Chapter 38: Let Me Take Absolute Responsibility

For five years, mornings had been a cold, uniform routine for Dorrent—a calculated transition from the quiet numbness of his private quarters to the absolute, ironclad control of his executive boardroom.

But today, the air inside the palace felt thick and lively with the residual, invisible static of the previous night’s biological cataclysm.

Dorrent strode down the sweeping grand staircase, his silk robe billowing slightly behind his towering, muscular frame. His eyes immediately swept the vast expanse of the dining hall, instinctively seeking the far corner of the table where the pale, sharp-tongued herbalist usually sat. For the past month, despite his structural avoidance of her, Jannah had maintained a rigid, defiant presence at dawn, nursing her bitter morning tea while staring out the window like a caged bird plotting its escape.

The chair was empty.

A pristine, untouched porcelain cup sat on the silver tray, the water long since grown cold. A sudden, sharp prickle of irritation—flared deep within Dorrent’s chest. His jaw clenched. After the explosive, unhinged declarations she had thrown into his face before slamming his bedroom door, he half-expected her to be packed and standing at the estate gates, foolishly attempting to honor her desperate gamble.

He turned on his heel, his long strides carrying him swiftly through the winding corridors of the East Wing until he stood before the doors of her private quarters. He didn’t knock. With the absolute, intrusive authority of a predator who owned every square inch of the ground she walked on, he pushed the door open.

The bedroom was drenched in a suffocating, freezing silence. The duvet was messy, thrown completely to one side of the mattress, but the sheets themselves were entirely vacant.

"Jannah," Dorrent called out, his deep voice dropping into a rough, commanding rasp that echoed uselessly off the walls.

No answer.

His eyes tracked a narrow trail of discarded, damp cotton threads on the floorboards, leading toward the frosted-glass door of the adjacent bathroom. A faint, continuous hum of running water vibrated through the frame. Dorrent strode forward, his hand clamping onto the brass handle, throwing the door open with a sudden, impatient force.

The sight inside froze the blood in his veins.

Jannah had fallen completely onto the freezing marble floorboards, her small, delicate frame huddled tightly against the base of the tub. The shower head above was dripping cold droplets, but she had clearly lost the strength to turn it fully off. She was stark naked, completely limp, and shivering so violently that her teeth were clicking together in a frantic, hollow rhythm. Her long, dark hair was a tangled, soaking wet mass, plastered across her pale face and shivering shoulders like a shroud.

And then there were the marks.

In the unforgiving, sterile light of the morning, her pale skin was a graphic, undeniable canvas of how brutally he had treated her hours prior. The dark, deep purple finger prints from his ironclad grip were permanently pressed into her narrow waist; her hips bore the brilliant, angry red blush of his palms, and the delicate skin of her inner thighs was completely covered in the dark, telling bruises of his fierce, unyielding dominance. It was a terrifyingly vivid reminder of the beast she had awakened—a visual map of an S-tier Alpha’s total, unbridled indulgence.

"Jannah!" 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Dorrent dropped to his knees, his expensive silk robe dragging through the shallow pool of water on the floor as he reached down. The moment his hands made contact with her skin, his brow furrowed in deep concern. She was burning hot to the touch, yet her flesh was covered in a cold, clammy sweat. Her muscles were entirely unresponsive, dangling completely limp as he hoisted her fragile weight into his arms, lifting her against his chest.

He carried her out of the cold bathroom and laid her burning naked body down onto the center of her bed. He immediately grabbed a thick, plush linen towel from the rack and began to aggressively but carefully dry her skin, wrapping her in the warmth of the fabric.

He pressed his palm against her forehead. The heat radiating from her skin was alarming. She was experiencing a severe, acute fever—a direct physical reaction to the sudden, ruthless velocity of his coupling. Her virgin body, completely untouched by the raw, heavy weight of an elite predator’s biology, had simply broken down under the continuous, hours-long onslaught of his passion.

Dorrent’s hand wiped the water from her throat. He had not spared her at all. In his manic, desperate frenzy to prove his own masculinity, to drown out the memory of five years of numbness, he had driven himself into her narrow, unyielding core over and over again without a single shred of mercy.

As he dragged the thick towel down her torso, he arrived at her breasts, pressing the heavy linen over the swollen, sensitive mounds to absorb the moisture.

"Mmmgh..."

