Chapter 160
Chapter 160:
He was waiting for me to flinch. To call him a monster. To beg mercy on behalf of the people who had tormented me.
Instead, I rounded the desk. I stepped into the space between his spread knees and placed my hands on his chest, feeling the steady, powerful thrum of his heart beneath his crisp dress shirt.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
Surprise flickered in his obsidian eyes, quickly replaced by something darker and hungrier. “You aren’t afraid p>
“No,” I said — and I meant it. For the first time, the monster wasn’t under my bed. He was guarding my door.
I leaned down and pressed my lips to his. It wasn’t a tentative peck. It was a claim. I kissed him with all the pent-up emotion of the last twenty-four hours, tasting coffee and power on his tongue. Dallas groaned — a low, vibrating sound that traveled straight to my core — his large hands gripping my waist and pulling me flush against him.
For a moment, the world was just us: the heat of his skin, the possessive growl of his inner wolf, and the safety of his arms.
I pulled back breathlessly, my forehead resting against his. “I have to go out tonight p>
р𝗈𝗽𝗎lа𝘳 ѕ𝘵𝘰𝗋𝗶е𝘀 o𝘯
Dallas’s hands tightened on my hips. “Where p>
“Dinner,” I said, pulling back just enough to look him in the eye. “With Victoria p>
The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees. The softness vanished from his face, replaced by a mask of stone. “Why p>
“She has my mother’s things. Her journals. Her necklace. It’s the only leverage she has left, and she’s using it to drag me to Le Bernardin.” I took a breath, steadying myself. “She’s bringing someone. Alpha Lance Sterling p>
The silence that followed was absolute — the silence of a predator spotting movement in the grass.
Dallas rose slowly, towering over me. The air around him grew heavy, suffocating, saturated with the scent of an approaching storm. His eyes were no longer merely dark; they were abyssal, swirling with the ancient, violent rage of Ragnar.
“Sterling,” Dallas repeated, the name sounding like a curse on his tongue. “The man who treats a Pack like a business portfolio and a mate like a contract p>
He moved to the window and stood with his back to me, staring out over the city he ruled, the muscles across his shoulders taut enough to snap the fabric of his shirt.
“She isn’t just giving you your mother’s things, Adella,” he said, his voice dropping to a lethal, icy whisper that raised the hair on my arms. “She is using your mother’s memory to trade you like a prize to another Alpha p>
He turned back to me, and the look on his face made my breath catch. It wasn’t just anger. It was a promise of violence.
“She thinks she can sell what belongs to the King p>
The air in Dallas’s office had turned so dense with his pheromones that it tasted like ozone on my tongue. He wasn’t just angry — Ragnar was pacing beneath his skin, demanding blood.