“Stay right there.”

I stared at Damien.

My neck was still throbbing from the bite, my thighs hurt every time I shifted my weight, and there was an unpleasant ache between my legs that made me regret every single decision I had made after accepting his money.

Stay right there?

Seriously?

I looked at the door, then at him, then back at the door, because perhaps the man had forgotten that I was not one of the expensive decorations in his ridiculous suite.

“Are you actually hearing yourself?” I asked, dragging my bag higher onto my shoulder. “You paid for one night, Damien, not the rest of my morning, and unless the money came with a hidden clause saying I have to stand here until you finish having a nervous breakdown, I’m leaving.”

His eyes moved briefly to my neck. That stupid mark was still burning.

I had tried to ignore it while dressing, but every movement pulled at the bruised skin beneath my jaw. It was not unbearable, but it was irritating enough to keep reminding me that the man had bitten me like an animal and then looked at the wound as if I had walked into the room carrying a severed head.

He got out of bed. Even half-naked, with his hair messy and his chest marked by the scratches I had left on him, Damien still looked annoyingly put together. There was no awkwardness, no morning-after confusion, no searching for his clothes while pretending not to remember what happened.

He simply stood there and looked at me.

“Move,” I said.

He did not.

Instead, he glanced toward the door, then back at me.

“You should stay here.”

I laughed, but it came out dry because my throat was sore. “You should try saying something that makes sense, because I’m beginning to think the money has damaged your brain.”

His jaw tightened.

There it was again. That look.

Like he was trying very hard not to lose his temper, except I had no idea what I had done to deserve the performance. I had taken the money, slept with him, and was leaving. That was how these things worked. Men paid. Women left. Nobody made a fucking tragedy out of it unless somebody had been stupid enough to expect romance.

“I have somewhere to be,” I told him, walking toward the door.

My legs complained immediately.

A sharp ache ran up my thighs, and I slowed for half a second, annoyed that my body had decided to betray me in front of him. Damien noticed. His eyes dropped to the way I moved, and something dark crossed his face.

Not sympathy but more like displeasure.

As if he did not like the idea that I was hurting.

Well, he should have considered that before spending half the night trying to knock the breath out of me.

“I can barely walk because of you,” I snapped, though the words came out more breathless than angry. “So unless you’re planning to carry me downstairs and explain to everyone why I look like I’ve been dragged through a war, get out of my way.”

His gaze returned to my neck.

I touched it without thinking, and his whole body went rigid. Then I immediately lowered my hand.

“Stop looking at me like that,” I said, my irritation climbing. “You bit me, unless you somehow managed to forget the entire night while you were busy acting possessed.”

His eyes narrowed slightly.

“Possessed?”

“Don’t start picking at one word when you know exactly what I mean.” I took another step toward the door, forcing myself not to limp. “You were normal enough when I came upstairs, and now you’re standing between me and the exit like some rich, emotionally constipated prison guard.”

Damien moved before I could reach the handle.

He crossed the space between us in two long strides and placed himself directly in front of the door.

I stopped so quickly that my bag swung against my hip.

The room seemed to shrink around him.

He was taller than me by enough to be irritating, broad enough to block the entire doorway without even trying, and close enough that I could feel the heat coming off his skin. His scent filled my nose, clean and dark and annoyingly familiar after a night spent with my face pressed against him.

My body reacted before my temper could catch up.

A weak shiver moved through me.

“Are you fucking serious?” I asked, looking up at him. “You’re blocking the door now?”

“You’re not leaving.”

I stared at him, then glanced toward the door as if it might suddenly open out of pity.

“Excuse me?”

His expression did not change.

I gave a short, disbelieving laugh, though my neck hurt when I tilted my head. “You’re going to have to try that again, because I don’t think you understand how ridiculous you sound right now. You paid for my company, Damien, and the night is over, which means I get dressed, collect my things, and walk out. That is the part where you stop pretending this is some grand arrangement and remember that I am not your girlfriend.”

Something flickered in his eyes.

“Your girlfriend?”

“Don’t be dense. You know exactly what I’m saying.” I shifted my bag from one shoulder to the other, wincing when the movement tugged at my sore back. “I came here because you wanted a woman in your bed and I wanted the money. We both got what we came for.”

His nostrils flared.

He looked at me like I had said something offensive, and that almost made me laugh again, because what exactly was offensive about the truth? Men like him loved honesty when it came from their own mouths. The moment a woman reminded them that they had bought her time, suddenly they developed principles.

