Page 8 of Branded By Shadow
My confusion crumbled, leaving only pure, absolute rage. Everything was his fault. I launched myself at him, wanting nothing more than to hurt him. To claw his eyes out, to rip off that smug smile from his lips.
Blackwood caught me with embarrassing ease. He held my wrists with a single hand and wrapped his free arm around my waist. I thrashed uselessly against his grip, twisting and turning, trying to use my body weight to throw him off balance. “Let me go!”
He didn’t move an inch, as if I wasn’t doing anything at all. “No.”
I tried to bite whatever part of him came close enough to my teeth. “Fuck you, Blackwood!”
That finally drew a response, but not one I liked. He spun us and slammed my back against the wall. The impact stole my breath, cold stone biting into my spine through the thin silk. He pinnedme there, his body a solid wall of heat and muscle. “That, I might agree with. But I’m not sure you understand what you’re asking for.”
I froze, something beyond fear locking my muscles in place. Not submission because I would never submit to this violation. It was the paralyzing recognition of a predator holding its prey. His scent was already triggering responses I’d spent years learning to suppress, and there was nothing I could do about it.
“Keep fighting and it gets worse,” he drawled. “The more you struggle, the faster the heat comes.”
My heat? But… No. How could this happen? My suppressant should have held it all at bay. It had worked flawlessly so far.
My every rational thought screamed in protest, but my skin burned where he touched me. Fire surged through my blood, the same way it had before I’d perfected my work with the silphium.
This must be because of him. Because of Blackwood. “What did you do?” I gasped, tasting bile.
“Not this again.” Blackwood let out a frustrated sigh. “I told you before. This is all you. Your blood. Your legacy. You can’t escape it. You never could.”
I couldn’t bear to hear him anymore, to grasp what this meant for me, for my future. “You’re lying. And you can’t keep me here. This is illegal.”
The defiance sounded hollow even to my own ears. Damon was predictably unimpressed. “House Hades doesn’t ask permission. We decide what’s illegal.”
It was true. The authority of the Olympian Houses went beyond anything regular authorities could do. That didn’t make his ruthless statement easier to hear, and it didn’t change the state of my treacherous body.
Sweat gathered along my spine and between my breasts. An empty ache built low in my abdomen. I was already falling apart, and my formula was helpless to stop it.
Years of work. Years of control. Everything I’d fought for was failing right when I needed it most. All those late nights and careful calculations and research designed specifically to prevent this exact situation from ever happening. Useless against whatever I’d inherited without my knowledge or consent.
I was fighting a battle I had no chance of winning. But even so, I refused to surrender. “You’re no better than Alexander Stormwright,” I spat at Damon.
He pressed his body closer to mine, so close I could feel his erection digging into my hip. “Maybe. But if nothing else, I won’t pretend to give you choices you don’t actually have.”
For a single moment, his grip on me tightened to the point of pain. Hunger consumed his carefully maintained expression, so fierce I expected him to consume me on the spot.
Instead, he tore himself away, leaving my skin cold where he’d been. “You’re fighting me so hard now, Dr. Ellis,” he said, his voice dangerously soft. “But soon, your heat will come. You’ll barely remember your own name. Your need will burn away everything that you are. Your intellect, your degrees, all those things you take pride in? They won’t matter anymore. And when that happens… you’ll beg for my knot.”
Before I could answer, the air behind him seemed to split open, a tear of pure, silent blackness in the fabric of the room. A chill that had nothing to do with temperature emanated from it. He stepped back into it and was gone.
I slid to the floor and buried my face in my hands. As much as I hated Damon Blackwood for trapping me here, my reality was much crueler. It was my biology that was my real trap, and that, I could never escape.
4
Voices in the Shadow
Damon
Few things in life were harder for an Alpha than the simple act of waiting. We were creatures of action, of decision, of immediate and overwhelming force. To wait went against the very core of our being.
Today, I didn’t have a choice. I waited, and I watched.
I stood before the bank of screens, each one offering a different angle of the Omega Suite. Cora hadn’t moved much since I’d left her. She was still on the floor, a portrait of despair. She hadn’t taken the news well, but then again, I hadn’t expected her to.
Perhaps some people would have rejoiced at the idea of discovering Olympian blood. The power, the wealth, theprivilege. It held an understandable allure. But Cora wasn’t like them. The only power she wanted was control over her own life. A tragic irony, given that was the one thing she’d never have.
On the screen, Cora finally lifted her face. Her skin was flushed, her eyes glazed with the first feverish haze of her oncoming heat. Still, she resisted. A part of me, the part I refused to name, was impressed. But how long would it take until she actually gave up?
