Chapter 20
Chapter 20:
“You were never nobody, Adelia,” Dallas said, his voice dropping an octave, the words resonating in my chest. He stopped inches from me, close enough that I could feel the warmth radiating from his frame. “I watched you. I watched that bastard parade you around like a trophy while he broke you piece by piece. I couldn’t interfere—Pack law is complicated. But I knew p>
He reached out, his rough thumb grazing my cheek to catch a falling tear. The touch sent a jolt of electricity straight through me, stirring something deep and dormant.
“I knew that one day, you would come home,” he said. “I built this for the future Luna of this land. I built it for you p>
The realization crashed through me, shattering what remained of my defenses. This wasn’t a business arrangement. He hadn’t married me to secure a border or irritate a rival. He had been waiting. Planning. Hoping.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I choked out.
𝘓𝖺𝘁е𝘴𝘵 с𝘩а𝗉𝗍еr𝗌 𝗈𝗻
“Because words are cheap,” Dallas murmured. “And you have been lied to enough p>
He leaned down, and for one heart-stopping moment I was certain he would claim my lips. Instead, he pressed a firm, lingering kiss to my forehead. It wasn’t desire—it was something far more dangerous. It was reverence.
I felt his inner wolf, Ragnar, brush against the edges of my consciousness. Not with aggression. With a deep, purring contentment, like a beast finally settling after years of restless waiting. Mine, the presence seemed to exhale.
I didn’t pull away. For the first time, I had no instinct to run. I leaned into him instead, my hands closing around the lapels of his jacket, anchoring myself to the only solid thing in my world.
“Thank you,” I whispered against his chest.
Dallas wrapped his arms around me and drew me close, surrounding me entirely in his warmth and his scent. Over his shoulder, my gaze drifted up toward the main house.
In a second-story window, a figure stood watching. An older woman with graying hair and a simple apron—Hara, my mother’s Omega servant, whom I had believed lost to the fire years ago. She wasn’t weeping, but her hand was pressed flat against the glass, and even from this distance I could see the expression on her face clearly.
It was a smile of peace.
I closed my eyes and breathed in the scent of roses and the Alpha who had spent six years bringing them back to life. The contract was still ink on paper—but the bond quietly taking root between my soul and his was becoming, with every passing moment, the only truth that felt real.
Adelia
The scent of the Moonpetal Roses clung to my skin like a sweet, lingering ghost as Dallas guided me from the garden back into the house. His hand rested on the small of my back—a warm, steady weight that kept me anchored even as my mind continued to spin.
“There is one more thing,” Dallas said, his voice low. “The final piece of the promise p>
He led me into his study, a room that smelled of leather, aged paper, and the dark, woodsy scent that was uniquely his. A fire crackled in the hearth, casting dancing shadows up the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Standing beside the massive mahogany desk was a man I hadn’t yet formally met—Duncan Whitaker, Dallas’s Beta.