Page 27 of Branded By Shadow
Everything inside me screamed to give my Omega what she wanted, to erase the pain from her face. But it wasn’t that simple. I shook my head, hating the fresh wave of hurt I was about to inflict, but knowing there was no other way. “It means House Zeus is planning something else. Stormwright doesn’t abandon his objectives. He adapts. The silence from his camp makes me more concerned, not less.”
“I don’t care about your concern!” She jerked away from me, her shoulders hitting the conservatory wall with a dull thud. “I need to make sure Theo is safe. I need to check if Alexander tampered with my formulas. I need to figure out what he used to do this to me.”
“In a few days, when Cassandra has the results—”
“A few days?” The question was a shriek of disbelief. She buried her hands in her hair and pulled, so hard I feared she might tearthe strands from her scalp. “You expect me to just sit here and wait more?”
The vegetation around her convulsed. One thick tendril curled around her wrist, a serpentine caress she didn’t even feel. She didn’t realize her powers were reacting to an emotional turmoil she couldn’t express any other way.
“I think I’ve been more than patient,” she spat, the confession tumbling out in a torrent of pain. “I accepted staying here, letting Theo think I’m dead or worse. I agreed to trust you, even while I’m terrified of what else Alexander might do. What in Eurydice’s name am I supposed to be waiting for now, huh?”
“Cora, you need to calm down—”
“Don’t you dare tell me to calm down.” She shoved away from the wall, resuming her frantic pacing. “You kidnapped me. You claimed me against my will. And now I find out Alexander may have forced my heat, manipulated my biology like I’m some lab rat, and you want me to just wait patiently while you decide if it’s convenient to let me investigate?”
The plants were going wild now. Flowers bloomed and withered in the space of a heartbeat. The moss around her nest rustled and churned as if something was moving beneath it. And still she didn’t notice, too consumed by her own rage and fear to see the chaos she was creating.
“I need to understand what he did to me.” Her lungs heaved, each gasp harsh and ragged. “I need to see it with my own eyes. I need to know. I need—”
Her plea died in her throat, her panic suddenly too vast to be contained by language. The air crackled with a sudden pressure drop. The sound was a sickening crack, not of wood, but of stone. Roots, thick as pythons, ripped from the conservatory floor, tearing chunks of inlaid rock with them. A furious vine whipped through the air and slammed into a thick iron support beam with enough force to make the entire structure groan, the metal shrieking in protest. Splinters of stone and dust exploded outward, raining down on us both.
Cora’s power, raw and uncontrolled, was lashing out. She was doing this without conscious thought, her divine legacy responding to her pain the way a body flinches from fire.
She stared at the dented beam without really seeing it, her entire frame quaking. “I need to go to the laboratory,” she whispered, the fight gone, replaced by a desperate, hollow plea. “Please, Damon. Please.”
That final, desperate ‘please’ undid me. It wasn’t the first time the word had fallen from her lips. But when she’d begged in the past, it had been because her biology had forced her to. This was different. This was Cora, the brilliant, defiant scientist, stripped of everything but her own helplessness.
I thought about Cassandra’s warning, about the darkening mark on Cora’s throat, and the exhaustion that clung to her like ashroud. If I didn’t agree to this, the pressure would continue to build until she didn’t just crack, she shattered completely.
“Tomorrow morning.” The answer was rougher than I intended. “Early, before Alexander can know we’ve moved. It will be a supervised visit, with my full security detail.”
Relief crashed over her features so violently she swayed on her feet. I moved fast, crossing the distance between us in two long strides to catch her before she could fall. I gripped her arms as her knees gave out, all that rage and fear draining away at once, leaving nothing but a profound, boneless exhaustion behind.
“Thank you,” she breathed against my chest, her forehead resting against my shoulder. The aftermath of her outburst was a fine tremor that ran through her entire body.
I held her while she fell apart. I felt the frantic pace of her lungs ease, the tension releasing from her shoulders muscle by muscle as the reality of what I’d agreed to settled in. The plants around us calmed with her, the vines going slack against the walls, the leaves settling back into place as if they’d never moved at all. She didn’t cry. Just stood there in my arms, letting me hold her weight while she tried to remember how to be anything other than fury and fear.
The silence that settled afterward was heavier than the humid air. We stood like that long enough for the shaking in her limbsto fade, long enough for me to feel the exact moment she started putting herself back together, piece by careful piece.
When she finally pulled back to look up at me, her eyes were still too bright with unshed tears, but the raw desperation was gone. “I feel like I’m shattering.”
“I know.” I tilted her chin up so she had to meet my gaze fully. “But you’re not shattered yet.”
“How do you know?” The question was small, vulnerable in a way I’d never heard from her before.
“Because you’re still fighting.” My thumb traced along her cheekbone, brushing away the dampness she’d refused to let fall. “Still demanding what you need instead of surrendering to what’s been done to you.”
She leaned into my touch, her eyes closing as she took a shuddering inhalation. Her fingers closed around my wrists, holding me there like she needed the anchor. We stood like that while the last of the panic and rage bled out of her, leaving something softer, more fragile, in its place.
When she opened her eyes again, something had shifted in her expression. The raw desperation had transformed into a different kind of need, quieter but no less urgent. “I don’t want to be alone right now.”
The admission cost her. I could see it in the way her jaw tightened slightly. Asking for comfort from the man who’dkidnapped her went against everything her pride demanded. But she was asking anyway, because the alternative was facing the aftermath of her breakdown alone in this jungle she’d created.
“You don’t have to be.” I brushed a strand of auburn hair back from her face, tucking it behind her ear with careful fingers.
She didn’t move away. Just watched my face like she was searching for something, trying to decide if she could trust what I was offering. “Will you come back to the nest with me?”
The offer made me balk. After everything that had happened today, after what she’d learned about Alexander and his actions, I’d expected anything but that. I’d thought she wouldn’t want an Alpha anywhere near her space.
