Chapter 6

Nathan had just allowed himself the smallest sigh, a fleeting moment of release in Alistair Mercer’s company. Alistair’s voice was low, steady, not the honeyed whispers of court politics but the bluntness of someone who remembered him as Nathan, not as the king’s substitute bride or the Cross family heir.

“I really regret what’s happened to you,” Alistair murmured, his sharp eyes softening for once. “If Rowan knew—”

Nathan’s throat tightened. “Rowan doesn’t.” His words clipped the air between them. “And he doesn’t need to.”

Before Alistair could answer, the shadow fell across them.

Damian.

Conversations stilled in a ripple as though the tide itself had shifted. The alpha king cut through the space with the weight of inevitability, his presence loud even in silence. He didn’t bother with courtesies; his hand brushed the small of Nathan’s back, firm enough to steer, claiming without words.

“Lord Mercer,” Damian said, voice low and velvet-dark. “I didn’t realize my consort was monopolizing your ear for so long.”

Alistair inclined his head, but there was a flicker of steel in his eyes. “His company is a rare privilege, Your Majesty. One I would not trade lightly.”

Nathan swallowed hard, sensing the taut thread about to snap between them. The bond pressed into him—Damian’s possessiveness laced with an undercurrent of something darker, sharpened by the storm of Nathan’s own grief, longing, and defiance.

“Privileged or not,” Damian murmured, leaning closer so only Nathan felt the heat of his words, “he belongs to me now.”

Nathan’s shoulders went rigid, but he didn’t flinch away. He only tilted his chin slightly higher, letting the entire court see that while Damian may have claimed him, he would not bow so easily.

Lucien, watching from the sidelines, allowed himself the barest smirk. Drama was the true lifeblood of courts—and tonight, the king’s new bride was already proving combustible.

The rest of the day passed in deceptive calm.

Nathan did not stray from Damian’s side after that—whether by choice or compulsion, even he wasn’t sure. If anyone wanted a word with him, they came to where he stood, careful to measure their tone beneath the king’s watchful eye. Nathan responded with polite sharpness, never too warm, never too cold, his restraint only adding to the allure.

Damian remained a looming shadow beside him, speaking little, but his presence alone shifted the air. Each time Nathan felt the brush of his hand at the small of his back, or the faint tug of the bond bleeding through with possessive hunger, he fought the urge to recoil. And yet, he stayed.

Across the hall, Alistair Mercer kept his distance. His earlier ease had vanished, replaced by something taut and wary. He did not look at Nathan again for long, though his jaw tightened every time their eyes almost met. The unspoken warning was clear: You’re walking a dangerous line, boy.

Nathan kept his expression neutral, but inside his thoughts churned like wildfire. He could not afford another misstep—not here, not now. Not when the court’s whispers already curled like smoke in the rafters.

By the time the last of Damian’s guests began to filter out, Nathan’s face ached from the polite mask he wore. But he had done it. He had survived. And for a man like Damian Vitale, appearances were as much a weapon as any blade.

By the time the last guest left, the estate was quiet. Too quiet. The kind that pressed in on Nathan’s chest until every breath felt heavy. He had been standing stiff all day, a perfect statue at Damian’s side, and the moment the last glass of wine was gone, he felt the mask begin to crack.

But Damian was already moving. Already watching.

The alpha closed the door to their chambers with a deliberate click, turning slowly toward Nathan. His eyes were cold, sharp with something Nathan recognized as more dangerous than rage—control.

“You spoke with Mercer for too long,” Damian said, voice low, clipped. “Long enough for whispers to crawl. Do you know what they’re saying?”

Nathan’s heart kicked, but he lifted his chin. “Rumors mean nothing to me.”

“They mean everything here,” Damian growled, stepping closer, his shadow stretching across the floor. “And if they involve you, then they involve me.”

Nathan didn’t retreat. His chest rose and fell, steady despite the tremor in his limbs. “Before you forced me to marry you, I had a life, Damian. Friends. Freedom. People I loved.”

That word struck like a blade. Damian’s jaw clenched. His hand came up fast, and the slap cracked through the room. Nathan’s head snapped sideways, pain blooming hot across his cheek as he stumbled back a step.

He steadied himself, hand trembling at his side, but his eyes—his eyes were unbroken. “You may control my will. My body. You can even cage me here in your gilded palace,” he spat, voice shaking but steady with defiance. “But you will never control my heart. I have as much right to love as you do. You cannot—”

Another slap. Harder this time. The force sent Nathan sprawling, the marble floor biting cold against his palms as he caught himself. His ears rang, vision blurring for a moment.

