Chapter 150: A Shattered Comfort Plan
Dorrent sat frozen on the edge of the mattress, the smell of blood blooming across his tongue where her teeth had ripped the flesh of his lip. His silver eyes, usually blown wide with dominance or flashing with possessive arrogance, were dark as he watched her huddle on the far side of the bed.
"Jannah, I’m sorry," Dorrent murmured. His baritone was rough, a vibration that he actively fought to keep steady. He lifted a hand, palm open, keeping it suspended in the moonlight to show he wasn’t reaching for her skin. "I’m sorry. I didn’t know I was affecting you like that. I swear to you, I was only offering a shoulder to cry on. I saw you shaking, and I just..."
"Don’t you dare lie to me!"
Jannah bolted up, her spine snapping straight as she faced him. The movement was too fast; it wrenched the tearing inside her fractured ribcage, causing her pale face to contort in a sudden, blinding spasm of agony. She gasped, a ragged breath rattling in her throat, but she refused to back down. Her eyes, swollen and rimmed with red, burned with fire that seemed to consume her fragile features.
"Don’t bring your pathetic, disgusting games into this room tonight, Dorrent Grefo!" she shrieked, her voice cracking under the weight of her grief. Tears poured down her cheeks in uninterrupted rivers, catching the dim silver light as they dripped onto her shirt. "Isn’t this exactly what you always want? Isn’t this what you constantly yearn for every single second I am trapped under your roof? You want to make me feel things! You want to manipulate my biology, to use your foul Alpha frequency to get me wet, to make my body betray my mind so you can have an excuse to force yourself into my bed! You sit there looking innocent, but you are nothing but a perverted monster!"
Dorrent’s chest expanded beneath his shirt, his jaw locking tight . He felt the phantom pull of her scent—even drenched in her sorrow, the raw, winter-frost pheromones inside his own veins were screaming to lean forward and pin her down until she ceased her yelling. But he forced his instincts into an iron cage.
"I am serious, Jannah," he delivered flatly, his silver eyes locking onto her frantic gaze with an unbending gravity. "I wasn’t thinking about any of those things when I walked through that door. I swear to you on my own lineage, I wasn’t." He paused, his gaze drifting down to the exposed skin of her tiny waist for a fraction of a second before he lifted his eyes back to hers, his voice dropping into a shameful admission. "I admit... I admit that I did think about it for a very short while when I first saw you lying there. But I dismissed it instantly. I only wanted to comfort you because your grandfather is gone... but it seems your own biology wanted a different kind of comfort."
"Go to hell!" Jannah choked out, a bitter, broken sob tearing its way out of her chest as his words threw her own physical betrayal right back into her face. She cursed him, her small fist clenching against the mattress. "I am okay! I don’t need anything from you! I don’t need your comfort!"
But she wasn’t okay. The velocity of her grief was a tidal wave that her fragile system could no longer contain. The dam inside her chest shattered completely, and she began to cry very hard, her lungs seizing as uncontrollable wails ripped through her vocal cords. Her small shoulders collapsed inward, her head dropping into her lap as she wept like a shattered child, the agony of Duro’s cold face in the morgue finally crushing the last of her defenses.
Dorrent didn’t ask for permission this time. Seeing her unravel dismantled his calculated restraint. He shifted his weight across the mattress with a sudden, silent grace, his arms reaching out and wrapping around her shaking torso. He ignored her frantic squirming, pulling her small body against the hard, solid expanse of his chest, locking his forearms behind her lower back to keep her anchored against his heartbeat.
"Cry," Dorrent commanded softly, his voice vibrating right against the crown of her head as his winter-frost pheromones expanded, filling the dark room with a thick, soothing blanket of warmth that wrapped around her raw senses. "Cry it all out, Jannah. Pour it all out for your husband."
Between her sobs, Jannah’s right fist came up, slamming repeatedly against his hard collarbone. Her blows were weak, completely drained of stamina, but each strike carried the full weight of her resentment. "More like... more like a nemesis!" she wailed against his chest, her tears soaking through the fabric of his shirt, leaving wet patches against his skin. "You are not... you are not my husband! You are my nemesis!"
"Then call me that," Dorrent murmured, his grip never faltering for a single second as he absorbed the weak impact of her fists, his chin resting against her soft hair. "Call me your nemesis. Call me whatever you feel is right for you, Jannah. If it makes the weight in your chest lighter, you can call me a demon."
