What He Withholds
1885 Words
No one came.
At first, Kyrian counted time by footsteps.
Guards changing shifts. Servants passing above the cell. The distant echo of patrol boots on stone. Every sound made his heart lift for half a second an irrational, humiliating hope that Damon would finally appear.
He stopped counting after the third day.
His been refusing to eat the meals given to him but today was different, he felt like he would pass out from hunger.
Hunger arrived quietly. Not as pain, not as desperation but as absence. Food was brought regularly, shoved through the bars without eye contact. Kyrian finally ate because his body demanded it, not because he wanted to. Each bite felt heavy in his mouth, tasteless, mechanical.
By the eight day, even that became difficult.
The bond inside him had changed.
It no longer screamed.
It pulled.
A slow, draining ache, like something tethered too far away. Every hour without Damon nearby made his chest feel hollow, like a limb gone numb from lack of blood. His body ached badly, his vision blurry, he had become too weak to even lift his head.
Kyrian pressed his forehead to the cold stone wall and breathed through the dizziness.
“He’s not coming,” he whispered to himself.
Saying it aloud was supposed to make it easier.
It didn’t.
Above ground, Damon Belloti had not set foot near the cells once.
Not since the day he had Kyrian locked up.
The Elders and the pack had gotten restless seeing their Alpha in such a state. They notice that their Alpha no longer ate with them, no longer trained with them, no longer slept.
He existed in extremes now.
Some days, he was sharp and merciless issuing orders with terrifying clarity, dismantling elder authority piece by piece, patrolling the borders himself like a predator daring someone to challenge him.
Other days, he disappeared entirely.
Locked in his office.
Silent.
Unreachable.
Hannah stopped him in the corridor on the eight day.
“You haven’t visited the omega,” she said bluntly.
Damon didn’t break stride. “I know where he is.”
“He’s refusing food,” she pressed. “The bond…”
“ will not kill him,” Damon snapped.
Hannah fell silent, studying his face. There were dark shadows beneath his eyes now. His scent was wrong too sharp, too erratic. She didn’t care about Kyrian, it’s Damon she cared about.
“You’re weakening,” she said carefully.
Damon stopped.
Turned.
For a moment, Hannah thought he might lash out.
Instead, he smiled.
A thin, empty thing.
“Then stop watching me,” he said. “And start watching him. That’s your job, isn’t it?”
He walked away.
Behind him, Hannah clenched her jaw. She turned and walked towards the basement to Kyrians cell.
Hannah watched the omega sleep with a calculating eye.
Kyrian lay curled on the narrow cot, breath shallow, skin too pale against the dark blanket she had ordered placed there not out of kindness, but optics. A dying omega reflected poorly on command. A suffering one, however, was useful.
She adjusted the blanket just enough to look attentive when the guard passed.
“Water every few hours,” Hannah instructed coolly. “No stimulants. No excess food.”
The guard hesitated. “Shouldn’t we…”
“He doesn’t need comfort,” she cut in. “He needs to remain alive. That’s all the Alpha asked for.”
And Damon had asked for nothing else.
Hannah straightened and stepped away from the cell, boots echoing softly down the corridor. Her mind moved faster than her steps, threading possibilities together like a loom.
Damon was unraveling.
Weeks ago, she would have sworn nothing could touch him his dominance too absolute, his control too refined. Now? He vanished for days. Snapped without warning. Ignored counsel, ignored pack hierarchy.
Ignored her.
That stung more than she admitted.
She had bled for Blackwood. Killed for it. Held the line while Damon rose unchecked. And now a fragile omega soft spoken, trembling, insignificant had become the axis everything tilted around.
Hannah’s lips thinned.
No. Not insignificant.
Dangerous.
She had seen it in the way Damon’s power wavered when Kyrian weakened. Seen it in the way the pack’s unease centered not on their Alpha but on what he refused to do.
If Kyrian lived, Damon would break.
If Kyrian died, Damon would fall.
Either way, the balance shifted.
And Hannah intended to be standing at the center of it.
She began whispering carefully.
To guards. To warriors. To elders who already feared Damon’s volatility.
“The bond is destabilizing him,” she would say softly.
“The omega refuses food.”
“The Alpha won’t see him.”
“This cannot continue.”
“The bond is destroying Alpha Damon.”
Never lies. Only framing.
She made sure reports reached Damon late after exhaustion had dulled his patience. Made sure Kyrian’s condition sounded concerning, never critical. A slow erosion, not an emergency.
And if Damon finally snapped?
She would be ready. She would be there to comfort, please and pleasure Damon.
Hannah paused at the corridor’s end and glanced back once toward the cells, toward the omega who had become a fulcrum without ever asking to be.
“Survive,” she murmured, not kindly. “Or don’t.”
Either outcome would serve her.
Kyrian tried to leave.
That was what finally earned him attention.
On the ninth night, when the moon rose high and cold, he stood and approached the bars with unsteady steps. His legs shook beneath him, strength leached slowly over days of neglect.
“I want to go,” he said quietly to the guard on duty.
The young wolf guard startled, clearly unprepared to be addressed.
