The words hung in the air, clinical and jagged. Mia went bone-dry. The realization of what she had just solicited hit her like a physical blow—heart hammering against her ribs, a cold sweat slicking her palms.

She had just propositioned the Sovereign like a common street-walker.

She leaned in, her lips searching for his in a desperate bid to bridge the silence.

Damien's left hand snapped up, locking onto her shoulder. He didn't use force, but the rhythmic, steady pressure was enough to halt her descent.

He created a margin of two inches between them. It was a liquidation of her pride.

The master suite turned into a tomb. Mia's mind fractured, a memory of Charles's voice from that afternoon surfacing through the fog.

"Do you know how many beauties he rejected when he was single? The count is... significant."

Damien had been a regular at the midnight circuits—a beautiful monster on the dance floor. He would hook a finger around a woman's waist, pull her into a suffocatingly hot sequence of movements, then whisper "Have a pleasant evening" and vanish.

He was a predator who never stayed for the kill.

Mia had believed she was the exception to his clinical detachment. She was wrong.

"Mia," Damien murmured. His voice was low, vibrating against her skin. "Don't do this."

"I... I wasn't trying to..."

The sentence died in her throat. She had already done it. There was no margin for explanation in this house.

"I'm sorry about tonight," she whispered, her voice a thin, vibrating wire. "It won't happen again."

She stepped back, her bare feet hitting the cold floor. She didn't look at him as she turned to the bed, pulling the duvet over her shoulders with a rigid, stoic precision.

"You have work in the study," she said to the darkness. "Goodnight."

Damien stood motionless at the foot of the bed. His face was a mask of gray shadow.

He was struggling with the frequency of her request. He knew what she wanted, and he knew the systematic catastrophe that would follow if he granted it.

He watched the silhouette of her back—the slight tremor in her shoulders, the way she clutched the silk sheets.

Damien moved.

He reached the bedside in two predatory strides. He reached out and clicked the wall-lamp on.

In one fluid motion, he hauled her over to face him.

She was biting her knuckles, her eyes vast and shimmering with a silent,決堤 (broken-dam) grief.

Damien pulled her into his chest, his arms locking around her like iron bands. "Don't cry, Mia. Don't."

She collapsed against him, her composure finally liquidating.

She was a survivor of family slaughter and systematic neglect. She had learned to self-soothe, to pretend the bruises didn't exist. But every soul has a terminal limit.

"Do you think I'm like the others?" she sobbed into his neck. "Just trying to anchor myself to your bank accounts?"

She clutched his shirt, her fingers digging into the expensive wool. "I just wanted a child. A witness to what we are. I knew you were avoiding it... I knew you didn't want it."

Her voice broke into a jagged rasp. "I thought... I could raise them alone. I'd teach them to read, to be kind... things you don't understand."

Damien's left hand rose, covering her eyes. He couldn't look into that crystalline gaze; it was too full of the scars he had inflicted.

"Mia is different," he whispered, his thumb tracing the salt on her cheek. "There is no one past or future who compares to you."

The last string of his self-control snapped.

"You really want this?" he rasped.

She nodded, her lashes fluttering against his palm—a rhythmic, tickling sensation that drove his pulse into the redline.

He lunged. He pinned her into the mattress, his hand wrenching the silk nightgown until the fabric shredded.

Mia's breath hitched. "Are you doing this out of pity? If you don't want it, I won't force—"

"I don't want it?"

Damien hooked a finger into her lace, stripping away the final barrier with a violent, possessive intent.

"You have no idea how much I want this," he breathed against her mouth. "You. And the byproduct of us."

4:00 AM.

The scent of raw carnality lingered in the ionized air. Damien sat on the edge of the bed, watching Mia as she drifted into an exhausted, feverish slumber.

A sharp, jagged pain cut through his chest. She was too sensitive for the world he occupied.

He dressed in silence and descended the stairs.

He made a single call. Fifteen minutes later, two high-tier enforcers stood in the foyer, their shadows long against the marble.

Damien stood in the center of the dark room, his pale gray eyes two pinpricks of sub-zero ice.

"Starting tomorrow, I want eyes on her twenty-four/seven," he ordered.

He leaned in, his voice dropping to a lethal, quiet rasp.

"If she disappears, I want both your lives in exchange."

"Yes, sir!"