Danae opened the case, revealing the delicate choker inside. The interwoven silver and gold strands caught the afternoon light, beautiful and terrible at once. It was a symbol of everything I’d lost—my autonomy, my sanity, my control over my own mind.
“That’s the idea,” Danae said carefully. “The collar will use a neutral House Zeus aura signature to regulate your brainwave patterns. It should counteract the curse’s effect on your perception.” She paused, meeting my eyes directly. “But if youagree to it, don’t do it for me. Do it because you want your mind back.”
I stared at the collar, trying to imagine what it would feel like to wear it. To have someone else’s aura wrapped around my thoughts, forcing them into stable patterns. The idea should have terrified me. Maybe it did. But the alternative was worse. I couldn’t continue this spiral into paranoia and rage. I couldn’t watch myself destroy everyone who cared about me while being powerless to stop it.
A distant voice whispered in the back of my mind.“You can’t trust her. She’s working with him. They all want to control you.”
I clenched my fists, drowning out the insidious suggestion. That was the curse talking, not my own thoughts. I knew the difference now, even if I couldn’t always fight it.
My hand drifted to my neck, to the spot where Alexander’s temporary claiming mark had been. The lightning-scar pattern had faded days ago, leaving only unmarked skin. I’d felt its absence like a missing limb, that anchor to sanity slipping away.
“Will Alexander be there?” I asked shakily. “When you… when we try this?”
Danae’s expression softened slightly. “If you want him there.”
Did I want him there? The question felt impossible to answer. Part of me craved his presence with an intensity thatfrightened me. Another part recoiled at the thought, certain his proximity would only make everything worse. The curse made it impossible to know which feeling was real.
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I don’t know what I want anymore, Day. That’s the whole problem.”
But I did know. And much to my shame, it was him. It always had been.
With shaking fingers, I reached for the collar. “When? When do we do this?”
Danae covered my hand with her own. Her calluses felt so familiar, anchoring me to a reality that made no sense. “In the morning, if you’re up for it. I still have a few final checks. Just to make sure.”
I didn’t reply. I couldn’t. I just nodded. And when Danae finally left, I collapsed in my bed, drained of strength.
Morning came too soon.
I woke to the sound of my door opening. Helena stepped inside, her movements uncharacteristically hesitant. She wore simpler robes today, without the formal regalia of House Hera’s matriarch. Just my mother, looking older and more tired than I’d ever seen her.
The tension between us stretched taut as a wire. “Andromeda,” she murmured. “It’s time.”
I sat up slowly, my body stiff from another restless night. Helena moved closer, and I saw the shimmer of unshed tears in her eyes. That shocked me more than anything. I’d never seen my mother cry.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “For not telling you about the curse sooner. For failing you as I did. But no longer, Andromeda. I promise.”
The words should have meant something. Maybe they did. But I was too hollow, too exhausted to feel the weight of them properly. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, Matriarch Winters.”
She flinched at the formal title. Good. Let her feel a fraction of what I’d been feeling.
But she didn’t argue. She simply held out her hand to me, waiting.
I took it. Not because I’d forgiven her, but because I needed help standing. My legs felt unsteady beneath me, weak from the constant drain of fighting the curse.
Together, we made our way through the temple’s corridors. The morning sun streamed through high windows, painting everything in shades of gold and amber. Priestesses we passed bowed to Helena, their eyes sliding over me with barelyconcealed pity. I hated it. Hated being the broken thing that needed fixing, the damaged Omega who couldn’t even control her own mind.
The healing room door stood open. I could smell them before I saw them—Cassandra’s warm hearth-fire scent, Danae’s metal and smoke, and underneath it all, that storm-electric presence that made my pulse quicken.
Alexander.
I stepped through the doorway and found him standing near the window. Our eyes met across the room, and heat stirred low in my gut. Unbidden, the memory of our last time together flooded my mind. The heat of him beneath me, the feel of his skin under my nails, the way he’d looked at me with that desperate intensity while I’d ridden him into oblivion. The marks I’d left on his chest, claiming him as thoroughly as any bonding bite.
My hands itched to touch him. My nails ached with the desire to sink them into his flesh again. I wanted to leave fresh evidence of my presence on his body. The urge was so strong I had to curl my fingers into fists.
Then I noticed the other man.
He stood on the opposite side of the room, leaning casually against one of Danae’s workbenches. He looked impossibly out of place but didn’t seem to mind it. His expensive suit and golden hair were too perfect, too polished for this space ofdesperate science and last-resort solutions. His storm-gray eyes swept over me with an assessment that made my skin crawl.