But even there on the ground, he turned his head and looked up at Damian through the haze of pain. His lip curled in something between a snarl and a smile. “Hit me again if it helps you sleep at night, King,” he whispered, raw and ragged. “But it won’t change the truth.”

For the first time since their bond, Damian’s composure wavered. The storm inside him raged loud enough for Nathan to feel through the half-formed tether. Rage, yes. Possessiveness, sharp as knives. But underneath—something else. Something wounded and wild.

Damian’s chest heaved, every muscle taut with the effort of holding himself together. Nathan’s words wouldn’t leave him—they rattled through the bond like broken glass, cutting, bleeding into places Damian thought long buried.

You’ll never control my heart.

The alpha’s nostrils flared. His hands curled into fists. He took a step forward, then another, until his shadow swallowed Nathan whole where he crouched on the cold marble.

“You think your heart matters?” Damian snarled, the mask of control shattering as his voice rose. “You think you can keep it from me? You are mine. Mine to command, mine to break, mine to remake as I see fit.”

He grabbed Nathan by the collar and hauled him to his feet with a violent jerk, the fabric biting into Nathan’s throat. The omega’s toes barely brushed the floor before Damian shoved him back against the nearest wall.

The impact rattled through Nathan’s bones, but still he glared back, breath ragged, blood beading at his split lip. The defiance in his eyes burned hotter for every attempt to crush it.

That defiance was gasoline on Damian’s fury. His hand came down hard on Nathan’s throat, pinning him to the wall, the alpha’s breath hot and ragged against his ear. The bond between them throbbed—anger, lust, grief, hunger all twisted into one choking current.

Nathan clawed at Damian’s wrist but refused to cry out. Instead, his voice broke through in a rasp, sharp as a blade: “Go on. Prove me right. All you’ll ever have is my body.”

Something snapped.

Damian slammed his mouth against Nathan’s in a brutal kiss, not tender but claiming, punishing, desperate. Teeth clashed, lips split. He poured his fury into it, his grip unyielding as if the force alone could sear the bond deeper, burn out Nathan’s resistance.

Through the fog of violence, Nathan’s emotions surged back into Damian—grief, longing, loathing, a stubborn ember of something else Damian couldn’t name. It hit him like a tide, staggering in its intensity, leaving his mind reeling even as his body moved on instinct, pressing Nathan harder into the wall.

For the first time in years, Damian wasn’t in control.

And that terrified him more than Nathan’s defiance ever could.

Damian wrenched his mouth from Nathan’s, breath ragged, chest heaving like a predator on the hunt. The sight of Nathan’s defiance—his head held high even as his lip bled, even as his body shook—only fed the fire roaring through him.

With a snarl, Damian spun him around and slammed him back into the wall, the crack of impact echoing through the chamber. His hands clawed at the fine fabric Nathan wore, the delicate stitching tearing under brute force. In seconds, silk and lace fell in ribbons at Nathan’s feet, leaving his body bared to the cold air and Damian’s burning gaze.

Nathan shuddered, not from shame but from fury. He pressed his palms against the wall, every muscle taut, refusing to crumble no matter how exposed he was. The bond between them pulsed like a living thing—Nathan’s humiliation and grief tangling with Damian’s feral hunger until neither could tell whose emotions belonged to whom.

“Look at you,” Damian growled against Nathan’s ear, his voice rough, edged with something between rage and desire. “Still pretending you have a choice. Still pretending your heart can stay untouched when your body betrays you every damn time.”

Nathan clenched his jaw, fighting the pull, fighting the instinctive surrender an omega’s body craved in the presence of such dominance. “You’ll never have it,” he hissed. “Not my heart. Not my soul.”

Damian’s grip on his hips tightened to bruising. “Then I’ll take everything else.”

And he did.

Nathan barely had time to brace before Damian lined himself along his entrance and thrust forward in one brutal shove, forcing his way deep in a single merciless stroke. The omega gasped, his body straining against the sudden invasion, fingers clawing against the wall for balance as Damian held him pinned in place.

The pace that followed was rough, unrelenting—each thrust a punishment, each drag of Damian’s body inside his a wordless accusation. The torn scraps of silk still clung to Nathan’s shoulders, falling piece by piece with every violent movement, until there was nothing left between them but skin and the ragged breaths Nathan couldn’t hold back.

When it was over, Damian sank his teeth once more into the scar of his earlier bite, deepening the bond until Nathan cried out, his knees buckling. The connection flared white-hot, overwhelming, dragging Nathan under the tide of Damian’s remorse, his rage, his grief, his longing.

It was too much. Too raw. Too real.

Nathan trembled violently, his vision blurring, the storm of Damian’s emotions tearing at the edges of his mind until the world went black and he collapsed, unconscious in the alpha’s arms.