Chapter 6 #14
Omega’s hands, now. Marked with faint silver veins from his claiming that will never fully fade.
I could use the crystal. I could wash away those marks, break the bond, return to the woman I was before.
But that woman was exhausted. Alone. Running on fumes and stubbornness because there was no other option.
That woman dreamed of being saved and told herself it was weakness.
That woman would have died defending a village that never really loved her, carrying a legacy left by parents who never really saw her.
This woman—the one Karax created, the one who knelt at his feet and called him Alpha, the one who drew blood from an undefeated champion—this woman has options.
And she’s going to choose.
Not because the bond compels her. Not because she has nowhere else to go. Not because he manufactured her need so effectively that she can’t imagine life without him.
Because somewhere in the wreckage of what he did, something real began. Something that might be love, or might become love, or might be the closest thing to love she’s ever going to get.
And she’d rather have that—complicated and dark and built on corrupted soil—than the cold, clean emptiness of freedom.
The inn is quiet when I push through the door.
The innkeeper nearly drops the tray she’s carrying—not because of me, but because of the eight-foot Fae lord sitting at a corner table, hunched over a mug of ale like a man awaiting execution.
He looks… diminished, somehow. Still massive, still powerful, but hollowed out.
Like he’s been awake all night preparing for the worst.
He has been. I felt it through the bond.
He looks up when I enter. His golden eyes find mine across the room, and I see everything in them—hope and fear warring for dominance, desperation and something raw tangled so tightly they might be the same thing.
My heart clenches. This is the monster who stole my life. This is also the only person who ever really saw me.
Both things are true. I have to hold them both.
“I stayed up all night,” I tell him.
“I know.” He gestures vaguely to his chest, where the bond connects us. “I felt it.”
“I thought about using the crystal.” I walk toward him slowly, aware of every eye in the common room following my progress. Let them watch. Let them see. “I thought about breaking the bond and walking away. About pretending the last months never happened and rebuilding my life without you in it.”
His jaw tightens, but he doesn’t speak. He’s given me this choice freely; he won’t try to influence it now.
“I thought about my parents.” I stop a few feet from his table. “About how they never really saw me. About how I spent my whole life waiting for someone to notice I existed, and how you noticed—you noticed before anyone else, before I was even old enough to understand what loneliness felt like.”
“Hannah—”
“I thought about how that should make it worse.” My voice cracks. “You saw a lonely child and you used that loneliness against her. You watched me ache for attention and you made sure no one else would give it to me. That’s monstrous, Karax. That’s unforgivable.”
He flinches, but doesn’t look away. “I know.”
“But I also thought about how it felt when you finally gave me what I’d been waiting for.
” I step closer, close enough to feel the heat radiating from his body.
“How it felt to be seen. To be held. To have someone strong enough to carry me for once, instead of the other way around. And I thought… I thought about whether that feeling was real, or whether you manufactured it too.”
“I didn’t—” He stops. Swallows. “I manufactured the circumstances. I didn’t manufacture what I feel.”
“I know.” I reach into my pocket and pull out the crystal. It pulses in my palm, warm with the magic that could set me free. “I can feel it through the bond. Whatever this is between us—it’s not just conditioning. It’s not just biology. There’s something real underneath all the lies.”
“Is that enough?”
The question hangs between us.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “I don’t know if it’s enough. I don’t know if I can ever forgive you for what you did. I don’t know if what I’m feeling is love or just… the beginning of something that might become love if I let it.”
I set the crystal on the table between us.
“But I know I don’t want to use this.”
He stops breathing. I feel it through the bond—his heart stuttering, his lungs freezing, his whole being suspended in disbelief.
“You took my choice away for sixteen years,” I continue. “You engineered my circumstances, manipulated my isolation, manufactured my need. Everything that led me to your arena was designed to make sure I had no other options.”
“I know—”
“But you forgot something.” I step closer, close enough to touch.
“You made me strong. You made me a survivor. You made me someone who could face an undefeated champion and draw his blood.” I tilt my head back, meeting his eyes.
“And that woman—the one you spent sixteen years creating—she’s choosing to stay.
Not because she has to. Because she wants to see what this feeling becomes. ”
“Even knowing what I am?”
