Stress swallowed Aria whole.
It didn’t happen slowly. It didn’t warn her. It hit like a violent storm—fast, cold, merciless. Hours after the Syndicate meeting, after the shouting, after the threats, after Damian’s possessive declaration of war, Aria’s body finally gave up. Her knees buckled in the corridor outside his office, the world spinning in a dizzying whirl of lights and marble. The guards shouted, but their voices sounded distant, distorted, underwater.
She collapsed.
Damian caught her before she hit the floor.
His arms were iron, lifting her weight easily as her head lolled against his chest. He cursed under his breath—sharp, frustrated, furious curses that weren’t aimed at her but at fate, at himself, at the entire damn world that kept putting her in his hands.
“Not again,” he muttered, carrying her down the restricted hallway. “Not like this.”
He took her straight into his private suite.
Again.
He laid her on his bed—the same bed she had once slept in feverish and broken—and brushed her sweat-damp hair away with the back of his hand. Her skin was too hot. Her breaths came too shallow. Her pulse flickered beneath the collar like a trembling bird. Damian pressed his fingers to her throat, not to dominate her this time, but to check whether she was still conscious.
She wasn’t.
He ripped open the cabinet, grabbed cold compresses, stormed into the bathroom, filled a glass with water, and returned with the same controlled panic that had haunted him since the bullet grazed his shoulder for her.
When Aria finally stirred, her eyelids fluttered weakly. Panic seized her instantly.
She shoved at the sheets, breath hitching. “Damian? Damian—don’t leave—please don’t leave me—”
Her voice was a broken whisper.
Damian froze mid-movement.
He was standing by the bed, cloth in his hand, water on the nightstand. He wasn’t touching her. He wasn’t even close. But the desperation in her voice—raw, terrified—hit him like a blade between the ribs.
“I’m right here,” he said, voice low, controlled. “You’re not alone.”
Her breathing stuttered, but she didn’t calm.
“Don’t hurt me,” she whispered, eyes unfocused, reaching out blindly for something—anything—that didn’t feel like violence.
Damian exhaled, a sound rougher than any wound he’d taken. The rage in him—so familiar, so dependable—faltered. Cracked. Melted into something he refused to name.
He moved back to the bed and sat beside her, pressing the cool cloth to her forehead. His hand shook. Damian Wolfe’s hand shook.
“You’re dehydrated,” he murmured. “Shock is setting in. Drink.”
He slid an arm beneath her shoulders, lifting her gently. She trembled in his hold as if expecting pain. He hated it. Hated that her body reacted to him like a threat. Hated the man who made her this fragile. Hated himself for being unable to fix it.
He held the glass to her lips, forcing her to sip slowly, steadying her with a hand at her waist. His touch was firm, careful, everything his reputation was not.
Aria whimpered again, delirious.
“Don’t hurt me…”
Damian’s breath faltered, a single fractured second of pure humanity.
Then something inside him broke.
He pulled her into his arms.
Not roughly. Not possessively. With a gentleness that terrified them both.
Aria’s head rested against his chest, her shaky breaths warming his skin. Her fingers curled into his shirt like she needed him to stay or she’d drown. Damian wrapped both arms around her, one hand cradling the back of her head, the other stroking slow, grounding lines down her spine.
“You’re safe,” he whispered into her hair, voice barely audible. “Do you hear me? You’re safe. No one touches you. Not while I breathe.”
She sobbed—quiet, confused, exhausted. The sound carved through him with surgical precision.
Damian tightened his hold, lowering his chin to the crown of her head, shielding her like she was something too fragile for the world to touch.
She fell asleep in his arms.
But Damian did not move.
He stared at the ceiling for hours, jaw clenched, muscles rigid. He stayed awake even when her breathing evened out, even when her tears dried against his skin. His heartbeat slowed to match hers, and that scared him more than any enemy, any bullet, any war.
He hated himself for caring.
He hated that she fit against his chest like she belonged there.
He hated that holding her felt right.
And most of all—
Damian Wolfe hated that when Aria finally closed her eyes and slept peacefully for the first time in days…
his entire world went quiet.