Chapter 4

A flash of venom crossed her eyes as she looked at me, but her tone was incredibly light and sweet.

"Damon, can't you see? She's just dying for you to regret this! It's the only way she can leave completely unscathed!"

"The moment you give in, she wins."

Her deceptively gentle words made Damon jolt.

He looked as if he'd just understood something.

His brow furrowed, and his knuckles trembled slightly as he pulled back his hand.

"Elliana, you're the dog who's been groveling for three years without being marked. Is this your new way of wagging your tail and begging for me?"

A cold sneer tugged at the corner of his lips.

I could barely hold on any longer.

The dagger slipped from my grasp, and the world spun before my eyes.

"Damon, you've already lost my love. Why would I still be wagging my tail and begging for you?"

Those words instantly made Damon's eyes turn bloodshot.

He ignored Lydia’s attempts to stop him, seized my wrist, and brutally dragged my weak, dizzy body into the room.

"Elliana! Don't you think you're getting off too easy, just leaving like this?"

He ripped open my collar, exposing the blank marking spot on the back of my neck.

I struggled instinctively, but he slammed me violently onto the sofa.

"Damon! Are you crazy?"

"Crazy?I've been crazy for a long time, and you're the one who drove me to it!" His breathing was heavy, his face pressing against the back of my neck, his eyes furiously bloodshot. "Didn't you beg me for three years to mark you? Fine, I'll grant your wish now!"

His movements were brutal, a release of frustration, pinning me to the sofa like a rag doll. I struggled with all my might, but I couldn't push him away.

But he didn't actually bite down.

He only dragged his sharp fangs along the back of my neck, threatening,

"Beg me, Elliana. Just like you did in my bed three years ago, wagging your tail and begging me to mark you. What? Playing all high and mighty now?"

I bit my lip hard, refusing to let out the slightest sound.

As if provoked, he pressed me down even harder and sneered, "You wanted to sever the bond, didn't you? Then you'd better remember that this severing is a price you paid by stripping naked, Elliana."

Tears slipped from the corners of my eyes, but my heart was already numb.

Seeing this, Damon’s tone grew even more mocking.

"Elliana, look at you, you're being such a bitch."

But I didn't answer.

I even gave up struggling.

There was only a dead stillness in my eyes, a look of grim resignation.

For no reason, a flicker of panic shot through Damon's heart. But he remained stubborn, hissing at me viciously,

"Elliana, don't expect me to go soft. I will never let you leave!"

"Trying to sever our bond is just you humiliating yourself!"

Suddenly, I laughed.

My gaze softened considerably.

But within that softness was a despair and lifelessness that could no longer be concealed.

It was the look of someone who could end her own life at any moment.

"Damon, you're no longer the boy I dreamed of chasing in the tender years of my youth. That boy...He's been dead for a long time."

"He died in that accident, along with your father..."

I spoke lightly, my voice dissolving in the wind, so fragile it could shatter at a touch.

Hearing me mention his late father,

Damon exploded with rage, raising his hand to swing a slap across my face.

But his movements froze the moment he saw my eyes, which had completely lost their light.

His pupils constricted, and he instinctively clutched at his aching chest.

As his hateful gaze fell upon me, it was laced with a thousand different emotions.

"Elliana, you disgust me now as much as you always have!"

"Do you think this is how you're going to get me to mark you? You’re only fit to be a common whore, passed around for everyone to use. I could pick up any Omega off the street, and they'd still be a hundred times better than you!

He cursed through gritted teeth.

Then he rolled off me and tossed me, my clothes in disarray, onto the sofa like a broken doll.

He snatched his suit jacket from the floor and stormed out the door.

I don’t remember how long I lay on the sofa.

All I knew was that as I finally rose, steeped in the depths of despair, a self-mocking laugh escaped me.

My vision went black, and the world collapsed around me like a receding tide.

My body went limp, and I fell heavily onto the cold floor tiles with a dull thud.

Streams of blood suddenly gushed from the corners of my mouth, and I could no longer lift my eyelids.

"Goodbye forever, Damon."

My faint whisper dissipated in the room.

Then, resigned to my fate, I sank into death's embrace…

At that very moment.

The front door was suddenly kicked open.

A panicked, furious wolf's howl ripped through the night sky:

"Elliana!"