Chapter 5

When he woke, the room was dark but quiet. The sheets beside him were cold. Damian was gone.

Nathan sat up slowly, every muscle aching, his throat raw where the bite throbbed like a second heartbeat. Shame burned hotter than any wound. He stumbled to the bathroom, scrubbing his body until his skin was raw, until there was no trace—no scent, no evidence—of Damian Vitale on him.

Fresh, but still shaking, Nathan padded back into the room and moved toward the wardrobe, desperate for something clean to cover himself with.

The moment he opened the door, he froze.

It wasn’t a wardrobe. It was a world.

The built-in chamber stretched so deep it felt like stepping into another room—bigger even than his bedroom back home. And Nathan’s room had been enormous, carved out for heirs and appearances. Yet what stunned him wasn’t the size.

It was the contents.

Racks of gowns in silks and velvets, tailored suits in every cut imaginable, shelves stacked with jewelry that glittered even in the dim light. Scarves, gloves, perfumes—every piece exquisitely curated. But Nathan didn’t need to study the details to know the truth.

He recognized the style. The cut. The exact shade of pale lilac that Arabella had once worn at a winter ball. The white fur stole she had begged their father for last autumn. The emerald pendant she had shown off at dinner with a smirk.

Every item in this wardrobe belonged to Arabella’s world. Her taste. Her desires. Her ghost.

Nathan’s stomach dropped. His fingers hovered above a sequined gown, trembling, before he yanked his hand back as if burned.

Even here—especially here—he was nothing more than a shadow filling her place.

Nathan’s fingers dug into the wardrobe’s golden handle as he stood there, bare but for a towel. The longer he stared at the ghost of his sister woven into silks and velvets, the deeper the bile rose in his throat.

Damn her.

Arabella, selfish enough to vanish and leave her blood in her place.

Damn them.

His parents, so desperate to protect their own reputations that they shoved him toward a predator’s altar.

And damn himself most of all—for not running, for not fighting harder, for standing here trembling in a cage dressed in someone else’s finery.

He hated the way his chest ached, the way the bite still throbbed, the way his body remembered what had been done to it. He pressed his palms against his temples, trying to banish the storm before it crushed him whole.

He didn’t hear the door open.

Didn’t hear the footsteps.

Only when a hand reached past him did he start, jerking back. Damian stood at his side, expression unreadable as he plucked a delicate silk nightgown from the rack. The fabric gleamed pale blue in the dim light, soft as breath. He held it out, almost casually, as though the gesture cost him nothing.

Nathan’s throat locked. For one awful heartbeat he thought he might break. Then his jaw set. He snatched the gown, turned, and flung it back into the wardrobe. The door shut with a final click.

Without a word, Nathan padded past Damian, shoulders stiff, towel trailing damp against his thighs. He bent, picked up the shirt he had abandoned hours before, and tugged it on, the familiar cotton clinging to his still-damp skin.

The silence was suffocating. Nathan refused to meet Damian’s eyes as he straightened, his chest heaving, as though pulling that shirt on could shield him from the gilded cage he’d stepped into.

Damian’s chuckle was low, dangerous, curling through the silence like smoke.

“Dramatic, aren’t you?” he drawled, eyes flicking to the closed wardrobe door. “As if slamming it shut changes anything. You can curse her, curse me, curse your whole damned bloodline… but the bond makes running pointless.”

Nathan’s grip tightened at his sides, knuckles white, but he didn’t move. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t lift his gaze. His silence was his only weapon.

Damian took a step closer. Then another. The air thickened with the weight of his presence, Alpha power pressing down like a storm. Still Nathan held his ground, his damp hair clinging to his face, his shirt plastered against his skin. He didn’t look at Damian, but he didn’t back away either.

“Relax,” Damian murmured, voice silk and steel all at once. “I’ll have everything in there removed. Every dress, every trinket. Replaced with your style.”

Nathan’s head snapped up, eyes wide. The words stunned him—unexpected, impossible. For a fraction of a second, he saw a version of Damian he hadn’t imagined: a man who could bend, who could yield.

But then Damian’s lips curved into a slow, cutting smirk.

“Only if you behave.”