“Whatever happened between us was one night,” I said, stepping closer because I was not going to let him intimidate me in a room I had already been paid to sleep in. “One night, Damien. You don’t get to wake up and decide that means I belong to you, and you definitely don’t get to stand in front of the door acting like I need your permission to leave.”

His eyes darkened.

“I didn’t say you belonged to me.”

“You didn’t have to.” I lifted my chin, though the movement sent another sting through my neck. “You’re standing there like a man who has never heard the word no without somebody immediately apologising afterward.”

His hand flexed beside his thigh.

I watched it.

Then I watched his face.

He looked calm, but there was something underneath that calm, something too tight and too restless. It made no sense. He had been quiet last night, yes, but not like this. Last night, his silence had been attractive. This morning, it felt like a locked door.

“Move,” I said again.

He remained exactly where he was.

I stepped to the left.

He shifted with me.

I stepped to the right.

He blocked me again.

A hot wave of anger rushed through my chest, stronger than the ache in my legs and sharper than the bite on my neck. I dropped my bag onto the nearest chair and planted both hands against his chest, pushing hard.

He barely moved.

That was the moment my fear tried to crawl in.

I crushed it beneath my anger before it could settle.

“Do not make me repeat myself,” I said, my voice shaking despite the effort I made to keep it steady. “I am leaving this room, and you are not going to stop me because you woke up feeling strange after getting what you paid for.”

Damien looked down at my hands against him.

Then he looked back at my face, breathing slowly, as though he was holding something dangerous inside himself and I was the only thing keeping it from breaking loose.

That made my stomach twist.

I glanced around the suite. The door was behind him. The balcony was too high.

My phone was in my bag, but my bag was on the chair near the sofa, and there was no chance in hell I was going to turn my back on him long enough to reach it.

My eyes moved across the room, searching for anything, anything at all that could make him take one step away from that door.

The silver ice bucket would not do much.

The lamp was too heavy to lift quickly.

The glass table would shatter, but I would have to get close enough to use it, and Damien was already close enough to make my skin crawl.

Then my gaze caught on the small side table beside the bar.

A knife lay there, half-hidden beneath a folded room-service menu, its metal blade catching a thin line of sunlight.

My breath stuck.

Damien’s attention shifted toward the window just for a second, then i looked at the knife again.

My heart began pounding so hard that I could feel it in my bruised throat, and every sensible thought inside my head started screaming at me to leave it alone, to wait, to stop making the situation worse.

But he was still between me and the door.

My legs were aching. My neck was burning. My bag was out of reach.

And the knife was close enough to touch.

My fingers closed around the knife.

I did not even realise I had picked it up until the handle pressed into my palm.

I kept looking at Damien.

He was still standing there, between me and the door, watching me with that same irritating expression he had been wearing all morning, like nothing in this room could possibly surprise him and I was just another problem he would deal with when he got bored.

His eyes dropped to my hand. Then back to my face.

That was it. There wasn't even any panic or sudden movement.

Nothing.

I looked down at the knife.

It was just a stupid little room-service knife, probably sitting there because rich people apparently needed knives beside their bars at all times, and here I was holding it like I had suddenly become some criminal mastermind.

I almost laughed. This was ridiculous.

I was not going to stab him. I only needed him to move.

That was all.

I shifted the knife in my hand.

Damien watched.

“You're really going to stand there?”

His gaze stayed on mine.

“You should put that down.”

The calmness in his voice irritated me so badly that my fingers tightened around the handle.

“Why?”

“Because you don't know what you're doing.”

There was no fear in his face which made me angry so I stepped closer.

He did not move.

The blade hung beside my thigh, almost hidden by my body.

“Move.”

“No.”

I stared at him.

He actually looked bored.

I had a knife in my hand and this man looked bored.

What the hell was wrong with him?

My heart was beating too hard, my legs were still aching from last night, my neck was burning beneath the mark he had left there, and I was standing barefoot in an expensive hotel room trying to figure out how to get away from a man who seemed to have forgotten that women were allowed to leave his bed.

I raised the knife slightly and his eyes followed it, but still nothing.

“You're not scared?”

His jaw tightened slightly.

“Of that?”

I looked at the blade.

Then at him.

Something about the way he said it made heat crawl up my neck.

I should have put it down. Instead, I stepped forward.

Damien stayed where he was. I really fucking hated that my hand was shaking.

