Images crashed through my mind in jagged fragments. The metal settling against my throat, cool at first and then burning hot. The sensation of my body turning itself inside out, heat and need and rage all tangled together. Alexander’s face, pale with terror, as I screamed his name and clawed at his chest.
I remembered begging him to stay and trying to tear his throat out. I remembered wanting him inside me so badly I thought Iwould die from the emptiness. Most of all, I remembered hating him so viciously I wanted to watch him bleed.
My hand flew to my throat and found only smooth skin beneath my fingertips. No metal, no heat, no pain.
“We removed it while you were unconscious.” Helena’s hand covered mine, guiding it back down to my side. “You’re perfectly safe now.”
Safe. What a joke. The collar was gone. Another solution destroyed, another door slammed shut, another failure to add to the growing list of things that couldn’t save me.
I waited for despair to crush me the way it always did. When it came, the feeling settled over my chest like a familiar weight I had grown too exhausted to fight. But underneath that suffocating darkness, something else stirred, small and shameful and impossible to ignore.
Relief.
I hadn’t wanted the collar. I’d agreed to it because I was out of options and too exhausted to keep fighting. Everyone around me kept insisting it would help, because the alternative was waiting until the curse consumed me. But the thought of wearing Argos Stormwright’s aura like a leash had made my stomach turn.
Now it was gone, and I couldn’t make myself mourn its loss the way I was supposed to.
I said nothing, because there was nothing I could say that would make things better. Danae was still talking. Words tumbled out of her in a rush of apologies and technical explanations that I let wash over me.
She was blaming herself, cataloguing all the ways her calculations might have been wrong. I didn’t have the energy to comfort her or the cruelty to tell her I was glad she’d failed.
“You should rest,” Helena finally said. “The garden will continue healing you while you sleep, and by tomorrow you should be strong enough to walk on your own.”
I closed my eyes because I couldn’t stand to look at them anymore. My mother with her careful concern, hovering over me like I was something fragile that might shatter. My best friend with her guilt and her apologies, still trying to fix a problem that had no solution. If the garden had been able to heal me, I wouldn’t have needed a collar at all. But I didn’t have the strength to say that either.
I let my breathing slow into the rhythm of sleep, pretending I had drifted back into unconsciousness. It wasn’t hard. Exhaustion pressed down on me like a physical weight. The garden’s magic hummed through my bones with a warmth that wanted to pull me under.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke.
“Is she asleep?” Danae finally asked.
“I think so.” Helena shifted beside me, fabric rustling as she settled into a different position. “The healing takes a great deal out of her. She’ll drift in and out for the next few days.”
“Good. That’s good.” Danae hesitated, as if she was bracing herself for something difficult. “Helena, we need to talk about this arrangement with House Hades.”
My heart stuttered against my ribs, but I kept my breathing even.
“The arrangement is settled,” Helena shot back. “There’s nothing left to discuss.”
“Nothing to discuss?” Danae repeated. “You’re handing her over to Damon Blackwood. The same man who kidnapped Cora Ellis and held her prisoner until she bonded with him. You can’t possibly think this is the right way.”
“He’s offering to help her, Danae. His cousin has agreed to a guardian arrangement that will give House Hades the legal standing to—”
“A fake arrangement.” Danae cut her off. “Political theater. And this ability he supposedly has, this power to dampen her Omega nature, has anyone actually tested it? Has anyone verified that it works the way he claims, that it’s even real? Or are we just taking the word of a man who has every reason to want revenge against House Zeus?”
“Damon demonstrated the ability to Alexander directly.” Helena’s voice stayed calm and measured. “Alexander was satisfied that the power is genuine.”
“Alexander.” Danae spat his name like it tasted bitter. “Alexander, who agreed to step back and give up any claim on her. Alexander, who’s so drowning in guilt that he’d agree to anything that lets him feel like he’s helping instead of hurting. That’s your verification?”
I lay perfectly still while something cold spread through my chest.
Alexander had given up his claim on me. He’d stepped back and agreed to hand me over to House Hades like cargo being transferred between ships.
Of course he had. That was what Alphas did, wasn’t it? They made decisions about Omegas without consulting the Omegas themselves. They moved us around like pieces on a game board and negotiated our futures while we lay unconscious.
My autonomy had never mattered to Alexander, not really. He’d proven it by signing me away to another House the moment things got too complicated for him to handle.
The small, pathetic part of me that still remembered the warmth of his arms tried to feel grief at his abandonment. But I was too angry to mourn him, too furious at all of them to feel anything softer than rage.