Ex-Alpha's Regret: Siren's Comeback novel Chapter 30

POV: Seraphina

That night, the storm inside Damian finally broke. My icy composure throughout the day, my lack of response to Nico's drawing, had been the final provocation. He needed to shatter my calm. He needed to prove he still owned me.

He burst into my guest room without knocking. I was on my knees by an old traveling trunk, carefully wrapping my mother's silver-backed hairbrush in a piece of velvet. I didn't look up. I continued my task as if he wasn't there, as if the Alpha of the Blackwood pack was nothing more than a draft from the hallway.

My complete and utter disregard was the spark that lit the fuse.

"What do you think you're doing?" he snarled, his voice a low, dangerous growl.

I carefully placed the hairbrush in the trunk and reached for a small music box. "Packing."

The word, so simple and calm, made something in him snap. In two long strides, he was across the room. He kicked the trunk, sending my mother's precious things scattering across the floor.

"You are not going anywhere," he hissed, grabbing my arm and hauling me to my feet. His grip was like iron. "You will stay here and you will learn your place."

"My place is no longer here," I said, my voice as cold and brittle as ice. I met his furious gaze without flinching.

"You are my mate!" he roared, his face inches from mine. "Your place is wherever I tell you it is!"

"That is a bond you have broken a thousand times over."

As he moved inside me, a sharp, stabbing pain erupted low in my belly, so intense it made me gasp. It was a deep, internal agony, completely separate from the brutal friction of his assault. It felt like something was tearing apart inside me. But the agony was quickly swallowed by the overwhelming tide of humiliation and pain and the litany of his hateful words.

When he was finished, he pulled out of me and stood, adjusting his clothes with a cold, detached air. He looked down at my torn nightgown, at the tear tracks on my face, at my trembling, violated body, and his expression was one of contemptuous satisfaction. He had finally gotten the reaction he craved. He had broken me.

He turned and walked out of the room without another word.

I lay there, on the ruined bed, every part of me aching. The world had gone silent. I felt nothing. Not pain, not rage, not even despair. I was a hollowed-out thing. I turned my head and looked out the window. The first, faint hint of grey was touching the eastern sky. Dawn was coming. And so was my brother.

The lock on the door clicked shut.