Damien expression changed slightly. Something closer to impatience.

“Ava.”

My name in his mouth made me look up.

“What?”

“Don't.”

That was all he said, and somehow it annoyed me more than everything else.

I stepped closer. He reached for my wrist. I jerked away.

His hand missed, then he knife moved with me.

His eyes dropped to it again, and this time I saw the smallest flicker of irritation cross his face, as though I was being difficult rather than dangerous.

That was when I stopped thinking.

I moved.

I just shoved forward because I wanted him away from the door, because I wanted out, because I was angry and tired and scared and too damn stubborn to stand there begging a man I had slept with for permission to leave.

The blade slipped into his side.

Barely. Just a shallow thrust that I felt it catch, then stop.

My hand froze. So did his.

For a second, Damien looked down.

The knife was still in my hand.Still inside him.

His fingers were around my wrist. Neither of us moved. Then his eyes lifted.

Something was wrong.

I knew it before he said anything. His face had gone completely still.

“What…”

His voice broke as he looked down again.

Blood appeared around the blade.

Then more.

A lot more.

It soaked into his shirt almost immediately, spreading far beyond the tiny place where the knife had entered.

My mouth went dry.

I had barely stabbed him.

I knew I had barely stabbed him.

So why the hell was he bleeding like that?

Damien's fingers tightened around my wrist.

“Take it out.”

I stared at him.

“What?”

“The knife.”

His voice was rough now.

He tried to pull away from it himself, but the movement made his whole body jerk.

A sharp breath tore through his teeth.

His free hand flew to the wound. He pressed down. Blood pushed between his fingers.

His eyes widened. I had never seen that face on him.

He looked down at his hand as though it belonged to somebody else.

“Damien?”

He looked at me.

“Get it out.”

I tried.

My fingers tightened around the handle. The moment I moved the knife, his body buckled.

He made a sound that scared the shit out of me.

The knife stayed where it was refusing to pull out.

Damien caught my wrist before I could step away.

“Don't.”

His breathing had changed.

Every breath came harder than the one before it, his shoulders pulling sharply as he fought for air, and the calm bastard who had spent the last hour looking at me like I was a mildly irritating woman had disappeared.

“It’s not getting out.”

“No shit.”

The words came through clenched teeth.

I stared at him. He looked furious now.

“I barely touched you.”

His eyes snapped to mine.

“You call that barely touching me?”

“I didn't mean…”

Another violent cough cut me off.

Damien bent forward. Then blood hit the floor which made me stopped breathing.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and stared at the blood smeared across his skin.

“What the fuck?”

He said it like he was asking himself.

Then he looked at me.

“What did you do?”

“I stabbed you.”

His grip on my wrist tightened until my fingers went numb.

“I mean what did you do to me?”

I stared at him.

“I don't know.”

His eyes searched my face.

“You don't know?”

“I didn't do anything except stab you.”

“You're lying.”

“I am not fucking lying.”

He tried to stand but his leg shook.

He caught himself against the edge of the table, but his hand slipped because it was wet with his own blood.

He dropped to one knee.

I gasped.

“Damien.”

He looked up at me immediately.

His face was pale now, his hair falling across his forehead, his hand still clamped over the wound.

The blood would not stop.

It should have.

It should have slowed down.

Instead, the edges of the wound moved beneath his fingers.

I saw the skin pull together.

My stomach twisted. For one second, I thought it was healing.

Then it tore open again.

Damien sucked in a sharp breath.

His eyes dropped to the wound.

“What the hell…”

He touched the skin carefully. His fingers came away red.

“No.”

I stared at him.

He pressed his palm against the injury again, harder this time, as though he could force his own body to behave.

Nothing happened.

His breathing became ragged.

“Why isn't it closing?”

I had no answer. He looked at me again.

And suddenly his grip changed.

He pulled me closer and I stumbled toward him.

“Let me go.”

“No.”

“You're hurt, Damien, you need to let me get help.”

“No.”

“You're going to bleed to death!”

His eyes flashed.

“I am not dying.”

The certainty in his voice would have been comforting if he did not look like he was barely holding himself together.

Another cough hit him.

He turned his head, but not quickly enough.

Blood touched his lips again.

My stomach rolled.

He was staring at my hand. The hand that had held the knife.

His thumb moved slowly across my wrist, almost absent-mindedly, while his other hand remained pressed against the wound.

His breathing was still uneven. His body was still shaking.

