Chapter 6 Suffocated
Suffocated
Damon
For the first time since we’d met, Cora wasn’t fighting me.
She lay sprawled across the black silk sheets, her deep, steady breathing a quiet rhythm in the stillness of the suite.
Completely bare, helpless before me, she was a vision that would have rivaled Persephone herself.
Her scent, now stripped of its frantic pheromones, wrapped around me, a silent declaration of my victory.
I remained motionless beside her, afraid the slightest movement might shatter the comfort she’d finally found. Something primal inside me recognized that she was mine now, at least for the moment.
I had expected a battle of wills, a clash of strength.
I hadn’t been prepared for the sheer desperation of her fight against her own body, the furious edge to her cries as her instinct warred with her intellect.
The memory of her, too proud to surrender but too overwhelmed to win, still coiled in my gut.
From the Shadow Realm, my father’s voice echoed one of my earliest lessons. “Patience builds the foundation of ownership. Rush the claiming, and the bond shatters like glass under pressure.”
I’d knelt before him in that dark chamber, young and eager to prove myself. “But House Hades takes what we want. Why wait?”
“Because broken Omegas serve no purpose,” he’d said. “You want surrender, not destruction. There’s a difference, boy. Learn it.”
But her years of suppressants had twisted everything. Even as impressive as her silphium-based compounds had been, their unavoidable failure had only made things worse for her.
In the end, science could only do so much. Olympian blood would always shine brighter. And as expected, I had won.
The bedside clock read 3:40 AM. Seven hours had passed since I had given her a taste of the claim, and for seven hours, there had been silence.
I let my gaze trace the faint red marks on her throat, amazed that even surface contact had worked so well.
They looked right against her pale skin, an unmistakable sign of my claim that satisfied something hungry in my chest. I imagined Stormwright’s face if he could see her now, lying in my bed, wearing my scent.
The thought sent a savage jolt of possessiveness through me. He’d seen her as a prize, a formula and a bloodline to be acquired. He would have treated her like a project, a negotiation. He wanted a trophy for his wall. He never would have survived the fire it took to claim her.
Cora shifted beside me, an unconscious movement that brought her closer instead of pulling away. Her hip brushed against my thigh, her skin soft and warm. The contact sent heat through every inch of my body, and my Alpha instincts purred in approval. Even asleep, her body sought mine.
“You actually stopped fighting,” I whispered, needing to hear the words aloud. “I didn’t think you would.”
This was what a successful claiming looked like. Not the violent submission I’d expected, but a peaceful surrender from relief. Her face had relaxed completely, the careful mask she wore finally discarded. Her fair skin glowed from satisfaction instead of fever.
Plants had grown toward us during our encounter, drawn by whatever energy successful claiming created. Delicate tendrils touched the edge of silk sheets, flowers turned in our direction like faces seeking sun. Her divine abilities responded to contentment just as powerfully as they did to distress.
“She could be happy here,” I said quietly to the plants, to the shadows, to myself. “Given time.”
Settling back against the headboard, I let the thought settle in the oppressive quiet of the suite.
For now, the predator in my chest, the part of me that always hunted, had gone quiet.
The urge to conquer had cooled, replaced by a low, steady hum, the need to stand watch.
To guard. She was mine to shelter, mine to provide for beyond the purely physical.
It was a new feeling for one who had been raised to take, not to give.
This was peace. A fragile, temporary peace, but one I hadn’t realized how much I’d craved. And it was in that quiet moment of stillness that her eyelashes fluttered against her cheek.
“It stopped hurting.”
Anyone else would have probably been relieved at the realization. Cora was, too. But another emotion lingered in her simple words, the same frustrated defiance she’d displayed earlier.
It didn’t bother me. She was stubborn, yes, but that was part of her appeal. “The temporary bond will protect you,” I told her. A part of me wanted to claim her fully, but she wasn’t ready for that. Not yet.
She took another slow, shaky breath, her gaze drifting around the room as if seeing it for the first time. “My head... It’s so quiet. Did it really work?”
Her fear was a palpable thing in the air between us. I covered her trembling hand with mine. “Of course it did,” I said, unable to keep my satisfaction from my tone. “But you already knew that it would. Didn’t you, Dr. Ellis?”
Cora bit her lower lip and shuddered. After all the research she’d done on her suppressants, her knowledge of Omega biology was probably second to none. But I had no doubt that, on some level, she’d wanted me to fail.
“This wasn’t supposed to happen. I just… I don’t understand.”
“You will, in time. Your dormant legacy is confusing you, and that’s normal. If it helps, every Olympian struggles, one way or another.”
House Hades wasn’t an outlier in that respect. Every Olympian house had their secrets and problems. Mortals just weren’t meant to have god-like powers, and the gifts we’d received came at a heavy price. But for now, Cora didn’t have to be afraid of that.
I brushed my fingers over her cheek and was gratified when she didn’t immediately pull away. “Stop thinking so hard. The bond should hold at least a week. Rest. You deserve it.”
“I don’t think I do,” she murmured. “What’s the point of everything I’ve done if…?”