The words hung heavy between them, twisting any flicker of hope into a fresh kind of chain. Damian lingered just long enough for Nathan to feel the trap, then turned and strode toward the door.

The lock clicked softly as it shut behind him, leaving Nathan alone in the gilded cage once more.

The next morinig was rushed. Nathan only had a few hours of sleep.

Nathan woke to the rustle of fabric and hushed voices. The maids had entered, already laying garments across the bed—delicate silks, embroidered tunics, colors that shimmered too softly for his taste. Arabella’s taste. His jaw clenched.

“His Majesty requests you be ready,” one of them murmured, bowing her head.

He wanted to scoff, to push the pile of finery away, but now was not the time. Not when the king’s court would be watching his every move. This morning was not about rebellion—it was about survival. About studying the faces in Damian’s inner circle, learning who whispered where, who held the strings of loyalty. To do that, he had to be presentable. Sharp. Polite.

So he dressed. The silks clung too smoothly, the fabrics making his frame feel exaggerated, but perhaps that was to his advantage. When he finally descended the grand staircase, the low murmur of voices below dimmed into silence.

Damian stood in the center of a cluster of lords and advisers, speaking easily, one hand curled around a goblet. But the moment Nathan appeared, every gaze shifted.

He was not what they expected. Not cute, not small, not delicate. Nathan’s body was a rebellion in itself—broad shoulders, a frame that carried muscle with the ease of a trained fighter, not the fragile grace of a pampered omega. The soft fabrics draped over him only heightened the contrast, making the lines of his body look sharper, more dangerous, while still undeniably refined.

He did not need to smile. He did not need to simper. He walked down with measured steps, each one deliberate, controlled. Gorgeous—that word had always followed the Cross siblings, whispered in salons and written in court gossip. But here, now, it was a weapon. Nathan wasn’t just beautiful. He was striking. Arresting. A living reminder that the Cross name still carried a kind of cruel glory.

Even Damian paused, eyes narrowing, not in displeasure but in something colder. Calculating.

Nathan inclined his head politely as if the silence didn’t cling to him like a cloak. “Your Majesty,” he greeted, his voice calm, refined, practiced. Then he turned to the gathered lords, his lips curving just enough. “My lords.”

And just like that, the hall breathed again—but slower, heavier, as though everyone was suddenly aware that the king’s omega was nothing like the ones they had imagined.

The pause after his entrance stretched only a breath too long before conversation picked up again—thinner, cautious, but no less attentive. Damian resumed speaking, though his eyes followed Nathan as if testing how the omega would carry himself.

Nathan slipped into the circle with practiced grace, bowing just deeply enough to honor the men without lowering himself.

“Gentlemen,” he said smoothly, “I trust the night’s revels haven’t left you too weary for a morning of courtesy.”

The remark earned a ripple of polite chuckles. A safe line, but edged—it reminded them he had been watching, too.

Lord Vescari, an older beta with silver at his temples, inclined his head. “We expected fragility from the Cross omega. We see instead… steel.”

Nathan’s lips curved faintly. “Steel bends if tempered wrong. Fragility breaks. I’d prefer to endure.” His tone was airy, conversational, but the words hung like a challenge.

Damian’s smirk ghosted at the corner of his mouth.

Another lord, younger, sharper, tilted his goblet. “And do you endure, my lord, willingly?”

Nathan met his eyes with calm precision. “Do any of us? Willingness is a matter of perspective. I was raised to uphold my family’s legacy. Today, that means upholding the king’s.”

It was brilliant—an answer that acknowledged duty without yielding his own identity, threading loyalty to Damian while reminding everyone of his bloodline.

Whispers circled. Some approving, some skeptical. But no one dismissed him now.

Damian stepped closer, laying a hand on the small of Nathan’s back. Possessive. Claiming. Nathan didn’t flinch—he simply continued speaking, asking after the lord’s estates, complimenting another’s business acumen. Every exchange carried a balance: humility tempered by quiet wit, deference laced with undeniable confidence.

By the time the music began and servants carried in trays of wine and fruit, Nathan was no longer the curiosity in silks. He was a presence. Something to be accounted for.

