walked with a renewed sense of dominance. The world had felt smaller, weaker, more pliable beneath his will. Yet now, standing alone with Justin’s message echoing in his head, something unfamiliar stirred inside him.For the first time since his initiation, fear crept into Damien’s thoughts.It wasn’t loud or overwhelming. It didn’t strike like panic or seize him by the throat. Instead, it arrived quietly, like a shadow slipping under a closed door. His chest tightened slightly, his breath growing shallow as doubts whispered at the edge of his mind.Logan’s face flashed before him.Damien remembered the effortless way Logan had stood his ground, the way attacks that should have crushed any ordin