Chapter 238: The Devil's Darkness, Is Her Safe Place

A slight pause hung in the air, fragile and sharp.

”It leaked to every network in the city,” Ana said, her voice dropping into a quiet, trembling cadence that she despised herself for showing. “Vivian kissing you. It’s trending everywhere. The board, the press, social media… they’re calling her your savior. They’re saying she’s the only one who stood by your family when everything fell apart.”

Damian didn’t answer immediately. His chest rose and fell against hers, slow and heavy.

Ana swallowed the burning tightness in her throat, forcing out the words that felt like bile on her tongue. “The public wants her with you, Damian. They think she belongs at your side… and that I was just the mistake that broke you.”

For a second, the room fell into complete, arctic stillness.

Then, Damian moved.

His bandaged hands came up to frame her face, his thick fingers gripping her jaw with an unyielding, bruising pressure that forced her chin upward. He dragged his head back, his obsidian eyes locking onto hers.

There was no pity in his expression. There was only a dark, arrogant fury that bordered on predatory.

”Do I look like a man who takes orders from the public, Anastasia?” he snarled softly, his baritone vibrating through the bones of her skull.

His dark gaze flicked over her parted lips, reading every ounce of the pathetic, lingering doubt she was still harboring.

”Let Manhattan talk,” Damian rumbled, leaning closer until his hot, ragged breath washed over her mouth. “Let the board whisper in their corners. Let the wolves on the internet write whatever fables help them sleep at night. I don’t give a damn about what the city wants.”

His thumb pressed hard against the soft flesh beneath her lower lip, rough and demanding.

”Vivian Stark put her hands on me while my mind was in hell,” Damian rasped, his voice dropping into a terrifying, gravelly register. “She touched what wasn’t hers to touch. And for that, I am going to erase her name from every ledger, every trust, and every social registry in this country.”

He shifted his grip, his fingers sliding into the hair at the back of her head, tightening just enough to make her gasp as he pulled her face millimeters from his own.

”You sat in that car tonight, crying over an apology I will never accept, because you still don’t understand what you are to me,” Damian whispered, his eyes blazing with an obsessive, dark possession that made her heart hammer wildly against her ribs.

”You cost me our child. You cost me two years of my life. You burned my peace to ash.”

His mouth hovered over hers, his lips brushing against hers with punishing intent.

”You are the only poison I allow in my blood, Anastasia. You broke this house, and you are the only one who will ever sit in it. You will be my slave until the contract expires.”

Without giving her a chance to breathe, Damian crushed his mouth down onto hers… erasing every phantom trace of Vivian’s red lipstick with a savage, claiming kiss that demanded every piece of her soul.

The kiss was suffocating, punishing, and desperate.

Damian took her mouth not with tenderness, but with the raw, possessive ferocity of a man trying to carve his name back into her soul. His bandaged hands held her jaw tight, his rough thumbs digging into the soft hollows beneath her cheekbones, forcing her head back against the edge of the stone tub.

The heat coming off his body was overwhelming, tasting of salt, copper, and the lingering sting of vintage wine.

He wanted to drown out the museum. He wanted to wipe clean the ghost of Vivian’s red lipstick, the cameras, and the two years of silence that had rotted between them.

Ana didn’t pull away.

For a heartbeat, the world spun in a haze of dizzying shock. Her mind screamed at her to remember the cold Pennsylvania hospital, to remember the contract, to remember the public calling for Vivian to take her crown.

Yet as his mouth bruised hers, as his massive chest crushed against her ribs, the terrifying reality sank deep into her veins… she didn’t want to run anymore.

Even after all the blood, the cruelty, and the wreckage around them, his darkness was the only place she felt truly tethered.

A ragged, breathless whimper tore from Ana’s throat… not in defeat, but in desperate surrender. Her small, trembling hands moved up his chest, sliding through the torn fabric of his shirt to clutch at his broad shoulders. Her fingers curled into the damp cotton, pulling him closer until there wasn’t a sliver of air left between them.

She parted her lips and kissed him back.

The moment her mouth softened beneath his, the violent tension in Damian’s frame violently recoiled, shattering into something far more dangerous. A low, guttural groan vibrated deep in his chest.

His grip on her jaw loosened, sliding down into her dark hair, his bandaged fingers tangling in the thick waves as his kiss deepened from a brutal punishment into a starving, intoxicating fever. He tasted her tears, tasting the fragile, blooming heat of her mouth as she met his intensity, letting him consume the last lingering shadow of Vivian Stark.

Ana wrapped her arms tightly around his neck, pressing her body completely flush against his. She buried her face in the crook of his throat, gasping for air against his hot, pulse-pointed skin.

”Damian…” she breathed, trembling violently against his chest.

Damian’s arms locked around her waist like bands of heated iron, hauling her up until she was entirely anchored against his lap, his face buried deep in the curve of her shoulder. His breath was ragged, burning hot against her bare skin, his chest heaving with an erratic, thundering rhythm.

”You’re not leaving this room,” Damian rasped into her skin, his voice cracked, thick with dark, unyielding obsession. “The whole city can burn outside these doors, Anastasia. You belong right here.”

Ana closed her eyes, leaning her forehead against his jaw, feeling the steady, possessive rhythm of his heartbeat beneath her palms.

”I’m here,” she whispered, her voice barely louder than the hum of the city lights outside. “I’m not leaving.”

There was no hesitation, no gentleness… only a sudden, overwhelming surge of hunger that had been building since the moment he first saw her. He crushed her against the door, his hand sliding from her wrist to the back of her neck, his fingers tangling in her hair to tilt her head back and deepen the kiss.

It was a clash of wills as much as it was an act of passion. He tasted expensive wine and cold ambition, his tongue demanding entrance with a dominance that left her breathless. He didn’t just want to kiss her; he wanted to devour her, to mark her as his own in the most primal way possible.

A low, guttural growl escaped his throat, a sound of pure, unadulterated desire. His other hand slid down her side, gripping her waist with a strength that left no room for escape, pulling her body flush against the hard lines of his own. He was an avalanche of heat and power, drowning out the world and replacing it with the suffocating, electric reality of his presence.

He pulled back just a fraction, his lips still grazing hers, his breathing ragged and heavy. His hazel eyes were dark, almost black, burning with a fire that threatened to consume everything in its path.

The sound of her breath, ragged and shallow, was all the response he needed. His hands, large and warm, slid upward from her waist with intense deliberation. He didn’t just touch her; he claimed her, his palms sweeping over her ribs before moving upward to cup her breasts.

He groaned, a low, guttural sound of satisfaction as he felt the fullness of her against his palms. He squeezed them firmly, his fingers kneading the soft flesh through the fabric of her dress, his grip possessive and demanding. He wanted to feel every curve, every tremor of her body under his touch, molding her to his chest as if trying to merge their two forms into one.

He leaned back into the kiss, his movements becoming more urgent, more desperate. The control he prided himself on was fraying, replaced by a raw, animalistic hunger. Between deep, bruising kisses, his head dipped to the crook of her neck, his teeth grazing the sensitive skin there, marking her with a territorial intensity.

“You have no one other than me,” he rasped against her skin, his breath hot and heavy, his hands continuing to manipulate her breasts with an obsessive focus, “Ana, you are mine.”

I know… after the last chapter, a lot of you are mad at Damian. And he deserves all the hate. But remember when you guys were mad at Anastasia for being a fool in the beginning of the book… it’s exactly what Damian is also feeling. So the next Chapters are going to be even more frustrating… don’t say I didn’t warn you 😉