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His voice changed, becoming rough and coarser. “When we learned she had been rotting in the palace dungeons all that time... he couldn’t even look at me anymore. Many from the community couldn’t bear the idea of me being a Sy, even though they knew me, they’d raised me.”

His hand covered hers where it rested against his chest, pressing her palm flat against the steady thump of his heartbeat.

“Even I couldn’t bear it. Growing up, I was proud to be a Sy, proud of our legacy and achievements.

Even many of the villages looked up to the Sy Dynasty.

But right then, I realized they had built everything on the suffering of others. ”

Naya studied his face as he spoke. “That’s what made you decide to do it?” she asked softly. “To go up against so many of them when you were so young?”

He was quiet for a long moment, lifting a thick hand to rub his bearded chin. When he finally spoke, his words were of absolute conviction. “I didn’t expect to survive it. I didn’t want to.”

The admission made her cold. There was no hesitation, no softness or self-pity in his tone. Just cold fact delivered like a death sentence.

“Of all the dynasty lines, the Sy should not have been the one to survive.” The rage in his eyes made her chest tighten.

“And no one was better positioned to destroy them than me. I was the only one who could get close enough, the only one who had trained with weapons, the only one who would dare to do it.” Something twisted in his gaze.

“And I was the only one of them who carried any shame at all.”

Naya’s stomach lurched as she realized what he was telling her. He hadn’t been a noble hero—he’d turned himself into a weapon against his own family, driven by shame and rage and the conviction that his bloodline was poison.

His dark eyes found hers again, and she saw no trace of the vulnerable boy she might have expected. Instead, she saw the weapon that violence had forged—harder, colder, more dangerous than anything his family had ever produced.

“When I survived, the people took care of me,” he said.

“They nursed me back to health, treated me like some kind of fucking hero when all I’d done was what had been necessary.

” His hand squeezed her thigh, but his eyes were lost in his memories.

“They needed a leader, someone who could prioritize them and give them stability. Before I’d even healed, they decided that that leader was me. ”

He paused, jaw working silently. “When I thought about it, I agreed with them. Why else would I have survived? So I made a public vow to give my life to them, to erase what my family had done and give ssukkǔrians the life they should have had. To do that I had to change the perception of the Sy name. I had to make it something the people could rally around and be proud of. If I was going to rule these people successfully, that shame couldn’t follow me—or them—around.

“So, I gathered the surviving dynasties and made them agree, by blood contract, that only the Sy Dynasty would remain. No others. And even then, only Oppo and I would be recognized as Sy.”

“But weren’t you the only ones left anyway?”

“No.” Akoro’s voice dropped, hardening. “Everyone in Tsashokra was killed. But one of my cousins was out of the region during the Battle of Sy. I wasn’t going to risk him or anyone else coming back to claim what I’d planned to build.”

“What was in it for the dynasties?” Naya asked. “Why would they agree to give up their lineage like that?”

“They agreed with everything I wanted; that I would claim Tsashokra as king, that they would stay out of Onn Kkulma and build settlements outside of it, that no one would move against me, that all my laws would be obeyed... on the condition that I ensured no more wild magic would attack any settlements in the region.”

Naya inhaled a sharp breath. “That’s why you banned Omegas.”

He nodded. “There weren’t many to ban anyway.

We kept getting reports of dying or missing Omegas but when we searched, we couldn’t find any.

We tried searching for them for the first few years, then we received a message from them saying they’d found a place in that dead forest and will abide by the law and never return. ”

Naya lowered her eyes, mind lurching. That message had to have been sent from the Ilǐa community. Based on what the Oshrun said, most of the Omegas were taken there at that point. They probably sent him the message so he would stopped looking for them.

“After that, the full Sy history wasn’t spoken about by any official in Onn Kkulma.

It only lives in rumor and whispers among people who half-remember it.

” He paused, holding her gaze. “The moment I decided to protect the Sy name, I buried their crimes with it. And I buried myself right beside them.”

Naya absorbed his words in silence. He had destroyed his family for their crimes, yet spent years burying those same crimes beneath lies and careful omissions.

The contradiction twisted through her thoughts—a man who had committed necessary murder to stop injustice, only to protect the very legacy he’d killed to end.

And now, she saw the danger in that. Because what he destroyed, he never mourned. What he built, he never questioned.

If she forgave him now, what did that make her? Complicit in rewriting a history that wasn’t hers to forget?

The hand on her hip began to stroke her. “Of course, you have changed everything.”

The statement caught her off guard. She studied his face, searching for the trap she was certain hid in his words. “How could I? I haven’t done anything.”

The Alpha’s arms tightened around her. “You’re my mate, Naya. Before you, I had nothing that belonged to me alone. I lived for the people. I’d have died for them. But if they try to take you from me, I’ll turn on them too.”

“You would?” The whisper escaped before she could stop it.

He paused. “I cannot uphold my vow to them when I live for you now.”

The declaration hit her hard, forcing the breath from her lungs. She dropped her gaze, unable to meet his eyes while she processed the magnitude of what he’d said.

She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, reorienting herself. “You didn’t treat me like that,” she said evenly, looking back up at him. “You treated me like a prisoner.”

A low growl rumbled from his chest, displeasure darkening his scent until it became sharp and bitter. “I had to. I didn’t know you were my mate when?—”

“When you cut me, you knew.” Her words were level and unforgiving. “You knew I was your mate then, Akoro, and you knew exactly what that wound meant—the history of that wound.”

The muscle beneath his beard rippled with tension.

“You need to understand something, Nayara.” His thumb traced around her wrist. “Nothing has ever kept me from what I want. Nothing.” He spoke with the coldness of a man who had carved his path through blood.