Damian, watching from the edge of the room, was more surprised than anyone. The omega he had expected to sulk and lash out instead moved like a diplomat born, disarming whispers with clever turns, forcing even his enemies to admire him.

For the first time since binding Nathan, Damian’s grip on his goblet tightened with something he hadn’t anticipated.

Respect.

And yet, through the bond, Damian felt the storm beneath the surface. Rage coiled. Hatred burned. Despair lingered like smoke. Nathan’s composure was a mask—but oh, what a mask.

It made Damian smirk, faint and dangerous. Perhaps his little omega was going to be more interesting than he thought.

Among the glittering company, Nathan’s gaze caught on a man standing slightly apart—Lord Alistair Mercer. Alistair had the kind of presence that drew attention without seeking it: tall, composed, his dark eyes watchful in a way that made lesser nobles shuffle their feet.

Nathan, after making his rounds, drifted toward him like water finding its course. It was subtle enough not to raise suspicion, but deliberate enough that by the time they stood face-to-face, there was a faint spark of recognition in Alistair’s eyes.

“My lord Cross,” Alistair said with a bow. “Or should I say Vitale now?”

Nathan’s lips twitched. “For formality’s sake, Cross still serves.”

They shared a long silence before Alistair lowered his voice, the noise of the gathering fading around them. “I know… what happened to you. And though words mean little now, I regret it more than I can say. My brother—” he paused, swallowing against the weight of the name. “Rowan still doesn’t know. He’s abroad. Has been for months. When the news reaches him—if it hasn’t already—”

Nathan’s chest tightened. He angled his goblet to his lips, hiding his expression in the glass. “Rowan always thought the world kinder than it is. Perhaps it’s better if he never learns.”

Alistair’s jaw worked. “He would come back. You know he would. No matter the cost.”

Nathan forced a polite smile, though his fingers clenched the stem of his goblet. “Then perhaps it’s best he stays away.”

Their conversation lingered, circling memories too dangerous to be named outright, until the air around them grew thick with unspoken history.

Across the hall, Lucien leaned close to Damian, voice pitched for his ears alone. “Interesting. Nathan and Lord Mercer, talking as if the rest of us do not exist. Did you know there were whispers, once? Very faint. Very few. About Nathan and a certain Rowan Mercer. Nothing ever confirmed, of course.”

Damian’s eyes narrowed on Nathan, who laughed softly at something Alistair said, though the laugh carried the sharpness of glass.

“Rowan Mercer?” Damian echoed, his tone half a scoff. “The outcast. The whelp disowned by his own blood.”

Lucien shrugged one shoulder. “Disowned, yes. Forgotten? Hardly. And yet…” He let the sentence hang like smoke.

Damian’s hand flexed around his goblet. Nathan Cross—so proud, so stubborn, so defiant—tangled up in a secret romance with a disgraced man? It scraped against everything Damian believed of him.

And yet the way Nathan stood close to Alistair Mercer, unflinching, utterly self-possessed, told Damian there was something more dangerous than rumor there.

Something he did not yet understand.

Damian’s gaze never left Nathan as he lingered with Alistair Mercer. On the surface, Nathan played the dutiful consort well—his posture measured, his smile polite, his words careful. But through the tenuous thread of their bond, something else bled into Damian’s chest.

It was faint, indistinct—like trying to catch a reflection in rippling water—but powerful enough to unsettle him. Grief. Longing. Admiration. They tangled together, sharp and tender in ways that made no sense, pressing against his mind until he couldn’t tell where one feeling ended and the next began.

For the briefest moment, it left him off-balance, his focus pulled thin. His jaw tightened, his fingers flexing against the stem of his glass as though he could crush the fog invading his thoughts.

Lucien’s voice slid in at his ear. “See the way Lord Mercer leans in? They speak as men with unfinished business.”

Damian hummed low, though the sound lacked conviction. His eyes narrowed further, fixed on the sight of Nathan tilting his head to listen, expression caught between composure and something more fragile.

The bond wasn’t fully sealed—not without Nathan’s answering bite—and yet already it betrayed fragments of his heart. Raw, tangled, utterly consuming.

Damian’s lip curled, half in disdain, half in something he refused to name. What else are you hiding from me, omega? And why does it feel like I’m the one burning for answers?