Yet somehow his attention had become frighteningly fixed on me.

“Where did you get this?”

I frowned.

“The knife?”

He shook his head. His eyes moved to the mark on my neck.

That stupid bite. His face went completely still. Then he looked back at me.

His voice dropped.

“What did I do to you?”

I stared at him.

“What are you talking about?”

He did not answer. He pulled me closer again.

Not enough to hurt me, but enough to make it clear that even half-collapsed on the floor, bleeding through his clothes, he still had no intention of letting me walk out of that room.

His eyes stayed on the mark. Then something happened behind them.

His pupils widened. His entire body went rigid.

The hand holding my wrist suddenly tightened so hard that I cried out.

Damien looked at me like he had just seen a ghost.

“No.”

The word came out almost breathless.

I tried to pull away.

He held on.

“Damien, you're scaring me.”

His gaze snapped back to mine.

And this time, whatever he saw in my face seemed to frighten him even more.

He looked at the wound. Then at my neck. Then back at me.

His lips parted.

“That's impossible.”

I stared at him.

“What is?”

He did not answer. His fingers slowly moved toward the bite mark on my neck.

He stopped just before touching it.

His face had gone white.

And then, with blood still running down his side and his hand locked around mine, Damien whispered something that made my entire body go cold.

“You're the one who did this to me.”

DAMIEN

I could feel the handle pressed against my side, the cheap metal trembling slightly with every breath I dragged into my lungs, and beneath it, beneath the torn flesh and the blood soaking through my shirt, something inside my body was fighting a battle it had never once lost.

My healing had begun the moment the blade entered.

It had failed before the pain even reached its worst.

That was impossible.

I had been cut open in war, bitten by creatures that no longer existed, burned beneath silver fire, and left bleeding in places where ordinary men would have died before anyone found them. My body had always repaired itself. Sometimes slowly, sometimes painfully, but it had repaired itself.

Always.

Yet this wound remained open beneath my hand, pulsing with a vicious heat that spread through my ribs and into my chest.

Ava stood in front of me, staring at the blood.

She looked like she wanted to run.

Good. That was sensible. She should run. She should take her bag, find the nearest lift, leave the hotel, leave the city, and never come near me again.

The thought made my wolf bare its teeth.

I ignored it.

The wolf had been a nuisance since last night, a restless animal throwing itself against my control whenever Ava moved, breathed, touched me, or looked at me with those sharp, unimpressed eyes. I had blamed the sex. I had blamed the scent of her skin, the heat of her body, the fact that I had not wanted the night to end even after she had fallen asleep beside me.

I had blamed everything except the truth.

Now the truth stood in front of me with blood on her hand.

My mate.

No.

The word rose in my mind and I crushed it immediately.

No.

Ava Monroe was human.

I knew what humans were. Fragile bodies, short lives, soft throats, bones that broke too easily and hearts that stopped without warning. They were temporary things. They entered the world, made noise, desired foolishness, and disappeared before the people who loved them had finished mourning.

They were not mates.

Not mine.

Not after three hundred and forty-seven years of surviving every weakness the world had offered me.

My wolf slammed against my ribs.

Mine.

The wound tore wider.

A sharp breath escaped me before I could stop it.

Ava flinched.

“You're getting worse,” she said, and there was panic under the irritation she was trying to maintain. “You need to let me get someone in here before you bleed all over the damn floor.”

I looked at the knife.

Then at her.

“You did this.”

Her face tightened.

“I know I did, but I didn't expect you to start falling apart over a shallow stab wound.”

Shallow. The word lodged under my skin.

She had barely driven the blade into me. It had not reached anything vital. It had not gone deep enough to damage my organs, and yet my body was behaving as if she had torn me open from the inside.

I pressed harder against the wound. The flesh shifted beneath my palm.

My healing tried again. The edges pulled together. For one breath, I felt the familiar warmth of repair.

Then the wound split open with a fresh rush of blood.

I bent forward. Ava caught my shoulder before I could stop her.

Her touch burned through me.

My wolf surged so violently that my vision blurred.

I seized her wrist.

She gasped.

“Don't grab me like that.”

I should have released her.

Instead, I pulled her closer, because the moment her hand touched me, every instinct I possessed had turned toward her. Her scent filled my lungs. Her heartbeat struck against the air between us. The mark on her neck seemed to answer something beneath my skin.

The bite.