"You are a perverted... manipulative... monster," she choked out, her voice muffled against his skin as she tried to pull away, but her body was sinking deeper into his scent, the intense Alpha warmth acting like a narcotic on her shattered nerves.
"Then you should be glad that I can only be perverted towards you," Dorrent delivered roughly, a spark flaring within his eyes as his hand slid up to support her neck. "Because no other woman on this earth will ever experience this part of me."
Jannah completely broke down. The remaining strength in her hands died out, her fingers curling into the fabric of his shirt as she wailed out loud, her voice rising into a piercing, infant-like lament that echoed off the high ceilings of the bedroom. She wept for her mother, she wept for her father, and she wept for the old man whose hands would never brew herbal teas for her again.
Dorrent listened to her grief, his heart hammering against his ribs in uncoordinated rhythm. He slowly lifted his hand, his fingers gently catching her chin and tilting her face upward, forcing her to look through the fog of her tears. He leaned down, his face inches from hers, and then, with a slow, deliberate tenderness, he began to lick her tears away. His warm, rough tongue brushed across her pale cheeks, tracing the damp pathways from her eyelids down to her jawline, cleaning the sorrow from her skin with a primitive, beast-like devotion.
Jannah’s eyes dilated. The sweeping texture of his tongue against her face, the hot, dominant pressure of his breath, instantly began to stir something deeply primal within her omega core. Against her own will, her system began to arouse, a faint, sweet heat blooming between her thighs as her pheromones responded to his care. She hated it. She absolutely loathed her own flesh for reacting to the man who had ruined her life. She tried to twist her head away, but he followed her movement, landing a slight, lingering kiss directly onto her trembling mouth—a soft, bruising pressure that tasted of salt and his own spilled blood.
As her breathing finally began to cool down, the wailing reducing to small hiccups against his chest, Dorrent slowly pulled his lips back a fraction of an inch. His eyes locked dead onto her dark, glazed pupils.
"Jannah," he whispered, his voice dropping into a serious register that carried a subtle trace of vulnerability. "My rut period will be approaching soon. I want you to use these next few days to rest, to let your ribs heal and your system recover well... because when that time comes, I wish for you to take care of me during that time."
The words struck her like a bucket of freezing water.
Jannah’s eyes went instantly sharp, the glaze of arousal vanishing as a fierce, defensive adrenaline flooded her veins. She began to wiggle out of his arms, her legs kicking against the sheets as she tore herself away from his chest with a sudden, manic strength that caught him off guard. She slid back until her spine hit the wooden headboard, her chest heaving as she glared at him with an expression of disgust.
"You will never change!" she shrieked, her voice shaking with a fresh wave of venomous anger. "You are absolute trash, Dorrent! You claim to be here tonight to comfort me! You look at me crying for my dead grandfather, and you pretend to have a soul, but the very next second you are talking about your ruts! All you ever think about, all your disgusting mind ever calculates, is fucking me! You don’t care about my grief! You only see me as a tool to satisfy your beastly desires!"
The sudden rapture of her voice hit Dorrent like a physical slap, breaking the hypnotic hold of his own possessive thoughts. He sat frozen on the mattress, his arms remaining empty in the air as her words tore through his ego, leaving his pride mutilated.
God dammit, Dorrent growled to himself, his eyes flashing with a sudden wave of self-hatred. He looked at her pale, disgusted face and felt an intense bitterness flood his throat. She’s right. I messed it up completely.
He internally blamed his own crazy, unhinged mind—that primitive, dominant S-tier core that always, without fail, reverted back to the thought of burying his dick into her skin, no matter how tragic the circumstance. He couldn’t do a single thing right when it came to this girl. He had walked into this room with the genuine intention of being her shield, of proving to her that he could be the husband Duro wanted him to be, and within ten minutes, he had let his primal desires hijack his tongue. At this rate... if he couldn’t even manage to comfort her without sounding like a rutting animal... how on earth was he ever going to make the little herbalist fall for him? How was he going to win her heart?
Before he could open his mouth to speak, Jannah reached out, grabbed the down pillow, and threw it with all her remaining strength straight across his face.
"Get out!" she screamed, her finger pointing frantically toward the door. "Get out of my sight right now!"
Dorrent didn’t argue. He caught the pillow as it bounced off his shoulder, setting it down on the mattress with a slow precision. He stood up from the bed, his frame towering in the silver moonlight for a single, silent second as he looked down at her huddled, weeping form. Without uttering another syllable, he turned on his heel and walked silently out of the room, his shoulders slumped as the door clicked shut behind him, leaving his grand comforting plan completely shattered on the floor.
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