Chapter 136: The Devil Calls For His Friend
The heavy silence left in Victoria’s wake felt almost suffocating.
Ana stood by the foot of the bed, her arms crossed tightly over her chest, watching the rapid rise and fall of Damian’s broad, bandaged torso. The physical toll of the re-suturing, combined with the heavy antibiotics running through his bloodstream, was finally catching up to him.
A thin sheen of sweat glistened against his collarbones, his brow furrowed with the heat of a returning low-grade fever.
He leaned his head back against the dark headboard, his eyes half-closed, but his jaw remained locked in that familiar, stubborn line of refusal.
Without a word, Ana walked to the en-suite bathroom. She returned with a small ceramic bowl of cool water and a folded linen cloth. Dragging a velvet armchair directly to his bedside, she sat down, dipped the cloth into the water, and wrung it out with quiet, steady hands.
"I don’t need a nurse hovering over me right now," Damian rasped, his voice rough and laced with exhaustion, though his eyes stayed heavy.
"You need to bring your temperature down before your mother comes back to put this whole estate under Valerie’s hands," Ana replied softly, her tone entirely devoid of spite.
She reached forward and gently pressed the cool cloth to the burning skin of his forehead.
Damian let out a low, shuddering breath at the contact. He didn’t pull away. He didn’t snarl an order or mock her obedience. Instead, his hooded obsidian eyes drifted open, tracking her every movement with a strange, quiet intensity.
Ana dipped the cloth again, gently dabbing the heat from his temple, trailing down the rigid line of his jaw to the taut muscles of his uninjured shoulder. For two years of their marriage, she never got the chance to touch him.
And now after coming back as his slave... every touch between them had been a calculated battle... sharp, transactional, or laced with biting venom. Yet here, in the quiet dimness of the master suite, her touch was light, deliberate, and extraordinarily gentle.
As she swept the cloth over his collarbone, Damian’s uninjured right hand moved.
He didn’t grab her with bruising force. He didn’t trap her wrist in an unbreakable vise. With a slow, uncharacteristically hesitant motion, his large, calloused fingers reached up, lightly brushing against the soft curve of her cheek.
Ana froze. Her breath caught in her throat.
His thumb stroked along her cheekbone, warm and surprisingly tender, catching the faint, dried salt of the tears she had shed in his study. The vulnerability in the gesture was so raw, so completely unknown to the ruthless man before her, that a painful tightness clenched inside her chest.
For a single, unguarded second, Ana didn’t pull away. She leaned fractionally into the warmth of his palm, her dark eyes searching him in the quiet shadows.
"Why did you come back for me at the docks?" She whispered, the question slipping past her lips before she could stop it. "If I’m just a debt to be collected... Why take three bullets to keep me alive?"
Damian’s gaze darkened, his fingers curling lightly into the soft strands of hair near her ear. The fever made his voice thick, stripped of his usual mocking bite.
"Stop asking the same question again and again Anastasia... because a debt can be replaced," Damian murmured, his thumb lingering against the corner of her lips. "You can’t."
The raw weight of the admission hung in the air, heavy and intoxicating. Before Ana could process the words, Damian’s fingers slid down to the curve of her waist. With a slow, steady tug that carried the quiet demand of his presence, he pulled her off the chair and onto the edge of the mattress.
"Damian, the doctor said..."
"Quiet," he rasped softly, his strength waning into the deep pull of sleep.
He didn’t try to dominate her. He simply shifted his large frame, guiding her head down until her cheek rested against the uninjured warmth of his bare chest, right above the steady, rhythmic thrum of his heartbeat.
His heavy arm draped over her waist, anchoring her firmly against his side, burying her in the familiar scent of cedar, slate, and linen.
Tears pricked at the corners of Ana’s eyes, the lingering grief of her father’s betrayal finally melting into the crushing, terrifying safety of his hold. She let her hand rest flat against his ribs, her fingers curling into the sheets as she closed her eyes.
In the quiet darkness of the room, as sleep finally pulled him under, Damian’s deep, gravelly voice washed over her like a dark, unbreakable vow.
"You don’t belong to the Vances anymore, doll," he murmured into the crown of her hair, his breath warm and steady against her skin. "They will never sell you again. You are mine."
