Claimed By A Midnight King

Chapter 42

Vivian’s POV

I was in the tower chamber when Dominic found me.

Late evening. The stone walls were cool and the light was fading fast. I’d been alone for hours, not by choice tho, but because after the training grounds everyone had scattered. Warriors avoiding me. Servants finding reasons to be elsewhere. Even Elara had been pulled away by other duties.

The isolation felt like punishment.

Dominic closed the door behind him and the world went quiet.

“How do you feel?” he asked. He wasn’t asking about my body. He was asking about the power. About what had been happening all afternoon on those training grounds.

“Like I’m holding something that wants to break loose,” I said honestly. “Like every second I have to clench down harder to keep it contained.”

He crossed the room and took my hands. My palms were still glowing faintly violet light that hadn’t fully faded since the sun went down.

“Tell me what happened,” he said.

“Brand attacked me,” I said. “Not training. An actual attack. He wanted to see if I could really fight or if I was just the Alpha’s plaything.”

I could feel Dominic’s anger spike through the bond.

“I blocked it,” I continued. “And the power came. It came up like something alive. Like something that wanted to burn him where he stood. And I felt it, Dominic. I felt how close I was to losing control. How close I was to turning him to ash.”

Dominic pulled me onto the bed and we sat facing each other. The room was getting darker but neither of us moved to light the lamps.

“But you didn’t,” he said. “You controlled it.”

“Because Kade was there,” I said. “Because I knew if I lost control, it would confirm everything the pack believes about me. But what about tomorrow? What about when someone attacks and Kade isn’t there?”

Dominic reached out and traced the glow on my palm with his thumb.

“My wolf wants you,” he said quietly.

The statement hung in the darkness between us.

“I know,” I said. “The bond..”

“Not because of the bond,” he interrupted. “The bond came because my wolf already wanted you. The bond just made it official.”

He was quiet for a long moment, struggling with something.

“I spent years training myself not to listen to my wolf,” he said. “After my father died. After I realized I couldn’t afford to make decisions based on feeling. Every choice had to be strategic.Political.”

He brought my hand to his chest, over his heart.

“Your father murdered mine,” he said. “Do you understand what that means? Do you understand that every rational part of me should see you as a threat? That my wolf should want vengeance?”

“Yes,” I said. “I know.”

“But my wolf doesn’t want that,” Dominic said. “My wolf looks at you and recognizes something. Something it needs. Something that makes it whole in a way I didn’t know I was broken.”

He pulled me closer.

“And for weeks, I fought that,” he continued. “I told myself it was manipulation. That the bond was making me weak. That accepting it would destroy my credibility as Alpha. And maybe all of that is true. But I’m done fighting it.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Because,” he said, “my wolf is right. You’re not your father. You’re not your bloodline. You’re just… you. And you’re the only thing in this entire mountain that makes sense to me right now.”

I moved closer to him and the violet light on my hands intensified.

“I’m terrified,” I whispered. “That I’m going to hurt you. That I’m going to hurt the pack. That I’m going to prove everyone right about how dangerous I am.”

“Then tell me,” he said. “Tell me what you’re actually feeling. Not the fear. The actual feeling underneath it.”

I sat with that for a moment.

“Seen,” I finally said. “I feel seen. For the first time in my entire life, someone is looking at me and not seeing my father. Not seeing an Omega. Not seeing a Solari girl or a threat or a tool. You’re looking at me and seeing me.”

Dominic kissed me then. Not passionately. Tenderly. Like he was confirming something.

“Tell me about your life,” he said. “Before everything. I need to understand who you were before all of this.”

I took a breath. This was the part I’d been avoiding.

“My mother died when I was three,” I said. “Childbirth complications with my younger brother. He died too, three days later. I don’t remember her at all. Just… stories my father told me.”

Dominic was quiet, letting me continue.

“He said she was brave,” I continued. “That she knew the birth was going to kill her. the healers had warned her. But she wanted another child anyway. Wanted a son to carry on his bloodline. And she made the choice to go through with it anyway.”

I was quiet for a moment, thinking about what that meant. A woman choosing death for her child. For her family.