I remembered it now, When my control had slipped and the need to sink my teeth into her had become unbearable. I had thought it was hunger. I had thought it was lust sharpened by the night, by her mouth, by the way she had looked at me as though I were no different from every other man who had paid for her company.

I had bitten her. I had marked her.

And my wolf had known exactly what I had refused to see.

Ava tried to pull away.

My fingers closed more tightly around her wrist.

“Damien, you're hurting me.”

The words reached me through the pain.

I loosened my grip, but I did not let go.

She looked down at my hand, then up at my face, and I saw the calculation beginning behind her eyes. She was measuring the distance to the door again. Measuring me. Measuring how much strength I had left.

She believed I was weak.

She was right.

That thought was unacceptable.

I had spent centuries making men fear the sound of my name. I had built empires under identities that were eventually buried with the people who had known them. I had watched generations rise and vanish while my face remained unchanged.

A human woman had put a knife into my side, and now I was kneeling in front of her, bleeding through my clothes while my body refused to heal.

I would not accept it.

I forced myself upright.

Pain ripped through my side so fiercely that the room tilted, but I kept my hold on Ava and dragged myself higher. My knee remained on the floor. My other leg shook beneath me.

Ava's eyes widened.

“Stop trying to stand, you absolute idiot. You're going to make it worse.”

“I am not taking orders from you.”

“You are bleeding because of me, and you're still trying to act like some fucking king.”

I looked at her. The insult should have angered me.

Instead, I found myself watching her mouth.

That mouth had been against mine only hours ago. It had spoken filthy things against my skin, laughed when I tried to control the pace, and told me exactly what she wanted without once pretending she needed tenderness from me.

She had come to my bed for money.

She had taken it without shame.

A whore, the world would call her.

My wolf wanted her closer.

I wanted her closer.

I hated the distinction.

“Why isn't it worsening?” she demanded.

I looked down at the wound.

“I don't know.”

The admission tasted foul.

Ava stared at me.

“You don't know?”

“I said I don't know.”

“Then stop acting like you have everything under control, because you look like shit and you're still refusing help.”

My vision blurred again.

I heard the blood before I felt it, a thick drop striking the floor between us.

Then another.

The pain had moved beyond my side. It was inside my bones now, crawling through my chest, tightening around my lungs. My wolf was no longer pacing.

It was panicking.

That was worse than the pain.

A wolf did not panic.

An Alpha did not panic.

I forced my breathing into order, but my body betrayed me with another cough. Blood filled my mouth. I turned my head and spat it onto the floor.

Ava recoiled.

“That's not normal.”

“No.”

The word came out low.

She looked toward the door.

I felt her preparing to move before she actually did.

My hand caught her waist.

She jerked violently.

“Damien, what the hell are you doing?”

“Stay.”

The command left my mouth before I could soften it.

Her eyes flashed.

“You don't get to order me around after trapping me in this room and bleeding on me.”

I pulled her down beside me.

She fought immediately, pushing at my shoulder, trying to wrench herself out of my hold. I could have stopped her easily under ordinary circumstances.

These were not ordinary circumstances.

Every movement tore the wound open.

Every struggle made the pain worse.

Still, I wrapped one arm around her waist and held her against me.

Her body fit against mine with an accuracy that made denial almost impossible.

My wolf went still.

Ava froze when she felt the blood soaking into her clothes.

“Damien, you're getting blood on me.”

“I know.”

“You need to let me go.”

“No.”

Her breath shook against my neck.

“Why are you doing this? I tried to leave, and you blocked the door. I picked up a knife, and you still stood there like nothing could happen. Now you're bleeding like I've done something insane, and you're holding me here as if I'm the one who needs to be restrained.”

I closed my eyes.

The mark on her neck burned.

My wound opened again.

Ava cried out when my arm tightened around her.

I felt the sound move through her body.

Mine, my wolf insisted.

I rejected it.

Human.

The rejection struck through me like another blade.

My breath caught. Ava lifted her head.

“Damien?”

I opened my eyes.

She was close enough that I could see the pulse beating in her throat, close enough to smell the blood beneath her skin, close enough to know that if I released her now, she would be gone before I could reach the door.

A knock sounded from outside.

“Sir, are you all right in there?”

Ava turned toward the door. My hold tightened.

The footsteps came closer. The handle moved.

I felt the mark on her neck flare hot beneath her hair.

My wound opened wider.

Blood spilled over both of us.

Then my wolf spoke inside my head with a certainty that left no room for argument.

If anyone takes her from you, kill them.