Damon – POV
The door closed behind her, and the sound echoed through my skull like a death knell.
I was left in the water, alone.
And fuck, the silence was deafening.
Every breath tasted of her — the sweet, maddening scent of wolf and woman and mate. My cock still throbbed, half-hard and aching, because the heat wasn't truly gone. Her refusal to let me mark her had left it simmering, crawling under my skin like a swarm of hornets.
Slowly, I pushed myself upright in the tub. Water sluiced off my chest, dripping down my scars and tattoos, running in rivulets that felt like ice against flesh still burning from need. My muscles trembled — not from exhaustion, but from the beast within that still snarled at being denied.
And beneath that beast… something older.
Something darker.
"She is the key," Hades whispered, his voice curling through my mind like black smoke. "The anchor I need to walk this world again."
He wasn't wrong.
