Chapter 4

“Strip.”

The word cracked through the room like a whip. Nathan froze. His lungs tightened, his fingers curling in the folds of his coat. For a long moment, he didn’t move.

The heavy silence amplifying every inch that closed between them. His gaze was unblinking, a blade against Nathan’s skin. When the omega still didn’t move, Damian’s voice dropped lower, colder—laced with the unshakable force of an alpha’s command.

“Strip.”

Nathan’s whole body shuddered. The command sank into him like a hook, tugging at instincts that wanted nothing more than to yield, to obey. He hated how his knees weakened, how his pulse fluttered in his throat. His pride screamed against it, but the weight of that voice was undeniable.

With shaking hands, Nathan reached for the first button of his shirt. The fabric resisted under his fumbling fingers. He exhaled slowly, unfastening one button, then another, each movement deliberate, trembling with contained fury and humiliation.

Damian didn’t move. He sat right beside him, close enough that Nathan could feel the heat radiating from his body, but he didn’t touch. He simply watched, dark eyes tracking every slip of fabric, every ragged breath.

The shirt finally sagged open, sliding from Nathan’s shoulders to the floor in a hushed whisper of cloth. Nathan’s chest rose and fell sharply, bare under Damian’s gaze, his fists clenched tight at his sides.

“You hesitate,” Damian’s voice was low, almost a purr, though it carried the weight of something far more dangerous.

Nathan swallowed, throat dry. “I’m not—” His voice cracked, and he bit down on the rest, ashamed at how weak it sounded.

Damian stepped closer, the rich scent of him—dark musk, iron, dominance—rolling like a storm. He lifted a hand, not to touch, but to hover just short of Nathan’s skin. The threat of contact was enough to make Nathan shiver.

“Do not lie to me, little omega,” Damian said, his tone edged with command though he did not release it fully this time. “You obey because I tell you to, not because you want to. And I… find I like watching you fight yourself.”

Nathan’s chest rose and fell sharply, bared to the cool air and the hotter scrutiny of Damian’s gaze.

“You see?” Damian murmured, his voice silk over steel. “Obedience suits you.”

Nathan flinched, but his chin tilted ever so slightly upward, defiance flickering in his eyes.

Damian’s lips curved—whether in amusement or warning, Nathan couldn’t tell.

“Careful,” the alpha said softly, leaning just close enough for his breath to brush Nathan’s ear. “I enjoy breaking stubborn things.”

Damian’s gaze swept over him with surgical precision, not hungry but assessing, as though Nathan were a weapon he’d just acquired and needed to measure every angle of.

Slowly, Damian lifted a hand. He didn’t grab. He didn’t force. His fingertips brushed across Nathan’s collarbone, tracing the sharp ridge of bone as if testing how easily it might snap. Nathan sucked in a breath he hadn’t meant to.

“You’re trembling,” Damian murmured, thumb grazing the hollow of Nathan’s throat. “Fear? Or anger?”

Nathan swallowed hard, his voice rough. “Both.”

Damian smiled faintly. “Good.”

The alpha’s hand slid lower, across the plane of Nathan’s chest. The touch wasn’t tender—it was calculated, deliberate—pausing here and there as if mapping nerves, watching where Nathan flinched and where he stiffened. When his thumb brushed the edge of a scar just beneath Nathan’s ribs, Damian hummed low in his throat.

“You’ve been hurt before,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

Nathan’s jaw clenched. “And I survived.”

For a moment, Damian’s dark eyes flickered—something sharp, unreadable. Then, with the same calm cruelty, he pressed a palm flat against Nathan’s bare chest, over his heart. The steady thrum of it betrayed Nathan’s defiance.

“Do you know what I hear?” Damian leaned closer, his lips brushing Nathan’s ear. “Not fear. Not surrender. Just… resistance.”

Nathan’s breath hitched, his knees threatening to buckle under the weight of Damian’s nearness. Still, he forced himself to hold steady, fists trembling at his sides.

The alpha chuckled quietly, dragging his hand down Nathan’s stomach, stopping just above the waistband of his trousers. His fingers lingered there, dangerous and deliberate, a promise without fulfillment.

“You obey me,” Damian whispered, “but you haven’t given in. Not yet.”

Nathan’s throat worked as he forced the words out. “And I won’t.”

Damian’s hand stilled. Then, slowly, he withdrew, leaving Nathan’s skin burning where he’d touched.

“Good,” the king said softly, almost reverently. “It’ll make breaking you all the sweeter.”

He stepped back at last, leaving Nathan half-bare, shaking, humiliated—but still standing.

Damian’s eyes lowered to where his hand had hovered. His jaw flexed once, as though weighing restraint against desire. Then his voice cut through the silence like a blade:

“Everything. Off.”

Nathan’s breath stuttered, but his hands stayed planted.

Damian’s expression didn’t shift. “Strip,” he commanded again, this time with the low growl of Alpha power curling through every syllable.

The invisible weight slammed down on Nathan’s shoulders. His body betrayed him—trembling, aching to obey—while his mind screamed defiance. Shaking, he reached for the buttons of his trousers. One by one, they fell away under his fumbling hands. He pushed the fabric down and stepped free, standing nearly bare before his enemy-turned-husband.

Damian took his time. His gaze raked Nathan from head to toe, deliberate and unhurried, every inch of his omega laid open under the scrutiny. “Perfect,” he murmured, though the word sounded more like ownership than admiration.

He stepped close, hand closing around Nathan’s jaw, tilting his face up. “Do you understand what happens now?”

Nathan’s lips parted. He wanted to say no. He wanted to spit in Damian’s face. But the words died in his throat, strangled by fear and something else—something far more dangerous—curling low in his stomach.

