17. The Shadows Return #3
“And what does House Hades get out of this arrangement?” Argos held himself with the rigid stillness of a man who had not softened at all. “What’s your angle, Lord Blackwood?”
Damon turned to face Argos fully. The darkness spread wide around him, reaching the legs of the furniture and climbing the walls.
“My angle is that I watched House Zeus try to destroy my mate. I watched your son pursue Cora like she was property to be acquired. I watched him help Helena sever our bond. I felt my own shadows try to devour me whole while he stood by and reveled in it.”
Each word hit me like a dagger to the chest. He was right. This was karma, and I was paying the price for my past arrogance.
“I know what House Zeus does to Omegas,” Damon continued. “Andromeda Cross deserves better than to be another casualty of your House’s inability to see Omegas as people instead of prizes.”
“So this is revenge.” Argos folded his arms across his chest.
“This is justice.” Damon turned to look at me. “I’m not doing this for Lord Stormwright. I’m doing this because an Omega is suffering, and I have the power to stop it. That is what House Hades does. We protect the people your House discards.”
Robert and Elias exchanged a look. Something passed between them—years of marriage, of shared fear, of watching their daughter spiral further away from them with every passing month.
“If we agree to this,” Elias offered slowly, “what happens to the bond with Alexander? The curse?”
“It becomes irrelevant,” Elara explained. “With her Omega nature suppressed, Miss Cross won’t respond to Lord Stormwright’s presence the way she does now. The curse can’t trigger if there’s nothing to trigger it.”
“And she would feel…?”
“Like a Beta.” The darkness around Damon’s feet stilled. “No heats. No biological imperatives. No instinctive responses to Alpha dominance. Just herself, free to make her own choices without her body waging war on her.”
The room fell silent.
I looked at Robert and Elias, two fathers who had watched their daughter disappear piece by piece and had come here ready to burn down the Olympian world to get her back.
I looked at Loren Swift, House Hermes’s immaculate weapon, who was watching the proceedings with something that looked almost like approval.
I looked at my father, who was running cost-benefit calculations behind cold eyes.
And I looked at Damon Blackwood, who hated me for reasons I couldn’t dispute, as he offered to save the woman I loved.
“Helena will fight this.” Argos pressed two fingers against the bridge of his nose. “She won’t accept House Hades’ involvement.”
Loren Swift pushed off the wall where he’d been standing and adjusted his cuffs.
“Then we go to the Council. House Hermes will support the proposal. A guardian arrangement with a willing Alpha, offering concrete medical benefits, is considerably preferable to indefinite imprisonment in the Heraion.”
Damon looked at me. He wasn’t smiling, but I could feel his satisfaction regardless. “And you, Lord Stormwright? Will you fight this? Or will you help?”
I had no real claim over Andie. We hadn’t completed our bond. But for this to go forward, I had to formally give it up.
The shadows have a better chance of hiding your Omega than your lightning. That was what Zeus had told me during the ritual in Maracaibo. The whole time, my patron had known Damon was the only one who could truly help my mate.
I closed my eyes. Damon was offering her exactly what she had always wanted. Freedom from the Omega nature she had never chosen. Peace, where there had only ever been noise.
All I had to do was walk away.
“Fine.” The word tasted like ash. “I’ll renounce any claim and bring the proposal to Helena.”
Robert sagged against Elias, something breaking open in his face. Elias pressed his forehead to his husband’s temple, his own composure fracturing at the edges. Loren Swift dipped his chin once, satisfied.
My father said nothing, but his disapproval crackled across my skin like static electricity.
Damon held my gaze for a long beat and, for the first time, allowed himself to display the true hatred he felt for me. Then he turned and moved toward the darkness at the far wall, Elara falling into step beside him.
“Lord Blackwood,” I called after him. “Damon.”
He stopped. “What is it, Stormwright?”
“If I do this,” I said, “you’ll take care of her. You’ll actually help her. Not use her as a piece in whatever game you’re playing against House Zeus.”
Damon snorted. “Of course. Unlike you, I actually care about Omegas.”
Without another word, he summoned the shadows toward him and his cousin. The darkness swallowed them both.
I stood in my office while the silence stretched. Robert and Elias were already moving toward the door, Loren Swift following with quiet efficiency.
I walked to the window and looked out at the Manhattan skyline. Somewhere across an ocean, Andie lay unconscious in her mother’s temple, dreaming of nothing.
I had just given another Alpha the right to set her free.
It was the first thing I had done for her that might actually help her. It was also the last thing I would ever be able to give her.