Chapter 265: Losing control

(Damian, flashback)

Screams tore through the silence of the small room, followed by a wet, choking gurgle before everything went dead quiet.

Pushing open the heavy door, Damian stepped out of the freezing basement. Even though the air outside was colder, a searing heat tore through his chest—the raw heat of primal fury that consumed him whenever anyone dared lay a filthy hand on what belonged solely to him: his mate.

Pulling out a pack, he nervously lit a cigarette, hoping the nicotine might dull the burning urge to slaughter. It didn’t. Nothing worked.

"Did this one know anything?"

Matthias approached from behind, stepping beside his brother as he waited for an answer. Watching Damian shake his head, Matthias cursed under his breath. Shoving his hands into his trouser pockets, he stared thoughtfully at the black van parked nearby.

"I don’t get why the hell they ever got involved with those scumbags," Matthias muttered, pulling out his phone to check the screen.

In the upward glow of the light, his facial features sharpened, turning far more predatory. Damian shifted his heavy gaze to his brother, thinking to himself how few people truly knew this dark side of Matthias, who usually seemed calm and composed. He rarely shed his mask of rationality—mostly only when an opportunity arose to rip someone’s throat out, like right now.

"Didn’t you hear? They meant well," Damian spat viciously.

Inhaling so deeply that the cigarette burned straight to the filter in seconds, he flicked the butt aside and immediately pulled out another. He was being torn apart inside by everything happening around them. The world he had suffered so long to build was crashing down just as he had finally pieced it together from fragments.

"Their meaning well resulted in information about their daughter leaking across every dark-web site for sick perverts willing to pay a fortune for broken girls," Matthias said dryly. "What kind of sick bastard buys someone just because they’re damaged? I could understand pity, or even love at first sight—which I don’t believe in for a second—but damn it, they buy them just to break them completely. To destroy them. Other people’s pain turns those scum on."

"Scum like that need to be put down on the spot," Damian added grimly, clenching his fists until his knuckles cracked.

A deafening silence hung in the air, broken only by the heavy breathing of the two powerful males standing in the abandoned lot beside the basement. Nobody ever came here, and they were certain no one would spot them or find the body of the piece of trash who had dared slip into the guarded hospital under cover of night.

Damian’s fists still throbbed with the urge to kill the bastard all over again, even though he was already dead. Just seeing the intruder enter the room with a wheelchair, attempting to steal his mate, had sent his wolf into a complete frenzy.

Worst of all, a specific bounty had been placed on his girl on the black market. She had been spotted while with those traffickers, and some degenerate had grown interested enough to start digging for details.

What bothered Damian most was that whoever was behind it was operating with seasoned expertise, suggesting they possessed vast wealth and power.

It was becoming a dangerous problem. He had already intercepted three rogues. Each attempt was growing more sophisticated—one of the orderlies at their clinic had been murdered just so an assassin could steal his uniform and try to kidnap Amelie while she slept helpless in her bed.

None of that trio knew the client’s name or possessed any useful information. Everything had been handled through the black market, via shady intermediaries with deeply entrenched reach.

"I’m heading out."

Tossing away his unfinished cigarette, Damian spoke in a flat, heavy tone before turning and walking toward his car.

"Take a shower; you reek of blood from a mile away," Matthias called out grimly. With a casual flick of his fingers, he tossed his cigarette directly into the open doorway of the basement.

The moment the spark dropped into the dark interior, the entire space behind the Alpha flared into a blazing wall of fire.

As their father used to say: no fingerprints, no evidence. Fire was the ultimate cleaner. Besides, firefighters were never going to come out here—this basement had burned down more than once before. Matthias thought with a dark smile as he watched his brother leap into his ride and tear off across the wasteland.

Taking an ice-cold shower right there at the hospital, Damian meticulously washed away all foreign blood and the lingering scent. He scrubbed his hands in antiseptic for minutes until not a single trace remained, terrified that she might catch the odor of death on him.

Damian was already acutely aware of how terrified of him she was. Her fragile mind was constantly racing with dark thoughts, every single one clearly mirrored across her pale face.

After changing into clean clothes brought from home, he stepped out into the corridor. Heading into the kitchen, he picked up a pre-prepared tray from the table. Outside the window, dawn was already breaking.

Pushing open the ward door with his shoulder, he stepped inside to find that his Little Bird was awake and deep in thought. No doubt painting him as a terrifying monster in her mind—a beast who ate virgin hearts for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and who intended to enslave her on a chain.

No, he certainly wanted to devour her, but entirely differently than she was imagining.

At that single thought, his heart stuttered wildly in his chest. A single glance at her swollen lips was enough to make his wolf thrash against his ribs in powerful surges, threatening to shatter his control.

She smelled absolutely intoxicating. If his mind had been torn to pieces before when she barely emitted any scent at all, ever since he injected her pheromones, things had grown a thousand times worse. Literally.

Everything changed with every passing hour. Every minute, her exhausted body fought desperately to recover and make up for lost time.

Right now, he was taking heavy suppressants—the maximum dose possible. What would happen next, he was almost afraid to think. But he knew one thing with absolute certainty: he would sooner tear his own hands off than touch her the way he wanted against her will.

To win back her trust and claim her for himself, it would take an immense amount of time, effort, and restraint—endless restraint to keep from losing control, from sinking his teeth into her lips and marking her as his forever.

When she was little, her hair had been like fine golden threads curling into delicate ringlets. Now, she still resembled a fragile angel, though her spirit had grown fierce.

Smiling to himself, he admitted that he loved every bit of it. He knew he couldn’t help it; Amelie was created entirely for him, and he would love her no matter what, no matter how difficult she became. Spiteful or stubborn—he didn’t care.

He was utterly captivated by the fierce tenacity with which she defended herself. How she refused to break under pressure, fighting back with teeth, claws, and a desperate, unyielding will to protect her own ground.

He had been forced to break her down, but damn, every time he tried to do it gently, refusing to push too far. He knew how to break people, but this was the one person in the world he least wanted to break.

Rationalizing that it was for her own salvation brought no relief. The wolf inside him rejected it entirely, his chest burning with the crushing realization that cruelty—even for her own good—tore him apart. It never would have been acceptable, least of all when it involved her.

"Fate never gives you a burden you cannot bear."

His adoptive mother had once told him that. Yet every single day, he could physically feel his spine cracking under the crushing weight of this burden, barely strong enough to carry it.

Before that fateful reunion with his true mate after so many empty years, he had naively thought he was strong. That he could handle anything. But he was completely unprepared for the cruel joke fate had played on him.

All he wanted was to hold her, caress her, touch her gently, and spoil her every whim. Instead, he was forced to stand in silence and watch her weep—because of him.

There was no sound in the world more agonizing than the tremble of a voice on the verge of tears. But he swore to himself that he would never make her cry again. He would never let anyone hurt her, and he would never, ever let her go.

Stepping closer to her bed, he cast a heavy gaze over her slender figure beneath the white hospital gown. Swallowing the thick lump in his throat, he finally asked in a raspy voice:

"Are you awake? How do you feel?"