Chapter 15 Epiphany
Epiphany
Damon
Scent didn’t lie. Cora was starving.
I balanced the metal tray against my palms, rolling my shoulders against a low, insistent ache that had settled deep in my bones. Her scent reached me even through the sealed door, sharp with exhaustion and hollow with hunger.
The security scanner flashed green at my approach. The heavy door slid open and released a rush of humid air laden with ancient soil and vegetation. Even that felt too warm against my skin.
Cora hunched over the microscope, her body curved protectively around her work.
Auburn hair fell across her face in unwashed strands, tangled from where she’d repeatedly pushed it back with impatient hands.
The conservatory’s artificial light carved harsh shadows beneath her eyes, and I saw a fine tremor in her fingers as she adjusted the focus dial.
The sight sent a fresh spike of self-loathing through me.
The poison of my family’s legacy, of my own rage, had left a heavy mark on her.
“You need to eat.” I placed the tray directly beside her notes and purposely obscured the formula she’d been annotating. The words came out rougher than I’d planned, edged with an irritation I couldn’t quite control.
Her shoulders stiffened, and she straightened her spine, as if preparing for confrontation. She didn’t look up. “I’m working.”
“Your work suffers when your hands shake.” I stepped closer, close enough to catch the full impact of her scent. I tried not to let it get to me, but the shadows in the corners of the room deepened, more disobedient than they’d ever been.
Her stomach growled audibly. The sound echoed in the cavernous space, bouncing off the stone walls. She let out a slow breath, obviously exasperated by the demands of her own body.
“Fine.” She pushed the microscope away with more force than necessary. “But I don’t need you hovering.”
Plants reached toward her, vines stretching in unnatural patterns, bending away from my approach with more urgency than usual. Three empty coffee cups formed a careless semicircle around her station.
Her nest was still there, in the corner, but it lay abandoned. Untouched. It was yet another reminder of everything my utter stupidity had cost me.
I watched her movements as she picked up the fork and took a careful bite of the food I’d brought. The conservatory felt smaller with both of us inside, the air charged with unspoken tension. I couldn’t seem to stand still, moving between the workbenches while she ate, my body refusing to settle.
“Any progress?” I managed to ask.
Cora glanced up from her plate, and I caught her studying my face with a slight frown. “Not particularly. If anything, it feels like I’m going around in circles.”
The utter frustration in her voice made my heart sink. We badly needed answers, but at this point, I’d settle on anything that would get Cora to rest. But forcing her wouldn’t work. The only thing I could do right now was support her and hope for the best. “How so?”
She swallowed the last bite and pushed the empty plate away. “I’ve done countless tests at Evergreen before, but I thought that maybe I made a mistake, or I overlooked something. I checked again now… And I had an epiphany.”
Based on her tone, it wasn’t a particularly good one. “What do you mean?”
“My suppressant is efficient for regular Omegas. It worked for me, too, for years. But at the conference, it failed."
That was putting it lightly. Cora’s formula had failed so spectacularly it had almost driven her to madness. It might have, if I hadn’t given her what she needed. And it had all been Stormwright's fault.
“It failed because of Alexander.”
Simply speaking his name sent a surge of aggressive heat through my chest. Fortunately, Cora was too distracted by her own confusion to notice.
“Maybe,” Cora said, stabbing a hand through her hair. “But something about our theory is wrong.”
I crossed my arms, the fabric of my shirt straining over my chest. The low, insistent ache in my bones sharpened. “It seems simple enough to me. He’s a predator. He wanted to weaken his prey.”
“Would he?” she countered, her gaze turning inward, analyzing the man, not just the crime.
“Or would he do the smartest thing? Forcing a heat is a messy, violent tactic. It’s an act of war.
Alexander is a snake, but he’s a politician.
He uses influence, money, charm... like he did with Theo.
” Her voice trembled slightly when she mentioned her friend’s name, but she didn’t let it stop her.
“He plays the ally. He doesn’t use a club when a scalpel will do. ”
The description was infuriatingly accurate. I preferred a direct assault, but the Stormwrights had always reveled in their political poison.
A new certainty settled in her eyes. “Alexander’s reaction at the lab... I think he wasn’t angry because he got caught. He was genuinely offended at being accused of using such a crude method. He didn’t trigger my heat. The suppressant failed on its own. Just because of my Olympian blood.”
“But that makes no sense either, Cora. If that’s the case, why would he push so hard to claim you? Why would he want the suppressant in the first place?” Alexander had jumped through a lot of hoops to get to Cora. There had to be a reason.
Cora bit her lower lip. “Could he… Could he not be aware that it’s useless? Maybe—”
I shook my head, immediately cutting her off. “The moment I smelled you at the conference, I knew what was happening. Alexander is an Olympian Alpha, too. Even if he wasn’t the one to trigger the problem, he couldn’t have missed it.”
The full weight of the implication settled over her. “He knew the suppressant was useless for an Olympian, but he still tried to corner me. He still wanted something.”
The vicious beast inside me reared its ugly head. “Maybe it wasn’t about the suppressant at all. You were the one he was after.”
Cora snorted. “I’m not that special, Damon. Not as a person.”
I disagreed, but I couldn’t get a word in.
She went very still, her eyes losing focus as she continued to speak.
“At the conference… his questions. He barely asked about the formula’s efficacy.
He kept asking about the plant. ‘Is it natural, or did you accelerate the cycle?’ ‘You’re certain it’s authentic?
’ He wasn’t asking about the biochemistry. ”
Her gaze traveled toward the cluster of isolated plants across the conservatory. “It’s not the formula he wants, and it’s not me,” she said, her voice dropping, filled with a new kind of dread. “It’s the silphium.”