“You’re a monster.” I don’t flinch from the word. “You’re also the only person who ever saw me. Both things are true. I’m choosing to hold them both.”
He reaches out, his massive hand hovering near my face like he’s afraid to touch me. “I don’t deserve this.”
“No. You don’t.” I close the distance, pressing my cheek into his palm.
His skin is warm, rough, trembling. “But I’m not doing this because you deserve it.
I’m doing it because I want to. Because somewhere underneath all the rage and betrayal, there’s something growing. Something that might be love.”
“Might be?”
“I don’t know what love is supposed to feel like.
” I turn my head, pressing a kiss to his palm.
“My parents didn’t teach me. The village didn’t teach me.
Everything I know about love I learned from stolen books and desperate dreams.” I look up at him.
“But I think this might be the beginning of it. And I want to find out.”
He pulls me into his arms—carefully, reverently, like he’s afraid I’ll shatter or disappear. He lifts me off my feet, pulling me against his chest, and I feel his heart pounding against my cheek. Feel the bond between us singing with relief and something that might finally be hope.
“I’ll spend the rest of my life earning this,” he murmurs against my hair. “Every day. Every moment. I’ll spend centuries proving I’m worthy of what you’re giving me.”
“I don’t forgive you,” I say against his chest. “I may never forgive you. What you did is unforgivable.”
“I know.”
“But I’m choosing you anyway.” I pull back enough to look at his face—ancient, bronze, streaked with tears he’s not bothering to hide. “I’m choosing to build something real with you, even though it started with lies. I’m choosing to see where this goes.”
“Even if it’s dark?”
“Everything about us is dark.” I smile, and it feels strange on my face—fragile, uncertain, but real. “Maybe that’s okay. Maybe love doesn’t have to be clean and bright. Maybe it can grow in shadows too.”
He kisses me then—soft, trembling, nothing like the desperate claiming of the heat. This is something else. Something new.
Something that might be the beginning of everything.
When we break apart, the whole common room is staring at us. I’d forgotten they were there.
“Take me somewhere private,” I say. “We have a lot to figure out.”
He doesn’t need to be told twice. Chapter 26: Karax
She chose me.
The reality of it doesn’t sink in immediately.
I hold her in my arms—this fierce, impossible woman who should hate me, who has every right to hate me—and I wait for her to change her mind.
Wait for her to realize that keeping the crystal was a mistake, that she could still use it, that walking away would be the sane choice.
She doesn’t walk away.
Instead, she looks up at me with those gray eyes and says, “Take me somewhere private. We have a lot to figure out.”
The inn doesn’t have rooms large enough for an eight-foot Fae lord, but it has a barn. We spread blankets on the hay, and I laugh at the absurdity of it—the Guardian of Stone Court, about to claim his omega in a human stable.
“What’s funny?” she asks, pulling off her boots.
“Nothing.” I reach for her, drawing her against my chest. “Everything. I never imagined this moment happening in a barn.”
“Life is full of surprises.” She rises on her toes and kisses me, and all the laughter dies in my throat.
This is different from the claiming during her heat.
There’s no biological imperative driving us, no desperate need burning through her blood. She’s here because she chose to be. Because she looked at everything I did—all the manipulation, all the isolation, all the manufactured desperation—and decided to stay anyway.
I don’t deserve it.
I’m going to spend the rest of my existence trying to.
I undress her slowly, reverently, pressing kisses to every inch of skin I reveal.
Her shirt first—unlacing it with fingers that tremble despite seven centuries of steadiness. The fabric falls away and I press my lips to her collarbone, feeling her pulse flutter beneath my mouth. She shivers, and I feel the echo of it through the bond. Not fear. Anticipation.
“You’re shaking,” she murmurs.
“I know.” I don’t try to hide it. “I’ve spent seven hundred years being certain of everything. Right now I’m not certain of anything except that I don’t want to wake up and find this was a dream.”
She takes my face in her hands and pulls me down to her level. “It’s not a dream. I’m here. I chose this.”
I kiss her again, deeper this time, and my hands find the laces of her trousers.
The leather slides down her hips and I follow it with my mouth—kissing her stomach, her hip bones, the sensitive skin of her inner thighs. She’s trembling now too, her fingers tangled in my hair, her breath coming in short gasps.