Chapter 264: Can’t bear to lose you

The following awakening was much easier than the previous one. Opening my eyes, I instantly remembered falling asleep in Damian’s embrace, and cursing under my breath, I looked around. This time, I was completely alone in the ward.

He was lucky, because at that very moment I was ready to pick a serious fight with him for so brazenly taking advantage of my exhaustion and climbing into bed with me.

My head felt much lighter today, and the terrifying fog in my thoughts from yesterday was gone. My body no longer felt agonizingly heavy and weak, though a lingering soreness still ached uncomfortably in my muscles.

Sitting up in bed, I began piecing together everything the doctor and my parents had said yesterday. That was when several strange details and careless phrases suddenly stood out with stark clarity.

My parents had looked utterly exhausted, but I hadn’t noticed any signs of abuse or bruises on them. Perhaps they really had been treated well there.

Fragments of their words about my "awakening" flashed anxiously through my mind, and it seemed this had happened precisely because Damian had injected me with something.

I didn’t want to think about how this monster, driven by his twisted, possessive nature, might have injected me with some experimental drug to artificially trigger my awakening. But what other, more logical explanations could there be?

The thought that he genuinely wanted to turn me into a creature entirely dependent on him sent an icy, bone-chilling shiver through me. For such a powerful male as Damian Rainn, moral boundaries simply didn’t exist, and even in my worst nightmares, I couldn’t imagine what kind of hell awaited me by his side in the future.

"Are you awake? How do you feel?"

Snapping my head toward the voice, I saw the very male who had just consumed my darkest and heaviest thoughts.

Damian calmly walked into the ward, carrying a small tray holding a deep bowl and a goblet. The scent of food was barely noticeable, but when he set the tray down on the bedside table, I saw it held porridge and tea.

This time Damian looked somewhat better, though his dark hair was noticeably damp, as if he had just stepped out of the shower. Small wet patches on his black t-shirt, which looked otherwise impeccably clean and even ironed, confirmed my guess.

"Amelie?"

Sitting down on the chair directly across from me, the young man pinned me with a sharp, scanning gaze, studying my face as if he were desperately trying to decipher something. Then, frowning with displeasure, he abruptly stood up, crossed the room, and sat right on the edge of my bed.

I completely hadn’t anticipated such a sharp reaction from my own body, but the moment he came this terrifyingly close, it felt as though I had been scalded with boiling water.

A thick wave of heat instantly rolled through my entire body down to my core, and losing all control, I shuddered violently. His rich, intoxicating scent enveloped me completely at once, settling heavily low in my stomach and scattering like hot sparks within me.

"Yes?" I rasped, lifting an uncertain gaze to the young man.

"How do you feel?" he asked, his voice dropping dangerously low, almost tender.

Damian’s warm palm gently brushed against my face, slowly tucking a stray lock of hair behind my ear. His dark gaze was veiled with a strange, trembling tenderness—as if I were something far greater to him than a mere captive and plaything.

"Well enough to finally find out what exactly you injected into me and what the consequences are going to be," I answered as evasively as possible, fighting to keep the tremor out of my voice.

Damian froze. Pressing his lips into a hard line and closing his eyes for a fraction of a second as though wrestling with a heavy, internal burden, he slowly slid his hand down to my neck, scorching my skin.

For one fleeting, agonizing heartbeat, a wild, primal surge of instinct ripped through me—a desperate, animal craving to press my cheek against his palm.

The sensation was terrifyingly intense, clashing so violently with the white-hot fury burning in my chest that I froze like a statue, too terrified to even breathe.

Did this calculating monster truly intend to mold me into a compliant, mindless doll, pitifully begging for his touch? Was he so determined to break my will that he had dared to gamble with my very life, pumping an unknown chemical into my veins?

Whatever dark thoughts crossed my mind must have clearly mirrored on my pale face, because the Alpha abruptly jerked his hand away from my neck, clenching it into a fierce fist against his knee. Tense and rigid. Yet deep within my soul, a miserable, weeping pang of loss ached violently at the sudden withdrawal of his burning touch.

I was losing my mind. How else could I explain the sickening realization that I actually missed his heat? It felt as though a fracture was splitting my mind in two, both halves warring ruthlessly within me, tearing me apart from the inside out. If this forced awakening hadn’t completely shattered me yet, I was surely doomed.

Already, these raw, warring contradictions were shredding me to pieces—an irreversible, destructive descent.

"Amelie, don’t look at me like that. I would never hurt you, little bird," the devil murmured, leaning in so close that our breaths tangled together, his eyes searching mine with dangerous intimacy.

"Then why did you do this to me? Did you want to grind me into the dust and force me to submit, crawling at your feet and begging for your pathetic scraps of affection?" I rasped, recoiling sharply away from him. The sting of humiliation and rising tears burned hot in my eyes.

"Amelie, you probably won’t believe me right now, but I was trying to help you. I never wanted to frighten you or harm you in any way. You are the most precious thing in my life."

He leaned in closer still, and wanting to put as much distance as possible between myself and his suffocating aura, I scrambled back clumsily, tumbling against the pillow. But Damian instantly loomed over me, pressing his broad palms down on either side of my head, trapping every ounce of my attention.

"You’re lying through your teeth, Damian. Why on earth would I be the most precious thing in your life when you don’t even know me? Love at first sight? Right, like I’m going to fall for that bullshit."

"No. I’ve known you since we were children," the young man explained with infinite, gritty patience, searching frantically through the terror-widened expanse of my eyes.

"I remember everyone I ever interacted with as a child! And do you want to know why? Because nobody in that facility wanted anything to do with me! I don’t know you!"

"No. You knew me before you lost your memory."

His glacial tone practically scorched my skin. Spoken with such cruel finality, it felt as though the entire ward instantly drained of color, plunging into a ringing darkness under the weight of his mounting fury. Damian was rapidly losing control. The strange, timid flutter in his eyes withered, unfurling instead into the crimson, venomous leaves of pure, unadulterated rage.

"What?" I echoed dumbly, utterly refusing to believe the madness I was hearing.

Locking my tense gaze onto his face, I searched desperately for any trace of deceit in his eyes. Only my parents knew about my childhood memory loss—certainly not this monster. Could he have learned it from them? He easily could have.

"You lost your memory only because something vital was forcefully ripped away from you. Your pheromones. Those bastards wanted to cash in and sell them on the black market. The scum who did it simply threw you into the sea, bleeding out. They hoped you would die from blood loss, but you were saved by a miracle. And because of the severe trauma you suffered, you forgot me."

"What you injected into me back then...?" my voice cracked into a pathetic, trembling whisper.

"Yes. It was your own pheromones. You’re an Alpha Breeder, Little Bird, and without them you simply wouldn’t have survived, slowly consuming yourself from the inside out year after year. I couldn’t bear to lose you again. Not after I finally found you alive after all these damn years."