The plant. The miraculous, extinct herb she’d successfully cultivated through her Demeter abilities. “But why?” I moved closer, and she glanced at me again, that small frown returning. “What could he want with it?”
“I don’t know.” She pulled out older research notes, spreading them across her workspace with hands that seemed steadier than mine felt. “The historical texts I studied mention silphium extensively. It was valuable enough that it went extinct from overharvesting.”
She looked up at me, intensity burning through her exhaustion. “House Hades keeps older records. Do any of them mention silphium?”
I searched my memory for the stories my father had told me, trying to focus through the restless energy crawling under my skin.
“There are mentions of sacred plants used in ancient rituals. Old stories left behind by Orpheus and Eurydice. Offerings they made to the gods. But I’d need to access the actual records to see specifics. ”
“I only ever looked at the contraceptive aspects of the silphium.” Her hands trembled as she organized her notes. “But there was something more… I can’t quite remember. There was another reason why it was so popular.”
It was the only thing that made sense, and in hindsight, we should have both realized it much sooner. I'd been too blinded by my hatred toward Alexander to see the truth.
“If I haven't figured it out, how would Alexander?” Cora mused. “What does he know that even I don’t?”
It was a good question, and one that stirred the fire of my silent rage. “This is House Zeus we’re talking about. Somehow, they always fucking know.” The profanity came out harsher than usual, laden with more venom.
Ever since this whole mess had started, he’d always been one step ahead of me. Meanwhile, I was left cleaning up the wreckage of my own making. It was infuriating.
Had my father felt like this, whenever he dealt with House Zeus? Was this what had triggered his ultimate downfall? I wish I knew. Or… Did I?
Alexander was a ghost I couldn’t yet throttle, but he wasn’t here right now. Cora was the one in front of me. My clever, beautiful Omega, who’d figured out the answer to our dilemma.
I reached out, brushing my fingers against her cheek.
Her skin was warm, impossibly soft beneath my touch.
Her pulse jumped visibly at her throat, a frantic flutter that echoed the sudden acceleration of my own heartbeat.
She looked up, away from her prized notes, her body answering a call her mind might deny. “Damon? Are you feeling alright?”
“I feel fine,” I answered. Lied. I wasn’t fine, and I’d known it for some time. But I couldn’t bring myself to step away, to leave her alone.
“Did I ever tell you, Cora, that you’re beautiful?”
She really was. Even now, pale and tired, she was the loveliest Omega I’d ever seen in my life. Her face flushed, and she became even prettier than before. “I-I don’t think that matters right now,” she stammered.
“It matters. You matter.”
It was one of the things she’d thrown in my face in the Shadow Chamber. She’d been furious at my apparent disregard, at the way I’d dismissed the heart and soul of her life’s work. I’d made a mockery of that question then. I couldn’t ignore it any longer.
I didn’t expect her to accept my silent apology. But there was still something heavy and unspoken between us, something that nothing could ever break. She leaned into my touch, her amber eyes fixed on my face.
The pull between us intensified, a primal instinct overpowering rational thought, shattering the fragile peace of her makeshift laboratory.
Her quickened breathing mirrored my own, shallow and fast. The scent of arousal, sharp and unmistakable, hung between us.
My own had been changing all day, growing thicker, more demanding, and I could see her responding to it whether she realized it or not.
“I need you to…” she murmured, before finally trailing off.
“That’s not the best thing for you to say right now, Cora,” I admitted, my voice rougher than I’d heard it in weeks. I was barely holding back, with the memory of her still body in the Chamber being the only thing keeping me at bay.
“I don’t think I’ve done or said a lot of good things lately,” she croaked out, “and for some reason… Right now, I can’t bring myself to regret it.”
The distance between us shrank with each beat of my heart, the atmosphere heavy with the building storm of desire and revelation. All I needed to do was lean in closer, to claim what was mine. What had always been mine, since the moment I’d set eyes on her.
And then it happened.
My awareness shifted mid-breath, a flicker of something external breaking through the haze of longing.
There was movement at the western perimeter.
No alarms sounded, no electronic warnings flashed, but they didn’t need to.
The shadows knew. They sensed everything.
And what they said today was nothing short of damning.
Someone was approaching the estate.
Every muscle in my body went rigid, my protective instincts sharpening into something lethal. A cold wave spread from inside me, battling the heat that had been building, and my inner Alpha snarled in outrage.
“What is it?” Cora asked, her voice sharp with concern. “Damon, what’s wrong?”
“Someone’s coming.” I extended my senses beyond the chamber, tracking the intruder I’d sensed. My breathing was coming faster now, harder. “They just entered House Hades lands.”
I didn’t normally have the ability to feel attackers this way, but here on my turf, everything was different. This was my little piece of the underworld, and it was foolish of any Olympian to descend in it.
Someone had dared, regardless.
Cora went white. “Alexander? You don’t believe…”
The mere possibility sent rage through me so sharp it was almost blinding. If he’d dared to set foot on House Hades territory, he was more arrogant than I thought. I almost wanted the intruder to be him, just so I could tear him apart with my bare hands.
But I’d made the mistake of focusing on my dispute with Stormwright before.
I wouldn’t make it again. “It doesn’t matter.
Just know this, Cora. Whatever Alexander knows, whatever he thinks, whatever he’s guessed, it changes nothing.
Even if he came here today, it’s irrelevant. He’s not touching you.”
I wrapped my arms around her and brushed a kiss over her temple, inhaling deeply. She looked like she wanted to say something else, but I didn’t give her the chance.
Taking a step back, I cloaked myself in shadow and willed myself to follow their call. Whoever had dared violate my territory, whoever had trespassed on what was mine, was about to understand exactly how House Hades responds to threats.