Stephanie was sitting in her cell in a daze.
She did not remember how she got here. There were hazy memories of her sitting at the lakeshore, but the next memory was of her coming to her senses in the dungeon of the Dark Howlers pack.
Stephanie knew that she waited by the lake with the intention of Talia finding her there, and then Stephanie would tell her to go to the bottom of the lake, just as the instructions said. Stephanie was not sure if she had accomplished her task.
She thought that if Talia didn't show up, no one would know about her intentions, and she wouldn't be in the dungeon. On the other hand, if she succeeded and Talia went there, Stephanie would either be punished or released, depending on how Damon interpreted Stephanie's actions.
Stephanie didn't know how many days had passed as there were no windows, and the only time door opened was when warriors brought food and took empty plates and utensils. She asked them what was going on, but no one said a thing. But even without any news, Stephanie guessed that Damon was fine because if anything happened to him, they would either release her when a new Alpha took over or if the pack fell apart, they would stop bringing food.
The Guardians promised not to harm Damon, and she was confident that things would be cleared out soon. Damon might be greaving now, but he will come around and see that this was for the best.
Stephanie raised her head when the door of her cell opened.
Two warriors appeared.
"Alpha wants to see you," one of them said sternly, and Stephanie pushed herself up.
They didn't handcuff her or restrict her otherwise, and Stephanie thought that was a good thing.
The moment she stepped outside, Stephanie squinted when daylight assaulted her eyes, and she felt a nudge as one of the warriors pushed her right shoulder.
"Move."
"Where to?"
"You will see," he responded and pushed her again.
Stephanie moved in that direction, following a narrow path. After some time, the path was gone, and she walked among bushes and trees, steadily climbing up.
The sound of water churning was clearer as the trees became scarcer.
Stephanie emerged on a clearing speckled with wildflowers such as yellow mahonia, pink hellebores, and purple violas resilient to the cold temperatures of early winter. A river was going through the middle of the colorful clearing, which ended with a waterfall on the opposite end.
"Go on," a warrior said while gesturing toward the right. There was a lonely oak tree, and she could see Damon sitting on the grass with Talia on his lap.
She was focused on Damon and Talia, and only when she was a few steps away she spotted a black rectangle-shaped marble tombstone with a curved top edge. It had engraved, 'In memory of loving parents, Jacob Blake and Violet Blake.'
This was Stephanie's first time coming here. Not because Damon didn't allow her. When he asked her to come with him about a decade ago, she said that this was for family members, and she didn't consider herself as family. At that time, Damon thought Stephanie was modest and grieving, so he didn't push for it. But now he knew better.
Damon and Talia didn't look at Stephanie, and she was not sure what to do.
She turned to the back to see that the warriors were gone, but she could feel their gazes on her back.
Damon thought he had calmed down by now, but now that Stephanie was in his visual range, he wanted to shout at her, to rip her apart, and to break down and cry; all at once. Luckily, Talia's proximity calmed his raging emotions, so he was able to suppress the swell of emotions.
Talia could feel Damon's internal turmoil, and she let him hold her, knowing it helped. He needed to confirm without a doubt that he was not alone and that she won't betray him. Talia opened her bond fully so he could feel her love and devotion, and that he was her everything.
"What do you have to say for yourself?" Damon asked Stephanie.
"About?"
"About what you have done."
Stephanie released a long breath. "Whatever I did, everything I did, was for the sake of this pack."
"Was it?" Damon asked. He placed Talia gently to sit on the grass and stood up to face Stephanie.
Talia's brows came together in worry, but she forced herself to stay on the side and let Damon handle this. He needed to do it himself. Only like that would his demons be pacified.
"How can you claim that it was for the sake of the pack when you betrayed your Alpha and Luna?" Damon asked.
Stephanie pressed her lips into a line. "Betrayed? Aren't you fine?"
"Fine? Is this what you call fine?"
Stephanie's eyes widened when she realized that Damon was pointing at the gravestone.
"That was an accident," Stephanie said with urgency. "Jacob was not supposed to die."
"An accident? Is that what you call what you did?" Damon squeezed through his teeth. "My mother trusted you. She thought of you as her sister. I trusted you. This whole pack trusted you!"
"I know you are upset, but Violet wanted to go to them in order to save the pack. She was the Luna, and it was the right thing to do. I didn't act against her wishes."
"LIES!" Damon roared. "My mother loved her mate, and she loved me, and she would never do anything to harm us. By going to the Guardians willingly, she would betray the mate bond, and that stands above everything else, even above duty toward the pack!" Damon's chest was heaving angrily. "But you wouldn't know that because you never sealed the bond with your fated mate."
"How do you…?" Stephanie's voice trailed.
"You don't need to know from where I've got my information," Damon said to Stephanie dryly. He didn't want to disclose that Talia looked into her memories.
The fact that Beta Gil was not Stephanie's fated mate was concealed well.
Jacob wanted a strong Beta, and everyone knew that mated werewolves were stronger than unmated ones. Also, mated werewolves were less prone to distractions like women and drinking, so Jacob announced to his three close friends that no matter what their abilities were, his Beta would need to be mated because everything else could be learned given enough time and practice.
Gil was the best warrior at the time, but without a mate, someone else would become Jacob's Beta.
Desperate for a quick solution, Gil reached out to Stephanie. They agreed to be chosen mates, so she let him mark her with an excuse of how it was the best thing to do for the pack. Like that, Gil became Beta, and Stephanie was in the packhouse, directly supporting Alpha and Luna, just as she wanted.
Other than that, Talia found out more incriminating information about Stephanie.
Stephanie was working as a spy for the Guardians even before she became Gil's mate. She was aware that the Guardians would want powerful females for breeding and powerful males for experiments and that even humans were involved. Unfortunately, those memories were more than two decades in the past, and Talia couldn't get all the details precisely, but she was confident that Stephanie was involved to some degree.
Damon and Talia hoped to find more evidence in the library of the Guardians, something concrete they could work with. Axel and Cornelia were tasked with finding those, while Damon and Talia focused on dealing with the present issues.