She trailed off, her self-deprecating words draining the last of her strength. Her eyes drifted closed again. She slumped against my shoulder, too exhausted to stay awake.
I found myself studying her face in profile, noting details I’d been too focused to appreciate before.
The delicate arch of her eyebrows, the way her lashes twitched as she lay there, dreaming.
The small scar near her left temple that suggested childhood accident rather than violence.
She was beautiful when pain wasn’t twisting her features.
This was who she really was. Brilliant, beautiful, stronger than any Omega I’d met.
Whether she wanted to admit it or not, she’d found relief in my arms. Once she processed everything, all the pieces of the puzzle would slide into place. She’d abandon this futile battle she was fighting.
The bedside clock shifted to 3:47 AM. Cora’s breathing stuttered.
The moment felt like a string snapping taut in a silent room. The low hum of her contentment, a quiet echo in my own blood, vanished. Cora went unnervingly still, her eyes flying open to fix on some internal horror I couldn’t see.
A look of profound bewilderment washed over her face, the peaceful lines of sleep tightening into a knot. “It’s gone,” she whispered, her voice a fragile thread in the darkness. “The quiet... it’s gone.”
She turned to me, a flash of accusation burning in her eyes. “What did you do?”
It wasn’t the first time she’d blamed me for her body’s natural responses. But now, unlike before, I had no answers. “Cora? What’s… What’s going on?”
She opened her mouth, perhaps intending to reply. But her words died on her lips, and she reached for her throat, shaking. That was when I saw it. The marks of the temporary claim had begun to glow, pulsing with a venomous, angry red light.
Cora twitched, her scent suddenly turning acrid with panic. “It’s hot,” she gasped, raking her nails across her own skin. “Burning. Damon, make it stop!”
The change was so sudden, so violent, that for a moment I couldn’t process what was happening. The tentative peace she’d accepted was nowhere to be found, replaced by a need even more desperate than before. Her pheromones filled the air, making my Alpha roar in protest.
This was impossible. A temporary bond should have been stable. Not as strong as a true claiming, but still enough to the relief her body craved. It should have bought her time to recover before anything else happened. I’d never heard of the process failing, least of all this catastrophically fast.
Cora collapsed back, her body seizing in a violent, full-body convulsion. Her muscles locked, her back arching at an impossible angle. When she screamed, the sheer extent of her agony seemed to reach into my chest and claw me open.
This couldn’t be just because of her suppressants. Or… could it? Her unique, powerful formula was plant-based. Hades only knew how it must have interacted with her Demeter blood.
Maybe even now, her work was trying to fight off the bond she’d never wanted. But it was hurting her more than ever before. Her body had declared war on the bond and was trying to tear it out by the root. It was clawing Cora’s sanity out, in the process.
I reached for her, my own instincts screaming to soothe, to contain, to claim. I should have known better than to think it’d work.
She’d been leery of me even before this outburst. But she’d allowed me to get close because she’d needed it. This time, I didn’t even get the chance to touch her. A jungle erupted from the bed itself, the silk sheets shredding as thick vines punched through the mattress.
Driven by the sheer force of her distress, the plants lashed out, a writhing, mindless defense. A tendril thick as my wrist whipped through the air, its thorns tearing a deep gash across my forearm. Her power, untethered and insane with pain, was actively trying to protect her by keeping me away.
Within seconds, I couldn’t see the walls anymore. Green consumed everything, transforming the sterile suite into something feral and suffocating.
I’d known that she was immensely gifted, had seen her abilities before.
But never in my wildest dreams had I thought it would manifest like this.
Was this what my father had meant when he’d given me his cryptic warning?
Maybe, maybe not. In the end, it didn’t matter.
Nothing, not even Cora’s Olympian bloodline, would stand between us.
Darkness swelled from underneath my skin.
The shadows ripped the vines that coiled around my arms, fending off her attack.
All the while, I kept my gaze locked on Cora.
Her movements were no longer human, just the desperate, self-destructive thrashing of an animal caught in a steel trap.
Her body moved without direction, arching and twisting against anything that might provide friction.
She was lost in this new wave of heat, and I was the only one who could pull her out.
Finally tearing the last of the plants away, I lunged onto the bed and pinned her down. Her skin was impossibly hot, slick with a feverish sweat.
“Cora, be still!” I shouted, pouring every ounce of my Alpha authority into the words.
The command hit her and shattered, useless against the tidal wave of her agony. She fought me with a surge of primal strength that shouldn’t have been possible. In the wreckage of her mind, there was no room for submission. There was only pain.
It was in that moment of complete failure, as I wrestled to hold her while she broke against me, that a single, broken word slipped through the keening.
“Need...”
It was the last, desperate cry of her biology, the core instinct that remained when everything else had been burned away. It was a confirmation of everything I’d taunted her with. It brought me no satisfaction.
The temporary bond had become a cruel joke, turning what should have been mercy into torture. A single, overriding instinct roared through me, drowning out everything else: I have to keep her safe.
There was no more time for patience. Her heat’s fire had obliterated everything except a simple truth.
I was her Alpha, and Cora my Omega. That was the only thing that could help her now.