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Pale ribbons of morning sunlight filtered through the sheer velvet drapes, casting a soft, golden glow across the vast master suite.
Ana stirred slowly, her senses swimming out of a deep, dreamless sleep. The first thing she registered was the overwhelming warmth enveloping her... and the steady, heavy thud beneath her ear.
Her cheek was pressed flat against the firm, uninjured expanse of Damian’s bare chest. His large right arm remained draped securely over her waist, his heavy palm resting against her hip, anchoring her flush against his side.
The scorching heat of his fever had broken completely during the night, leaving his skin warm, smooth, and smelling faintly of cedar and clean cotton.
Her breath hitched. She went utterly still, her dark eyes drifting up.
Damian was already awake.
He lay propped slightly against the dark pillows, his head turned toward her. His hooded obsidian eyes were dark, clear, and unreadable, quietly tracking the flutter of her eyelashes as she woke.
The realization of the night... of falling asleep in his arms, clinging to him like a lifeline... struck her with sudden, terrifying clarity.
Ana instinctively placed both hands flat against the mattress and tried to pull back, intent on breaking free from the suffocating intimacy before the morning stripped her bare.
Damian didn’t let her.
Before she could even shift an inch away, his uninjured right hand shot out. His fingers hooked firmly around the nape of her neck, halting her retreat in an instant.
"Damian, let me go," Ana whispered, a sudden flutter of indignation and panic tightening her throat. She pushed firmly against his uninjured shoulder, twisting her face to the side to avoid his gaze. "Your fever is gone, you’re awake, and I need to get up..."
"I didn’t give you permission to move, little bird," Damian rasped, his morning voice thick, deep, and rough with sleep.
He exerted effortless, unyielding leverage, his fingers threading deep into the dark silk of her hair and tilting her head back toward him. Ana squirmed against his hold, her palms bracing hard against his bare chest, trying to wrench herself free.
Damian ignored her resistance entirely. With a smooth, inexorable pull of his arm, he reeled her straight into his space, his mouth crashing down over hers with dark, deliberate hunger.
Ana let out a muffled gasp against his lips, her hands pushing at his shoulder, but the relentless, intoxicating drag of his mouth gave her no room to breathe. The kiss wasn’t frantic, nor was it the punishing bite from the study desk... it was slow, heavy, and searing with possessive morning heat.
He parted her lips with effortless authority, deepening the kiss until the tension in her arms fractured. Her futile struggle dissolved under the sheer weight of his presence, her fingers curling helplessly into the sheets beside his ribs as a breathless shudder ran through her frame.
Only when he had thoroughly stolen the air from her lungs did Damian slowly break the kiss.
His hooded eyes gleamed with dark, ruthless satisfaction as he hovered inches above her flushed face. His calloused thumb brushed slowly along her swollen lower lip, catching her ragged, uneven breath.
"Much better," he murmured, his lips curving into a low, predatory smirk.
Only then did his fingers release their grip on her hair.
Ana scrambled to the far edge of the mattress, sitting up with her heart hammering violently in her throat, her chest heaving as she smoothed her disheveled clothes with shaking hands.
Before she could say a word, a discreet, measured double-knock sounded at the heavy bedroom door.
"Boss," Walter’s muted voice came from the corridor. "It’s eight in the morning. The perimeter sweeps are clear, and the encrypted dispatch lines are open."
Ana instinctively moved to sit up, but Damian’s hand tightened on her waist, holding her firmly against his side for one more deliberate second before he slowly let his arm fall away.
"Enter," Damian rasped, his deep baritone rough with morning sleep as he sat up against the headboard, his uninjured arm moving with effortless, fluid strength.
The heavy door opened, and Walter stepped inside with a tablet and a steaming cup of black coffee, keeping his eyes carefully trained above the bed.
Walter reported, stepping forward to set the coffee on the mahogany bedside table.
Damian, reaching over to pick up the cup, taking a slow sip as his eyes flicked back to Anastasia, who was quietly sitting up on the edge of the mattress, smoothing her hair.
He set the porcelain down with a sharp click, his expression hardening into cold, commanding focus.
"Get Jullian Montgomery to Northwood estate," Damian ordered, his gravelly voice slicing through the morning air. "Tell him to bring the offshore port registries and the capital transit ledgers. We have business to talk about today."