Breed Me, Daddy Alpha-Chapter 213

Lyra

He cleared his throat in that obnoxiously masculine way, the kind of throat-clearing that said, I’m a man and I definitely wasn’t just showing any emotion like a human being because I am made of steel and rage and testosterone and unprocessed trauma.

"Impossible, kitten," he said, suddenly pacing like the floor was going to catch fire if he didn’t walk across it fifty times. "How would a big bad Alpha like me cry? Hmm? I kill. I destroy. I burn kingdoms and bury secrets. I don’t do..." He waved a hand dramatically. "I do not do any such thing as crying."

I stared at him.

Seriously?

He was really out here pulling the ’big strong Alpha who doesn’t cry’ card like I didn’t just see the man holding me like I was the last breath in his lungs not even five minutes ago.

"Damon," I called out, my voice sharp but small, hoping he’d just stop for a second and look at me. He didn’t.

He kept talking like he was reading his own edgy mafia romance cover.

"I have carved out throats with my claws. I have torn apart packs. I’ve silenced men with one look. Crying?" He let out a short, dismissive sound. "Please. I do not have tear ducts. I have shadows. I have darkness. I have—"

"Damon," I said again, louder this time, interrupting his tragic little villain monologue before he started quoting poetry and brooding out the window like we were in some gothic werewolf novel with rain tapping on the glass.

Then he stopped.

"I was scared, kitten."

That’s what he said, and the way it came out of his mouth made me freeze. Not because I didn’t believe it, but because I had never, in my wildest, most dramatic little eighteen-year-old imagination, thought I’d hear that tone from him.

Damon always spoke like thunder. Like sin wrapped in control. Like nothing in the world could shake him. But right then? His voice didn’t sound like Damon, the Alpha. It sounded like Damon, the man who almost lost something he didn’t know how to live without.

"I know this is so unlike me, okay," he continued, and I swear he was pacing again, his hands flexing at his sides like he didn’t know what to do with all the weight pressing down on his chest. "But I was a bit scared. You—and our baby..." His voice caught for a second, and it made my heart skip, because he said it. He said our baby. "...you could’ve been gone. And I couldn’t stop it."

I just stared at him. I didn’t interrupt. I didn’t even blink. I was trying to hold onto every word.

"I know you know me as the man who’s never cried," he said, and now his eyes were shifting around like he couldn’t bear to look directly at me.

"I know. I know how I look. How I act. I’ve trained myself to be stone. I’ve built myself into something ruthless. I kill. I destroy. I silence. I do not break. I do not feel. I do not cry."

He paused like he was fighting with himself now. Like even speaking this much truth was physically painful.

"But I tried so fucking hard to control it," he muttered. "I really did. I tried to stay cold. I told myself you’d be fine. I told myself to stay still, stay sharp, wait for you to breathe again. But you didn’t. Not right away. And my body—my wolf—he just..."

He trailed off, his chest rising and falling like he’d just run a marathon through every emotion known to man. And honestly, I couldn’t help it.

I smiled.

Not because I thought it was funny. Not because I was brushing it off. But because seeing Damon, the man who’s choked people with one hand and ripped throats out with the other, stand there looking like a sad little mountain of muscle and guilt, confessing that he cried over me?

It made my chest warm in the most ridiculous, tender, possessive way.

So I stretched out my hand, still weak and slightly trembling, and said, "Come here."

His eyes finally met mine.

And that was all it took.

He walked to the bed slowly, not like the predator he usually was, but like a man who was still afraid he might break something if he moved too fast.

He climbed in beside me without a word, shifted until his head was resting right on my chest, and curled one arm around my waist like he was afraid I’d vanish if he didn’t hold on tight enough.

I wrapped my arms around him, holding him against me, his head right above my heart.

"There," I whispered, letting my fingers stroke through his hair. "Feel that? Still beating."

He didn’t say anything. 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

His breathing was heavy. His body was tense.

I could feel all of it—the fear, the anger, the love he didn’t know how to name yet.

And because I’m me, and because being soft for too long makes me emotionally itchy, I rolled my eyes and smiled.

"You’re such a big baby," I whispered down at him, and when he still didn’t move, I added, "You know that, right?"

Nothing.

No reply.

Just silence and warmth and the weight of everything that almost happened pressing down between us.

So I did what I do best.

I cracked a joke.

"Wanna continue from where we stopped?"