“Go… where?”
“Out,” Kyrian replied. “Out of Blackwood. I won’t resist. I won’t speak. I won’t come back.” I’m not allowed to be with him so please let me go. He cried
“Tell him I want a rejection please I’m begging.” Kyrian knew it won’t severe the bond but it would release him enough to no longer be a burden, enough to let him leave and still be able to survive. But there’s still a chance it could possibly kill him. He was Willing to risk it.
The guard hesitated, then shook his head. “I can’t…”
“Please,” Kyrian said.
The word cost him more than he expected.
The guard left without answering.
By morning, everyone knew.
The omega was wanted to reject the mate bond with their Alpha and leave.
The pack whispered not with fear this time, but discomfort.
Because this wasn’t rebellion.
This was resignation.
Damon heard about it over breakfast.
Or what should have been breakfast.
The plate in front of him remained untouched, steam curling uselessly into the air. He stared at it as if unsure what it was meant for.
“He asked to be released,” Marcus said carefully, watching him. “To accept rejection and leave the territory.”
Damon’s jaw tightened.
The bond flared sharp, punishing.
Damon shoved the plate away so hard it shattered against the wall.
“No,” he said flatly.
The elders exchanged glances.
“You will not see him,” Rowan said. It wasn’t a question.
Damon rose slowly, every movement controlled to the point of violence. “I didn’t say that.”
“But you haven’t,” Elijah said softly. “Not once.” Yes they wanted the bond gone but Kyrian’s decision demanding for rejection troubled them, the rejection could kill the omega and the last thing they need is their Alpha going crazy from the loss of his mate, it would destroy the pack but if the rejection works without killing the Omega it could fix the problem once and for all. But it was too risky to take when the outcome wasn’t certain.
Silence stretched.
Damon turned away.
“Keep him alive, his not leaving and I’m not rejecting him.”he said. “That’s all.”
And left.
Kyrian grew weaker.
Not dramatically. Not enough to cause alarm.
Just enough to be noticed if someone cared to look.
His steps slowed. His hands shook. He slept more, waking disoriented and cold. The bond pulsed erratically sometimes numb, sometimes sharp enough to steal his breath.
He dreamed of Damon constantly.
Not of cruelty.
Of absence.
Damon walking past him without looking.
Damon standing close but never touching.
Damon turning away every time Kyrian reached out.
Those dreams hurt more than memory.
On the eleventh day, Kyrian collapsed.
It wasn’t dramatic. His knees simply gave out as he stood, dizziness crashing over him like a wave. He hit the stone floor hard, breath knocked from his lungs.
The guard panicked.
He was conscious barely but his skin was cold, his scent thin and wrong.
“He’s failing,” Hannah said later, furious. “The bond is destabilizing.”
Damon listened without expression.
“Then stabilize it,” he replied.
“You’re the anchor,” she snapped. “Whether you like it or not.”
Damon said nothing.
That silence was answer enough.
Kyrian woke to unfamiliar warmth.
A blanket.
Water at his lips.
Hannah’s face hovered above him, tight with frustration.
“Drink,” she ordered.
Kyrian obeyed weakly.
“Did he send you?” Kyrian asked hoarsely.
Hannah’s mouth thinned. “No.”
The word landed like a bruise.
“Oh,” Kyrian whispered.
He turned his face away.
Hannah cursed under her breath.
Damon didn’t sleep that night.
He stood on the balcony of his office, staring at the moon with hollow eyes. His wolf paced endlessly, agitated and restless, pulling toward the cells, toward the one place Damon refused to go.
If I see him, the wolf growled, I will choose.
Damon clenched the railing. “I already did.”
And it was tearing him apart.
On the fourteenth night, Hannah returned.
Not with fury.
With cold patience.
The bond surged violently, knocking Damon to his knees. Breath tore from his chest as sensation flooded him Kyrian’s weakness, his fading strength, his quiet resolve to disappear.
“You starve what you refuse to face”. His wolf said aggressively.
Damon laughed bitterly. “He wanted to leave.”
“And you denied him.”
Images followed.
Kyrian whispering please.
Kyrian turning away.
Kyrian stopping trying.
If he dies, Hannah said calmly, you will not survive him.
Damon froze.
Silence followed.
Heavy.
Final.
Kyrian didn’t know when Damon finally came.
Only that the cell door opened without warning.
He didn’t rise.
Didn’t look.
Damon stood just inside the threshold, breathing unevenly. The bond snapped tight, violent in its sudden closeness.
Kyrian flinched despite himself.
Damon noticed.
That hurt more than anger would have.
“You’re alive,” Damon said.
Kyrian laughed weakly. “Congratulations.”
The words were empty.
Damon’s jaw tightened. “You tried to leave.”
“Yes.”
“You can’t.”
Kyrian finally looked at him.
His eyes were dull not angry, not pleading.
Just tired.
“Stop pretending I matter,” Kyrian said quietly. “Either kill me properly or let me go.”
The bond screamed.
Damon said nothing.
And that silence again was the cruelest choice of all.
- Writer