Damian didn’t wait for an answer. His mouth claimed Nathan’s in a bruising kiss, not asking, not coaxing—taking. Nathan jerked against him, fists pushing weakly at the alpha’s chest, but Damian only deepened the kiss, forcing his omega back until the backs of Nathan’s knees hit the edge of the bed.

The fall was inevitable. Damian pressed him down into the silken sheets, climbing over him with predatory grace. His hands moved with punishing precision—testing, claiming, forcing every flinch and gasp from Nathan’s body until resistance blurred into raw sensation.

When the final barrier between them was stripped away, Damian’s voice came low against Nathan’s ear, edged with both cruelty and reverence:

“You’re mine now. Mine, in every way that matters.”

Nathan’s lips trembled. He wanted to refuse. He wanted to keep some shred of himself untouched. But Damian’s body kept breaking down his resistance, dragging sounds from him he didn’t recognize as his own.

“Spread your legs.”

Nathan froze. “No—”

The Alpha command rolled over him like thunder. His body obeyed before his mind could resist, thighs parting helplessly beneath Damian’s gaze. Shame burned through him, but it was drowned beneath the heat of his blood pounding in his ears.

Damian leaned down, brushing his mouth across Nathan’s throat, teeth grazing the fragile line of his pulse. “You obey even when you hate me. That’s the beauty of it.”

Nathan shuddered as Damian’s hands moved lower, gripping his hips with bruising force. The Omega arched involuntarily, a strangled sound escaping his lips. He wanted to fight, to scream—but his body betrayed him, the forced bond flooding him with heat he couldn’t smother.

Damian’s laugh was low, dangerous. “Already reacting. Look at you.”

With ruthless efficiency, he aligned himself, pressing against the omega’s entrance. Nathan’s fingers clawed at the sheets, his whole body taut with dread and unwanted anticipation.

“Please—” he rasped, though even he wasn’t sure if it was a plea to stop or to end the torture of waiting.

Damian’s answer was a sharp thrust, pushing into him with unyielding force. Nathan cried out, the sound half-pain, half something darker, echoing through the vast chamber. Damian didn’t falter. His movements were measured, deliberate, each stroke designed to claim, to brand, to remind Nathan of exactly who held power.

“Mine,” Damian growled against his ear, punctuating each word with a deep, driving thrust. “Every… inch… of you.”

Nathan writhed beneath him, gasping, cursing, hating him—hating himself more for the way his body arched into the rhythm, traitorous and raw. Tears stung his eyes, not just from the ache but from the unbearable heat coiling tighter in his belly.

Damian caught his chin, forcing Nathan to meet his eyes. The look there was brutal, almost savage, but threaded with something unreadable. “Say it,” he demanded. “Say you’re mine.”

Nathan’s lips trembled. He wanted to refuse. He wanted to keep some shred of himself untouched. But Damian’s body kept breaking down his resistance, dragging sounds from him he didn’t recognize as his own.

When release finally tore through him, it was raw, unwilling, his cry muffled against Damian’s shoulder. Damian followed, a guttural growl ripping from his chest as he buried himself deep, every thrust final, possessive.

But he wasn’t finished.

In the haze of heat and exhaustion, Nathan barely registered the sharp press of Damian’s mouth at his throat—until teeth sank in, tearing past flesh, sinking deep into the most vulnerable place an omega owned.

Nathan screamed, arching against him, not from pleasure, not from pain alone—but from the sudden flood of something far worse.

The bond snapped into place like chains around his heart.

It wasn’t just a bite—it was a tether. His body locked around Damian’s as the mark burned hot, branding him in ways he couldn’t erase. And then it hit—an echo not his own. A tidal wave of anger, grief, betrayal, rage so black and fathomless it stole his breath.

Damian’s emotions crashed through him without warning: the bitterness of Arabella’s betrayal, the hollow ache of his own mother’s murder, the cold fury of a man who had carved an empire out of blood. It all surged into Nathan as if it were his own.

Nathan’s hands clawed at the sheets, gasping for air, shaking under the unbearable weight of it. His own hatred and grief tangled with Damian’s remorse and fury until he couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.

It was too much. Too raw. Too real. His vision blurred, his chest seized, and for one awful moment he thought his heart might stop altogether.

Damian’s lips lifted from his throat, blood and heat still wet against Nathan’s skin. His dark eyes studied the omega trembling beneath him, their new bond pulsing between them like a living thing.

“You feel it now,” Damian whispered, voice ragged but unyielding. “There’s no running away now. For either of us.”

Nathan lay there in shock, every breath a struggle, his own fury drowned beneath the flood of emotions he had never wanted to share. He hated Damian more than ever—

and yet, for the first time, he understood the depth of the man’s ruin.

Nathan jerked upright, chest heaving, still gasping from the flood of emotions that weren’t his. His body was trembling so violently the sheets tangled around his legs. All he wanted was distance. To get away from Damian. To claw out of his own skin if it meant he could sever that burning tether between them.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed, stumbling, but before his bare feet hit the floor, Damian’s hand caught his wrist.

“Stay.”

The command thrummed through the air, heavy with Alpha authority. Nathan’s whole body seized under its weight. He fought it—gods, he fought it—but the bond was too fresh, too raw. His knees buckled, collapsing him back onto the mattress.

Damian loomed above him, gaze unreadable, his own chest slick with sweat and still heaving. He didn’t touch Nathan again, but he didn’t release him either. The command held him prisoner until exhaustion broke through the shock and Nathan’s body finally gave in, pulling him down into a fitful, shuddering sleep.