Chapter 214
Chapter 214:
“I love you!” he shouted, his composure shattering. “He forced you into this! That monster in there — he’s controlling you!” He lurched forward, his hand reaching for my arm. “Come with me, Addie. We can p>
He froze.
His hand stopped inches from my sleeve. His eyes, wide with sudden panic, drifted over my shoulder toward the glass doors of the lobby behind me.
I didn’t need to turn around to know what he saw.
The air around us grew heavy, charged with the static of a gathering storm. The scent of ozone and cedar flooded the sidewalk, strangling the oxygen from the atmosphere.
𝗧𝗋e𝘯𝘥𝗂n 𝗼𝗻
Dallas was there.
He wasn’t doing anything. He was simply standing behind the glass, hands in his pockets, watching. But his aura — the sheer, crushing weight of a Lycan King — was projecting through the doors, pinning Braydon in place like an insect under glass. A silent promise of agonizing death.
Braydon went pale, the blood draining from his face until he looked like a corpse. His hand dropped to his side, trembling uncontrollably. The wooden wolf fell from his fingers and clattered onto the concrete.
He looked at me, then back at the shadow of death behind the glass. The fight left him instantly.
“Leave,” I said, my voice quiet but absolute. “And never come back p>
Braydon didn’t argue. He didn’t beg. He scrambled backward, nearly tripping over his own feet, and threw himself into the car. Tires screeched as he peeled away — fleeing not from me, but from the monster who had claimed me.
I stood there a moment, staring at the empty street. Then I looked down at the wooden carving lying in the gutter. I nudged it into the storm drain with the toe of my boot.
I turned back toward the building, shivering slightly — not from the cold, but from the quiet realization settling over me as I walked toward the glass doors where my Mate stood waiting.
Dallas had kept his word. He hadn’t touched him.
But I knew the truth now. I had traded a weak man for a god of destruction. And God help anyone who tried to take what was his.
Adella
The steam from the shower had turned the bathroom into a tropical rainforest, but even after scrubbing my skin until it was raw and pink, I couldn’t wash away the feeling of Braydon’s desperation. It clung to me like a film of oil — a phantom layer of grime that soap and water couldn’t reach.
I wrapped myself in a thick silk robe, cinched the sash tight enough to restrict my breathing, and stepped out into the living room. The Penthouse was quiet — the kind of silence that felt expensive, insulated from the chaotic world below. But inside my head, the noise was deafening.
My phone, resting on the marble coffee table, lit up. The vibration against the stone sounded like an angry hornet.
I knew I shouldn’t look. I knew I should leave it where it lay. But the conditioning of a decade — of being the obedient, worry-prone girl Braydon had molded — forced my hand. I picked it up.