Chapter 229

Chapter 229:

The transition from the sterile hallway to my apartment felt like stepping into a different world. The air here was warm, scented with vanilla candles and the savory richness of the shepherd’s pie reheating on the stove. Outside, the sky had cracked open. A torrential downpour hammered against the floor-to-ceiling windows, its rhythm syncing with the anxious thrumming of my heart.

Dallas sat on the plush rug near the coffee table, his long legs folded awkwardly in the limited space. He looked out of place — an apex predator in a domestic cage. He had discarded his suit jacket, and as he reached for the glass of water I offered, his dress shirt pulled tight across his broad shoulders.

“Thank you,” he murmured, his voice a low rumble that seemed to vibrate through the floorboards.

“It’s not a five-star meal,” I said, settling across from him and tucking my legs beneath me. “But Azalea swears by this recipe p>

“It smells like home.” He looked at me, his dark eyes intense and unreadable.

ѕ𝗵a𝗋e 𝗒𝗈𝘶𝗋 𝘧a𝘷𝗈𝗿𝘪𝗍е𝗌 𝘧𝗋o𝗺 𝗀𝘢𝗅ո𝗈𝘃𝖾𝗅ѕ.𝖼𝗈m

A sudden, violent crack of thunder shook the building. The overhead lights flickered and died, plunging us into semi-darkness lit only by the streetlights filtering through the rain-slicked glass.

A moment later, a jagged bolt of lightning tore through the sky, flooding the room with stark white brilliance.

That was when I saw it.

Dallas had rolled up his sleeves to eat. On the inside of his left forearm, stark against his tanned skin, was a scar. Not the clean slice of a blade or the jagged tear of a claw — the marks of battle I would expect on an Alpha. This was a brand. The skin was puckered and shiny, shaped into a crude, twisted symbol I didn’t recognize.

Without thinking, I reached out. My fingers brushed the marred skin.

Dallas flinched violently, his muscles turning to stone beneath my touch. A low growl vibrated in his chest — not aggression, but pain.

“Dallas?” I whispered, pulling my hand back slightly but not breaking contact. The skin felt unnaturally cold there. “That’s a burn. But it looks… old p>

He stared at his arm, his jaw clenched so tight a muscle ticked in his cheek. For a moment I thought he would pull away and retreat behind his walls of ice and arrogance. But the storm outside seemed to have stripped us both bare.

“Silver,” he said, the word falling heavily between us.

I gasped. Silver was poison to our kind — it didn’t just burn, it rotted the connection to the inner wolf. “Who would use silver on you p>

“The world believes I spent my teenage years at a private boarding school in the Swiss Alps,” Dallas said, his voice devoid of emotion, which made it all the more terrifying. “Learning diplomacy. Skiing.” He looked up, and the raw agony in his eyes stole the breath from my lungs.

“The truth is, when my Lycan blood first manifested, I was volatile. My family didn’t see a son — they saw a curse. A monster that needed to be broken.” He traced the scar with his thumb. “They sent me to a camp in the Siberian tundra. A re-education facility. They used silver brands to punish us when the beast took over. To purify the bloodline p>

My hand flew to my mouth. “You were a child p>