The Enemy’s Mark

“Who are you?” Damian asked.

His voice sounded rough, like it scraped out of him. He didn’t really want my name. He wanted hell, I don’t even know. He wanted to make sense of whatever just shifted between us.

I couldn’t answer. My body God, my body moved on its own. My back came off the wall before I meant to, my legs carried me toward him even as my mind screamed, Stop. You don’t even know him. But the scent of Damian thick, electric filled the air, seeped right into my lungs, my blood, like maybe it was always supposed to be there.

“I don’t—” My hands shook as I raised them, pressing my palms flat against his chest. It should’ve made space, but it didn’t. My arms trembled, trying to push him away even as everything else in me wanted to close the distance. “I don’t know what’s happening to me.”

“Neither do I.”

His hand slid around my waist before he even seemed to realize. I felt his fingers clench in my shirt, his heat bleeding into me, and somewhere in my head, alarms blared. Wrong, wrong, stop. But neither of us did a thing to make it stop.

A broken sound slipped out of me almost a word, almost a plea. I leaned in anyway.

“Move,” he said. He wasn’t clear, and neither was I who needed to budge? Him? Me? God, both of us? But before he could finish, my mouth found his.

Nothing gentle about it. Not a question, just need and hunger finally breaking through. We’d fought it for what? Minutes? Years? It didn’t matter. He gripped my hair and dragged me closer. My hands balled in his shirt, pulling him to me instead of pushing him away. Somewhere, a whiskey glass on the table didn’t matter anymore. The door didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except the air between us and how fast we tried to tear it apart.

Damian kissed me again before I could pull away. Hard, desperate, trembling. He pinned me tight; my fingers clung to his shoulders. He lifted me just enough hips meeting perfectly, bodies aligning too easily. Every breath came ragged, like we were both drowning in something neither of us asked for.

“We have to stop,” I whispered, my lips barely leaving his, voice shaking. “This is wrong. We shouldn’t—”

“I know.” He pressed his forehead to mine. His hands wouldn’t let go, trailing up under my shirt, hot against my skin. “We can’t. It’s too strong.”

I tried to step back. My legs wouldn’t listen. Instead I kissed down his throat, tasting sweat and salt. Damian groaned, wrapping me closer, pushing me until my back hit the wall again.

Clothes came off fast, clumsy as hell. Shirts over heads, pants shoved down. I fumbled at his belt, the metal catching loud in the quiet room. He nearly tore his pants trying to get them off.

He lifted me like I weighed nothing, pinning me against the wall. My legs wrapped tight around his waist, all instinct. When he pressed against me already slick, already ready both of us just…shuddered. My head thumped back against the wall.

“Alpha—please, we can’t—” I gasped, even as I rocked my hips forward, betraying myself.

“I can’t stop,” Damian growled, voice rough as gravel. He pushed in slow, careful. My body stretched around him God, it hurt, but it felt so, so right. The pain faded quick, swallowed by the pleasure as he sank deeper. We fit together like two halves of something I didn’t even know was missing. Damian buried his face in my neck and breathed me in, deep. “Your scent… it’s too much. I can’t—”

I held onto him, arms tight around his neck, my fingers twisted in his hair. He moved in me, steady but aching sweet. Every thrust burned hotter, too much and not enough. His hands hooked beneath my thighs, holding me open.

“Don’t,” I tried, my voice falling apart. “I can’t—”

He kissed the words right off my lips. Slow, desperate. “I know. But I can’t pull away.”

The rhythm built up between us, growing faster, hungrier, until I started to drown in it my moans soft, swallowed up by his mouth. Damian kept control, just a little, just enough to make it last, and when I finally let go, it crashed through me so hard it left my vision white at the edges. Damian felt it, too. He lost control, buried himself deep, coming with a shudder, hips jerking through the release.

In the aftershock, Damian’s teeth grazed my throat a gentle bite, not a mark to claim, just enough to make me gasp. He licked the spot and I melted against him, boneless.

We stayed like that, pressed together and breathing hard, until he eased me down, setting my feet on the floor. For a long minute, neither of us said anything. The new mark pulsed dull and hot on my neck, a silent warning we’d never be able to forget.

We ended up on the couch, collapsed together. My chest rose and fell, off-beat. The room felt quieter than it had all night no bass, no laughter, not even voices outside. Just us, recovering, our breaths falling in time as Damian finally pulled back, stretched out and stared up at the ceiling.

I lay beside him, arm over my chest, eyes fixed on nothing. I could feel his mark throbbing, raw and undeniable. I couldn’t bring myself to touch it.

Damian sat up first. Ran a hand over his face. Exhaled hard, then turned and really looked at me, as if he was actually seeing me for the first time.

“Who are you?” he demanded again, this time sharp. “Your name.”

My throat worked. “Leon.”

“Leon,” he repeated, trying it out. He studied me, eyes tracing over my face, my throat, the mark that stood out high and dark on my skin. “Your pheromones. They’re not—” He cut himself off, jaw going hard. “I’ve been around so many omegas in heat. Nothing’s ever…like that.”

“I don’t know,” I said. Honest, plain. “I don’t understand either. I’ve never felt anything like it. Not with anyone.”

“Our heat shouldn’t have been this strong. Not just from being close.” Damian’s voice was low, flat, building a barrier between us with every word. “Who’s your family?”

I hesitated. It was only a second, but it was enough.

“De Luca,” I said at last.

The world changed in that instant.

Damian didn’t shout; he didn’t even move. I couldn’t tell you what gave it away, but something behind his eyes shifted, closed off. A door swung shut in him, silent but absolute.

“De Luca,” he said. Like an accusation.

“You’re—”

“Damian. Enemy’s son.” He didn’t ask. He said it flatly, confirming out loud what I guess we both knew.

He stood and yanked his shirt on, his expression cold as stone. The man who’d clung to me a minute ago was already gone walled off, unreachable, like he’d warned me he would be.

“Get dressed,” he said.

“Damian, I didn’t—”

“I know.” His voice stayed ice-cold. “Leave before my people find you here. And this—” he flicked a hand at the room, the couch, the mark on my neck, “—never happened.”

He was nearly to the door when I finally found my voice.

“And if it did?” I whispered. “What then?”

He didn’t look back.

“Then we’ve got a problem. One neither of our families can ever find out about.”

He left. The door shut behind him, and I sat there in the dark, finally tracing my fingers over the mark on my throat, feeling it burn like a warning one that neither of us would ever leave behind.