Elias went very still, his hand tightening around the grip of his cane. “You’re saying you could make Andie… not an Omega?”
“Not permanently.” Damon turned to face him directly. “Not yet. But for extended periods. Long enough to break the curse’s hold. Long enough for her to live without the constant biological warfare.”
Robert’s fists loosened at his sides, something shifting in his face. It wasn’t trust, not yet, but a cautious loosening of the vigilance he had been holding since they walked through my door.
“Andie has always hated it.” He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand, looking at the floor. “Being an Omega. The heats, the instincts, the way Alphas look at her like she’s something to be claimed. She built her whole career around helping Omegas find a different future. And now you’re telling me you could give her what she’s wanted her whole life?”
“I’m telling you I could give her peace.” Damon held Robert’s gaze for a moment before letting him go. “Whether that’s what she wants is her decision to make.”
“How would this work?” Elias shifted his weight forward, the old House Hermes instincts surfacing through the grief, his eyes moving between Damon and Elara. “You can’t simply appear at the Heraion and begin using powers on Helena’s daughter. You’d need legal standing.”
“Which is where I come in.” Elara stepped forward again. “I’ll file a formal guardian claim on Andromeda Cross. Political, not romantic. It gives House Hades legitimate standing to be involved in her care.”
Robert turned his face toward Elias for half a second. “You want to claim our daughter?”
“I want to create a legal framework that allows my cousin to help her.” Elara met his eyes without blinking. “The bond wouldn’t be real, Dr. Cross. I have no interest in your daughter as a mate. This is paperwork. Nothing more than the authority House Hades needs to act.”
“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 waswatching 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.”