Chapter 4

DAMIEN

I could feel the handle pressed against my side, the cheap metal trembling slightly with every breath I dragged into my lungs, and beneath it, beneath the torn flesh and the blood soaking through my shirt, something inside my body was fighting a battle it had never once lost.

My healing had begun the moment the blade entered.

It had failed before the pain even reached its worst.

That was impossible.

I had been cut open in war, bitten by creatures that no longer existed, burned beneath silver fire, and left bleeding in places where ordinary men would have died before anyone found them. My body had always repaired itself. Sometimes slowly, sometimes painfully, but it had repaired itself.

Always.

Yet this wound remained open beneath my hand, pulsing with a vicious heat that spread through my ribs and into my chest.

Ava stood in front of me, staring at the blood.

She looked like she wanted to run.

Good. That was sensible. She should run. She should take her bag, find the nearest lift, leave the hotel, leave the city, and never come near me again.

The thought made my wolf bare its teeth.

I ignored it.

The wolf had been a nuisance since last night, a restless animal throwing itself against my control whenever Ava moved, breathed, touched me, or looked at me with those sharp, unimpressed eyes. I had blamed the sex. I had blamed the scent of her skin, the heat of her body, the fact that I had not wanted the night to end even after she had fallen asleep beside me.

I had blamed everything except the truth.

Now the truth stood in front of me with blood on her hand.

My mate.

No.

The word rose in my mind and I crushed it immediately.

No.

Ava Monroe was human.

I knew what humans were. Fragile bodies, short lives, soft throats, bones that broke too easily and hearts that stopped without warning. They were temporary things. They entered the world, made noise, desired foolishness, and disappeared before the people who loved them had finished mourning.

They were not mates.

Not mine.

Not after three hundred and forty-seven years of surviving every weakness the world had offered me.

My wolf slammed against my ribs.

Mine.

The wound tore wider.

A sharp breath escaped me before I could stop it.

Ava flinched.

“You're getting worse,” she said, and there was panic under the irritation she was trying to maintain. “You need to let me get someone in here before you bleed all over the damn floor.”

I looked at the knife.

Then at her.

“You did this.”

Her face tightened.

“I know I did, but I didn't expect you to start falling apart over a shallow stab wound.”

Shallow. The word lodged under my skin.

She had barely driven the blade into me. It had not reached anything vital. It had not gone deep enough to damage my organs, and yet my body was behaving as if she had torn me open from the inside.

I pressed harder against the wound. The flesh shifted beneath my palm.

My healing tried again. The edges pulled together. For one breath, I felt the familiar warmth of repair.

Then the wound split open with a fresh rush of blood.

I bent forward. Ava caught my shoulder before I could stop her.

Her touch burned through me.

My wolf surged so violently that my vision blurred.

I seized her wrist.

She gasped.

“Don't grab me like that.”

I should have released her.

Instead, I pulled her closer, because the moment her hand touched me, every instinct I possessed had turned toward her. Her scent filled my lungs. Her heartbeat struck against the air between us. The mark on her neck seemed to answer something beneath my skin.

The bite.

I remembered it now, When my control had slipped and the need to sink my teeth into her had become unbearable. I had thought it was hunger. I had thought it was lust sharpened by the night, by her mouth, by the way she had looked at me as though I were no different from every other man who had paid for her company.

I had bitten her. I had marked her.

And my wolf had known exactly what I had refused to see.

Ava tried to pull away.

My fingers closed more tightly around her wrist.

“Damien, you're hurting me.”

The words reached me through the pain.

I loosened my grip, but I did not let go.

She looked down at my hand, then up at my face, and I saw the calculation beginning behind her eyes. She was measuring the distance to the door again. Measuring me. Measuring how much strength I had left.

She believed I was weak.

She was right.

That thought was unacceptable.

I had spent centuries making men fear the sound of my name. I had built empires under identities that were eventually buried with the people who had known them. I had watched generations rise and vanish while my face remained unchanged.

A human woman had put a knife into my side, and now I was kneeling in front of her, bleeding through my clothes while my body refused to heal.

I would not accept it.

I forced myself upright.

Pain ripped through my side so fiercely that the room tilted, but I kept my hold on Ava and dragged myself higher. My knee remained on the floor. My other leg shook beneath me.

Ava's eyes widened.

“Stop trying to stand, you absolute idiot. You're going to make it worse.”

“I am not taking orders from you.”

“You are bleeding because of me, and you're still trying to act like some fucking king.”

I looked at her. The insult should have angered me.

Instead, I found myself watching her mouth.

That mouth had been against mine only hours ago. It had spoken filthy things against my skin, laughed when I tried to control the pace, and told me exactly what she wanted without once pretending she needed tenderness from me.

She had come to my bed for money.

She had taken it without shame.

A whore, the world would call her.

My wolf wanted her closer.

I wanted her closer.

I hated the distinction.

“Why isn't it worsening?” she demanded.

I looked down at the wound.

“I don't know.”

The admission tasted foul.

Ava stared at me.

“You don't know?”

“I said I don't know.”

“Then stop acting like you have everything under control, because you look like shit and you're still refusing help.”

My vision blurred again.

I heard the blood before I felt it, a thick drop striking the floor between us.

Then another.

The pain had moved beyond my side. It was inside my bones now, crawling through my chest, tightening around my lungs. My wolf was no longer pacing.

It was panicking.

That was worse than the pain.

A wolf did not panic.

An Alpha did not panic.

I forced my breathing into order, but my body betrayed me with another cough. Blood filled my mouth. I turned my head and spat it onto the floor.

Ava recoiled.

“That's not normal.”

“No.”

The word came out low.

She looked toward the door.

I felt her preparing to move before she actually did.

My hand caught her waist.

She jerked violently.

“Damien, what the hell are you doing?”

“Stay.”

The command left my mouth before I could soften it.

Her eyes flashed.

“You don't get to order me around after trapping me in this room and bleeding on me.”

I pulled her down beside me.

She fought immediately, pushing at my shoulder, trying to wrench herself out of my hold. I could have stopped her easily under ordinary circumstances.

These were not ordinary circumstances.

Every movement tore the wound open.

Every struggle made the pain worse.

Still, I wrapped one arm around her waist and held her against me.

Her body fit against mine with an accuracy that made denial almost impossible.

My wolf went still.

Ava froze when she felt the blood soaking into her clothes.

“Damien, you're getting blood on me.”

“I know.”

“You need to let me go.”

“No.”

Her breath shook against my neck.

“Why are you doing this? I tried to leave, and you blocked the door. I picked up a knife, and you still stood there like nothing could happen. Now you're bleeding like I've done something insane, and you're holding me here as if I'm the one who needs to be restrained.”

I closed my eyes.

The mark on her neck burned.

My wound opened again.

Ava cried out when my arm tightened around her.

I felt the sound move through her body.

Mine, my wolf insisted.

I rejected it.

Human.

The rejection struck through me like another blade.

My breath caught. Ava lifted her head.

“Damien?”

I opened my eyes.

She was close enough that I could see the pulse beating in her throat, close enough to smell the blood beneath her skin, close enough to know that if I released her now, she would be gone before I could reach the door.

A knock sounded from outside.

“Sir, are you all right in there?”

Ava turned toward the door. My hold tightened.

The footsteps came closer. The handle moved.

I felt the mark on her neck flare hot beneath her hair.

My wound opened wider.

Blood spilled over both of us.

Then my wolf spoke inside my head with a certainty that left no room for argument.

If anyone takes her from you, kill them.