A sharp, fractured whimper escaped Jannah’s parted lips, her entire body flinching violently away from the pressure. Her eyes cracked open, dazed, clouded with fever, and swimming with a deep, immediate pain. Every single muscle in her chest and abdomen was aching, her lungs straining with the simple effort of respiration.

Dorrent’s throat went dry. He looked at the pink, swollen state of her nipples, completely raw from the heavy suction of his mouth the night before. The stark contrast between her fragile, suffering form and the absolute, towering health of his own newly restored body filled him with a strange, twisting knot of possessive guilt.

"Stay still," he commanded softly, the usual vicious bite entirely gone from his tone, replaced by a low, husky rumble.

He stood up, stroking his jaw, and strode back to his master suite. He returned a minute later holding a small, frosted glass jar containing an elite, high-grade cell-regenerative cream—a clinical, highly advanced soothing balm utilized by top-tier athletes to repair deep muscle bruising and skin friction.

He dropped back onto the edge of her mattress. He unscrewed the silver cap, dipping his fingers into the cool, translucent gel. He reached down, his hand hovering over her bare shoulder before descending, his palm making contact with her feverish skin as he began to apply the cream over the dark bruises on her neck and collarbone.

Despite her severely injured, weakened state, the very instant his skin slid against hers, Jannah’s breath hitched in her throat.

The contact was instantaneous treason. Even through the haze of a burning fever, her highly sensitive omega core recognized the exact, heavy frequency of his touch. Dorrent watched with a dark, intensely satisfied focus as his hand trailed slowly down the slope of her ribcage, gently massaging the cool gel into the purple marks along her waist. Her skin was slightly trembling beneath his fingertips, her chest rising and falling in a rapid, fractured pattern as she fought with everything she had to control her breath.

Dorrent’s eyes locked onto her face, a slow, predatory warmth settling deep in his lower abdomen. He was happy. A wicked, arrogant satisfaction thrummed through his veins at the realization that his touch was her greatest, most undeniable traitor. She could scream about her hatred, but her physical flesh belonged entirely to his authority.

His hand continued its slow, agonizingly deliberate descent, smoothing the cream over her flat, trembling stomach until his fingers arrived at the very edge of her womanly junction.

The moment the tips of his fingers brushed against the outer sensitive center, a soft, involuntary sound tore from Jannah’s throat.

With a sudden, desperate surge of physical might, her hand shot out from beneath the sheets. Her small, pale fingers clamped tightly around his wrist, her knuckles turning stark white as she physically stopped his hand from rubbing the cream into that specific, raw place.

She was panting, her dark eyes wide and flashing with a volatile mix of humiliation and pure rage as she stared up at him. She knew. She knew with absolute certainty that if he rubbed his fingers over her vagina, her body would immediately betray her by producing that thick, telling wetness. She could already feel the deep, rhythmic throbbing between her thighs intensifying just from the proximity of his hand.

Worse, she could see the way his intense eyes were lingering heavily on her chest. Her nipples were already hardened, pointing upward, fully aroused under the predatory weight of his gaze. She hated the way the look in his eyes felt like a physical violation—fucking her without even touching her, making her feel slick and open in the middle of her fever. She loathed her own weak, responsive biology for offering such a pathetic submission to her ultimate enemy.

"I..." Jannah croaked out, her voice rough, dry, and breaking from the heat of her fever. She squeezed his wrist with all the strength left in her trembling fingers. "I will... do it myself. Leave the jar."

Dorrent let out a low, vibrating chuckle. With a slow, completely effortless display of strength, his long fingers wrapped around her small hand, peeling her fingers away from his wrist with an unbearable, dominant slowness.

"You can barely stand, little omega," Dorrent purred, his voice dropping into a register so dirty, intimate, and thick with desire it made her knees try to curl inward. He pinned her wrist down against the mattress, his eyes burning into hers. "Let me take absolute responsibility for my own actions. I broke you. It is only right that I apply the medicine."

Before she could try to roll away, Dorrent used his free hand to firmly grip the inside of her knees. With a smooth, unyielding leverage, he parted the legs she had desperately clamped together, exposing the deep, hidden secrets of her anatomy to the bright morning light.

He guided his cream-covered fingers directly down into the very center of her swollen opening.

Jannah’s eyes flew open, her teeth sinking violently into her lower lip, her small hands clutching the silk sheets as she prayed to the goddess that he wouldn’t notice the sudden, rhythmic twitching of her internal muscles as they desperately clamped around his touch.