Page 31 of Branded By Shadow
I hadn’t expected more from Alexander. But Damon? I’d thought that maybe, just maybe, we’d found more.
Last night in the nest, when I’d let Damon hold me, when I’d sought comfort in his arms, part of it had been strategy. Building trust, playing the long game, making him believe I was considering acceptance. But a small, dangerous part of it had been real. Real and stupid.
This was what I was to Damon. Not a person with needs and priorities, but territory worth destroying everything to claim. The lab visit, the careful agreement, the fragile hope from last night… All of it was meaningless when Alpha instincts took over.
The seedling of trust I’d been nurturing withered and died, consumed by the fire of their arrogance. Damon had completely forgotten why we came here. He’d forgotten Theo’s safety, forgotten my need for answers, forgotten everything except proving his dominance over Alexander.
I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t watch my mentor’s terror, see my life’s work destroyed, or endure another second of being fought over like a prize.
I had tomove, todosomething, anything, to break their focus. The realization came to me with devastating clarity. There was only one way to stop this. I had to make myself the target.
I felt the plants in the lab’s research greenhouse, a network of life that hummed in response to my panic. A command pulsed from my gut, a silent, desperate plea.Stop them.
I ran. Not toward the exits, but toward the specimen storage area at the back of the lab. It was a desperate gambit to end the battle, to draw the predator away from the wreckage.
Behind me, vines erupted from the research greenhouse. A thick, thorny growth responded to my command, creating a living, writhing barrier that would slow any pursuit. The plants obeyed with an eager violence, a testament to the power I’d kept hidden.
The service door’s handle was cool metal under my palm. Beyond it lay concrete corridors and the next stage of my plan. I took it because the alternative was accepting that I belonged to whichever Alpha won this fight.
My footsteps echoed too loud in the maintenance corridor, the sound swallowed by the damp concrete. I knew these corridors from my graduate school days and had mapped every exit during late nights when social anxiety drove me to seek solitude.
“Ma’am! The building evacuation is in progress!” A security guard appeared at the far end of the hall, waving me toward an exit.
“I know the way out!” I didn’t slow down. In my wake, ferns unfurled and vines exploded up the concrete walls.
The loading dock access door was heavy, but desperation made me strong enough to shove it open. Beyond it lay the parking lot, cars, people living normal human lives.
I reached the chain-link fence and started climbing. The metal cut into my palms as I hauled myself upward, my muscles screaming in protest.
Halfway up, icy bands of shadow snapped around my ankles. The world spun as I was yanked backward off the fence. The concrete rushed up to meet me, and pain exploded through my body on impact. My shoulder took the worst of it, something grinding wrong deep in the joint.
Damon materialized from thin air, his clothing torn and singed. Electrical burns marked his hands and soot streaked his face, but his fury was focused entirely on me. The security guards who had been running the evacuation routes took one look at the shadows moving independently around him and fled.
“Damon, please—” Invisible bonds wrapped around my limbs before I could stand, tightening when I struggled. “Theo could be hurt—”
“Your concern for others is touching,” he growled. “Considering you used powers you deliberately hid from me to run while I was distracted.”
The smell of smoke clung to his damaged clothing, evidence of the battle I’d fled. It was a reminder of everything I’d endangered, simply by coming here. “I never wanted anyone to get hurt!” I shouted, half for Damon’s sake, half for my own.
“But you wanted freedom badly enough to risk it.” He stalked closer, a palpable menace spreading across the loading dock. “Using abilities you’ve been concealing. Running the moment you saw an opportunity. Proving that last night was just a manipulation.”
The accusation gutted me because it was partially true. I had hidden the full extent of my power, had let him think I was more helpless than I was. But that wasn’t why I’d run.
The saddest part was that he’d never believe it. He’d never tasted an Omega’s helplessness, so he’d never understand why he himself had forced me into a corner. There was no point in even trying to reason with him, and I’d known it before I’d even made the choice to fake my escape.
“Does it matter now?” I whispered, the fight draining out of me.
“It matters to me.” The shadowy chains lifted me from the concrete, suspending me at his eye level. “Because it determines exactly what happens next.”
The pressure around my ribs intensified, squeezing the air from my lungs. The wail of approaching sirens grew louder, a grating, human sound that had no place in this conflict. Damon’s gaze shot to the flashing red and blue lights painting the side of the building, and a muscle in his jaw tightened.
“Dr. Ellis!” Sarah shouted, from somewhere inside the building. “Are you all right?”
I had no idea what she, of all people, would be doing here. There was certainly nothing she could do to help me. But for Damon, that didn’t matter. This public spectacle, the involvement of human authorities, was an unacceptable complication.
The inferno in his eyes turned into something colder, sharper. “Enough of this. I think it’s high time we took this someplace private.”
His shadows consumed us, pulling us into the nothingness he commanded. The last thing I saw was Sarah and Theo emerging from the building, soot-covered but alive. Then there was only darkness, and the knowledge that whatever fragile trust we had been building had shattered completely.