“The invasion preparations consumed everything for years. Then when I took you and realized you were my mate… you were a distraction and you caused delays. Then you started wandering around my city.”

His dark eyes roamed her face. “You think I didn’t notice how you watched everything, cataloged any possible vulnerability?

Planned how you could escape? You were clever enough to destroy months of planning if you got the chance.

I couldn’t spare the time to watch you properly and I couldn’t risk you escaping, not because of the invasion but because of me.

I wanted you. And not even you were going to keep me from that. ”

Naya tried to keep her breathing even. His admission was both raw and reluctant.

“I knew that with time you would eventually accept that your empire had been conquered, but you were still angry and in denial. You hadn’t surrendered to me.

So, at that time, I felt I had no choice.

The nnol ttaehh mael was the first solution that came to mind.

” He lowered his voice. “I’m not saying I’m proud of that, but I was furious…

at you, at the situation, at myself for wanting something I’d never planned to have. ”

Naya remained silent, her mind racing. The harsh honesty of his explanation left her unsettled, uncertain whether to be horrified by his cruelty or moved by the vulnerability and obsession beneath it.

Her inner Omega recognized the territorial desperation in his actions, even as her rational mind recoiled from the violence of his solution.

Akoro’s scent shifted, becoming heavier, more complex.

“When I was young, the older men in the villages spoke sometimes about Alpha and Omega pairs, but by the time I was born, no one in Tsashokra expected to ever be with an Omega. The concept is almost mythical to us, something from old stories, impossible dreams.” His voice dropped to a rumble that vibrated through his chest. “I never expected to find an Omega let alone my true mate. I’d heard what it could be like, but I thought it was an exaggeration. ”

His hand moved to cup her face, thumb stroking across her cheekbone. “Even those half-remembered tales didn’t prepare me for the reality of you. For how completely you would consume me, how every breath would become about keeping you safe and satisfied and mine.”

The intensity in his gaze made her breath catch. She could taste his desire building between them again, feel the barely restrained hunger in his grip.

“But I regret using the nnol ttaehh ,” he said finally. “I regret causing you that pain. And I regret that reaching for that as a solution has made me more like my family than anything else I’ve done.”

Naya exhaled, something powerful and primal unfurled in her chest at his admission.

The brutal logic of his actions formed in her mind like pieces of a deadly puzzle finally clicking into place.

He had been a weapon forged by necessity, shaped by shame and fury into something capable of destroying his own bloodline.

That same weapon had turned on her, not from intended malice but from a desperate, possessive hunger he’d never realized existed and never learned to control.

It didn’t excuse what he’d done, but it explained his animalistic nature.

He leaned so hard into his Alpha behaviors that violence coiled just beneath the surface of every interaction.

He thought in ruthless terms because he’d had to be ruthless to reject his family and live up to his own expectations of what life should be for every ssukkǔrian .

Naya lifted the barely eaten bowl and gave it back to him to put down on the table, needing the moment to knit together everything that had happened and how he had explained himself.

“Akoro,” she began. “I understand what you’ve said.

And I know everything you did was for your love of your people.

I can’t imagine how it feels for your family to be so terrible that you felt you had no options.

I don’t judge you for them—your world is so different from mine, and I respect how much you’ve done for your people to have recreated Onn Kkulma to the beautiful city it is.

But your anger with your family, and your intense focus on your vow to your people has made you unable to even question your methods.

“I grew up with parents who love each other. An Alpha and an Omega who respect each other and would do anything to protect each other. I know I shouldn’t have expected my mate to be exactly like that, but the way you hurt me, Akoro…

” Her voice turned hoarse. “…that will stay with me forever. You tortured me and then gave me a wound that could kill me. You refused to negotiate a reasonable deal for your people, and then you trapped me and lied to me. Even when I gave you everything you wanted, it wasn’t enough, you wanted my heart, body, and soul without once recognizing the damage you caused me, without recognizing that you had taken my freedom and my family from me. ”

Akoro’s face turned to stone, his eyes intense and dark, but he said nothing, just watched her closely.

“We are not that different,” she said after a moment, her heart heavy.

“Your people suffered, Omegas suffered too. You will fight for your people, I will fight for Omegas too. You are bound by the expectations of your people, as I am bound by mine. But the choices you made cut too deep. I cannot be an example to Omegas if I excuse how my Alpha has treated me. Not when he is so ruthlessly blinded by the needs of his people, that he doesn’t realize he’s repeating his family’s terrible mistakes. ”

A low growl erupted from Akoro’s throat, but she pushed on.

“I’m not sure if you even realize how much you’re repeating them.” Tears blurred her vision, her voice almost breaking. “Maybe you did survive to help your people… but maybe my mate died that night.”

The words hung cold and final between them.

Akoro’s head turned away, his entire frame coiled tight, grip bruising where he held her.

The silence that followed was suffocating, broken only by the sound of their breathing and the distant whisper of wind.

His scent still wrapped around her—overwhelming, possessive, tinged now with bitterness.

Minutes crawled by before Naya shifted, preparing to rise from his lap. His hands moved instantly, curling around her.

“No, stay.” The command was rough as sandstone. His dark eyes searched hers. “Are you comfortable?”

The question was so unexpected, so careful, that she could only nod.

“Then stay.” His thumb traced along her ribs, just above where her heart hammered against bone. “It’s lur ennen .”

His touch continued, slow and hypnotic strokes, until drowsiness crept through her limbs like a twisting vine.

The weight of exhaustion pulled at her consciousness, and despite everything—despite the chasm that had widened so far between them—she found herself surrendering to sleep in the arms of the man who had broken her.