Chapter 184

Chapter 184
Siena didn’t realize she had stopped breathing until Damien’s fingers wrapped around her wrist.

Not harshly—not like the man who once commanded rooms with the cold, immovable authority of a god carved from marble. No. This touch was different. A tremor lived in his grip, a tremor that made her heart knock hard against her ribs because Damien Voss didn’t tremble.

“Look at me,” he said, voice roughened from more than tension.

She should have refused, she told herself. She should have pulled away, taken the step that would keep both of them from falling into the slow-burning gravity that had been pulling them toward each other for far too long. But when she lifted her eyes, Damien was already watching her as though she were the last thread anchoring him to sanity.

His pupils were blown wide, the storm-gray ring around them darker than she’d ever seen. There were shadows under his eyes—exhaustion, fury, guilt, a hundred other things he’d never admit—but beneath that, something else flickered. Something she had no business wanting.

“Damien…” Siena whispered.

Her name left his lips like a confession. “I almost lost you.”

The way he said it—hoarse, unguarded—sent a shiver down her spine. Her pulse beat against her wrist where his thumb brushed, slow and deliberate, as though memorizing the shape of her.

“I’m not that easy to get rid of,” she tried, forcing levity into the words despite the tension strangling her.

Damien stepped closer.

Too close.

Close enough that she could feel the heat radiating off him, smell the faint trace of smoke and cedar clinging to his shirt, see the ragged edges of control pulling tight across his jaw.

“You think I don’t know that?” he said, a humorless huff leaving him. “You infuriate me. You undo me. And I—”

He cut himself off.

But Siena felt the words anyway. Felt them settle like a weight between them, heavier than anything he’d ever put into the world.

She swallowed. “Damien, you don’t have to—”

“I do.” His hand slid from her wrist to her waist, tentative but undeniably hungry. “You keep trying to walk into danger alone. You keep putting yourself between Leona and the empire because you think you have to. And every damn time you do, I—” He inhaled sharply. “I feel like I’m going to break.”

Her breath hitched.

He had never said anything like this before. Never stripped himself open like this.

And god help her, she liked seeing him like this. Raw. Human. Hers.

She shouldn’t have liked it.

But she did.

“Damien…” Her voice thinned.

His hand tightened at her waist, drawing her against him. The contact sent a shock through her body, hot and electric. Her palms landed against his chest on instinct—broad, solid, warm under her fingertips. His heart thudded under her touch, faster than she expected.

Their bodies aligned too easily.

He leaned down, his lips brushing her temple, then her cheekbone. Not quite a kiss—more a breath hovering on the verge of one. The restraint in it was maddening.

“I thought I lost you tonight.” His whisper dragged along her skin. “Don’t expect me to pretend I’m unaffected.”

A soft, involuntary sound left Siena—half gasp, half plea—before she could swallow it.

Damien froze.

Then slowly, deliberately, he pulled back just enough to look at her. Really look. His gaze dropped to her lips for a fraction of a second—one that felt like a jolt straight through her stomach—before lifting again.

“Siena,” he murmured, “if you don’t want this… tell me now.”

Her chest rose and fell, too quickly.

Damien Voss—cold ruler, feared sovereign, the man who’d built an empire out of blood and steel—looked at her like she was salvation.

Her. A woman who had once vowed she would never let him under her skin again.

Yet here she was, already drowning.

“Damien…” She reached up, fingers slipping into the hair at his nape before she could stop herself.

His breath stuttered.

And suddenly his restraint snapped like overstretched wire.

His mouth crashed against hers, deep and consuming, as though he’d been holding back for months and finally let himself break. Siena’s gasp melted into the kiss as his hands dragged her closer, one sliding up her spine, the other gripping her hip with barely checked hunger.

Heat flared between them—hotter, sharper—her lips parting under his, inviting him deeper. His tongue swept against hers, slow and deliberate, drawing a whimper from her throat he swallowed like it fueled him.

Siena curled against him, her body molding to his as though there had never been any other shape she could fit.

His hand slipped under the hem of her shirt, fingertips tracing her bare waist. The touch made her knees weaken. She felt herself arch into him, instinct overriding thought.

Damien groaned into her mouth.

“Siena…” His voice sounded sinful, ruined. “I need—”

The door slammed open.

Both of them jolted apart, breathless, flushed, hearts hammering.

Alec stood in the doorway.

But this wasn’t the Alec Siena knew—cocky, sharp-tongued, infuriatingly smug. This Alec looked like death had hollowed him out and spat him back into the world. His clothes were torn. Blood—his or someone else’s—streaked his jaw. And fear, real fear, swam in his usually guarded eyes.

“Siena,” he rasped. “You need to come. Now.”

Damien stepped in front of her instantly, hand going to the weapon at his hip. “What happened?”

Alec’s throat bobbed. His gaze flicked to Siena—full of something that looked too much like regret.

“It’s Leona,” he said.

Siena’s stomach dropped. “What about her?”

Alec’s voice was barely a whisper. “She took the child.”

For a second, nothing moved. Nothing breathed.

Siena’s lungs seized. Her fingers went numb. A cold rush shot through her body so violently she thought she might collapse.

“No,” she said, shaking her head, denial ripping through her. “No, that’s not possible—she couldn’t have—”

“She did.” Alec’s voice cracked. “And she’s already left the citadel.”

Damien’s expression changed—slowly, dangerously. The air in the room thickened around him as fury coiled through his frame like a living thing.

“When?” he growled.

“Minutes ago.” Alec swallowed hard. “And you’re not going to like where she’s taking her.”

Siena stepped forward, her heart pounding so violently it hurt. “Where?”

Alec hesitated.

Damien’s voice thundered through the room. “Where, Alec?”

A tremor ran through him before he finally forced the words out.

“She’s taking the child… to the ruins.”

Damien went still.

Siena’s pulse plummeted.

The ruins.

The one place no one ever returned from.

But Alec wasn’t finished.

He lifted his eyes—haunted, breaking—and said:

“And she wasn’t alone.”

Siena felt Damien stiffen beside her, felt the air shift, felt the bottom drop out of her stomach as she whispered, “Who was with her?”

Alec’s voice was a death sentence.

“Your sister.”

Everything in Siena shattered.

And then the alarms of the citadel began