Page 18 of Branded By Shadow
It had all been for nothing. In one night, I’d thrown it all away.
Biology had stripped away years of education and independence and revealed something underneath that was pure instinct. And that thing had wanted him. It had ached for him so much it had almost driven me mad.
“What have we done?” I forced the words out, my throat raw.
“Saved you from your own heat.” His arms tightened around me, protective even as he spoke the blunt, unbearable truth. “That’s what we’ve done.”
I tried to push away from him, but my limbs felt heavy, disconnected. His warmth bled into me where our skin touched, and my body responded with a sick eagerness that made my stomach turn. Even now, even after everything, some traitorous part of me wanted to lean into him.
“D-Don’t touch me,” I stammered. It came out weak and feeble, like all my recent efforts had been.
“You’re shaking.” He pulled me closer instead, ignoring my protest entirely. “You need this whether you want to admit it or not.”
Need. That word again. As if instinct justified everything. As if my body’s demands were the only truth that mattered.
I couldn’t look at him. Couldn’t bear to see satisfaction or possession or worse, tenderness, in his eyes. Because tenderness would suggest this was something other than what it was, a biological emergency that had turned me into something I didn’t recognize.
A crisp, disembodied woman’s voice cut through the suffocating aftermath, seeming to come from the air itself. “Damon. Helena Winters of House Hera is here. She insists it’s urgent regarding the Omega’s wellbeing.”
House Hera. My heart leaped. Everyone knew of their authority over marriage bonds. They were the protectors of Omega rights, one of the most powerful political forces in the supernatural world. If Helena Winters was here about my wellbeing, maybe she could get me out of this place.
I felt Damon tense against me, every muscle coiling. “Tell her to wait, Elara,” he said without moving.
“She says she won’t leave until she speaks with both of you. Now.”
The woman, Elara, spoke with urgency that made my pulse quicken with possibility.
“She can see us later,” Damon insisted. “Cora needs to rest.”
Rest? How could I rest here, when I constantly lived in fear of my own biology? This might very well be my last chance, and by the gods, I’d take it.
I pushed against his chest with renewed strength. “I want to meet her. Now.”
His eyes darkened, but I didn’t care. Helena Winters represented everything I needed. She had the authority that could challenge his, the power that could free me, and the protection from responses that grew stronger with every moment I spent in his arms.
“Damon,” Elara said again. It was a simple, single word, a reminder more than a challenge.
Damon’s jaw clenched, and tendrils of black ink slithered over the edges of the room. He hated this. He wanted to keep me here, in this gilded cage he’d built.
But just like I’d hoped, he couldn’t refuse a House Hera representative. The Olympian Houses might spit in the face of normal human justice, but they had to respect each other.
“Fine,” he said at last. Not to Elara, but to me. “Have it your way, Cora. But just so you know, Helena’s presence doesn’t change anything. I only gave you what you craved.”
I didn’t bother denying that. He was right. My Omega biology had betrayed me, at the worst possible time, and I had needed him. But that didn’t mean this had to be forever.
Helena might know how to break whatever hold he had over me, how to stop the desperate craving that was already building again. Right now, that was my only hope.
8
Cooperation
Damon
Helena Winters never visited without reason. When House Hera’s most powerful Omega arrived unannounced, it meant Olympian Council business, the kind that usually ended with someone’s life in ruins.
The knowledge weighed on me as I guided Cora into the study. This was a confrontation we couldn’t avoid, but the consequences… Even the most gifted House Apollo oracle couldn’t foretell them.
The study door clicked shut behind us.Cora moved stiffly beside me, exhaustion evident in every line of her body. I’d helped her into presentable clothing before we’d come here, but that didnothing to change the scent of our claiming still clinging to her skin.