“My father raised me alone after that,” I said. “Which was… complicated. Because I was an Omega. The pack didn’t expect Omegas to be valuable. Didn’t expect them to matter. I was supposed to be support staff. Emotional foundation for the pack. Serve everyone else’s needs and be grateful for the position.”

“But your father didn’t treat you that way,” Dominic said. It wasn’t a question.

“No,” I said. “He treated me like I mattered. Like my thoughts mattered. Like I could be more than just my designation. He taught me to read. He taught me strategy. He had me sit in on council meetings. Which was… unusual. Omega females don’t do that.”

Dominic’s hand found mine in the darkness.

“Then he became a Gamma,” I said. “A high military position. And suddenly everything changed. He was traveling constantly. Gone for months at a time. And when he came back, he was different. Harder. Like something in him had broken.”

“What happened?” Dominic asked gently.

“I think,” I said slowly, “that he started doing things he didn’t believe in. Things that went against his conscience. He would come home and I could see it in his eyes. The guilt. The shame .But he wouldn’t talk about it. Just… withdrew.”

I felt tears on my face without remembering starting to cry.

“And then Sofia started giving me the blue tonic,” I continued. “The suppression serum. I was ten. Sofia said it was for my safety. Said that my power was manifesting in dangerous ways and that the tonic would help me control it. My father argued with her about it. I remember hearing them fighting about it.”

“But she gave it to you anyway,” Dominic said .

“Yes,” I said.“And he was too distracted to stop her. Too wrapped up in whatever he was doing for the Solari military. Too guilty about his own choices to properly protect me from hers.”

I wiped my face.

“Then he died,”i said. “You found out he’d orchestrated your father’s murder. And instead of defending him, instead of explaining what he’d done or why, the whole pack just… turned on him. On us. On me.”

“What happened to you after?”Dominic asked.

“I was sent to work in the Sun Clan households,” I said. “As a maid. As punishment, I think, though Sofia never explicitly said that. They just said I was being ‘rehabilitated.’ That I needed to learn what it meant to truly serve the pack. And the tonic… Sofia said I needed to keep taking it. Said my power was still dangerous. Said I needed to stay suppressed.”

“For ten years,” Dominic said.

“For ten years,” I repeated. “Ten years of being invisible. Ten years of being told I was less than. Ten years of watching Omegas be used and discarded and pretending it was normal. Ten years of swallowing that blue tonic every morning and feeling something inside me slowly suffocate.”

Dominic pulled me against his chest.

“And then your father died?” he asked softly.

“And then your power started waking up,” he said. “Through the bond.”

“Yes,” I said. “And it was like… like someone had been holding me underwater for a decade and suddenly pulled me to the surface. The rage was immediate. The clarity was immediate. I realized that everything I’d accepted as normal was actually abuse. That my father’s death wasn’t my responsibility. That being an Omega didn’t mean I was worth less.”

“Your father would be proud of you,” Dominic said. “Not for what he did. But for what you became despite it.”

“I don’t know if I’m going to survive this,” I said. “I don’t know if the pack is going to accept me. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to control this power.”

“Then let’s find out together,” Dominic said.

He kissed the top of my head and we sat in the darkness, and for the first time since my father’s death, I didn’t feel completely alone.

Later, as we lay together in the darkness, Dominic asked one more question.

“Do you blame him?” he asked. “Your father. For what he did to mine.”

I thought about that for a long moment.

“I used to,” I said. “When I was younger, before I understood what he was actually dealing with. I was angry at him for being weak. For making choices that had consequences. But now…”

“Now?” Dominic prompted.

“Now I think he was a man trapped between two impossible things,” I said. “Between conscience and duty. Between what he believed was right and what his superiors demanded. And he made the choice that destroyed him. I think he spent the rest of his life trying to atone for it. And I think that’s why he raised me the way he did, to be someone better. To be someone who wouldn’t make the same choices he made.”

“Do you think he succeeded?” Dominic asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Ask me after the Solari attack. Ask me when I have to choose between what’s right and what’s necessary. Ask me when my power could save people or destroy them and I have to decide which it will be.”

Dominic held me tighter.

“Whatever you choose,” he said, “I’ll be there.”

And in that moment, in the darkness of the tower, I finally believed that maybe I could be more than the sum of my father’s sins.