Chapter 333
“I’m supposed to be the King,” he growled, a flash of Ragnar flickering in his dark irises. “I command armies. I own cities. But I can’t stop them from taking another piece of your past. I failed your parents. And now I’m failing you again.”
He moved abruptly, his coordination sloppy, and reached into the inner pocket of his suit jacket. His hand trembled as he pulled out a worn leather wallet. With clumsy fingers, he extracted something and slid it across the table toward me.
It was a Polaroid. The edges were yellowed with age, the glossy surface covered in fine scratches from being touched a thousand times.
I picked it up, my breath hitching.
In the photo, a little girl with wild, curly hair stood in a field of blooming moonflowers. She was laughing, her face turned toward the sun, completely unaware of the camera. It was me. I was five years old, standing in the gardens of the Silver Moon Pack — a home that had been burned to ash years ago.
“I took that,” Dallas confessed, his voice barely audible. “From the tree line. The day I escaped my father’s guards for an hour. You were the only bright thing in a world that was entirely grey, Adella. The only thing that made sense.”
The last brick of the wall I had built against him crumbled.
Braydon had tried to poison me with doubt, telling me I was just a debt Dallas was paying off. But you don’t carry a photograph like this for fifteen years because of a debt. You carry it because it’s your lifeline.
“You didn’t fail me, Dallas,” I said, my voice trembling.
I reached across the table and covered his large hand with mine. The sparks of the mate bond flared instantly — not painful this time, but warm and reassuring.
“Duncan,” I called out, not looking away from Dallas.
The Beta materialized from the shadows nearby, Vance at his heels. Both looked relieved to see me sitting there.
“Yes, Luna?” Duncan asked.
“Help him up,” I said, squeezing Dallas’s hand. “We’re going home. To our room.”
The ride back to Marshall Tower was a blur of city lights streaking past tinted windows. We were in the back of the black SUV, sealed off from the world. Dallas had passed out moments after we got into the car, the adrenaline finally surrendering to the alcohol.
He was slumped against me, his heavy head resting in my lap — a position of absolute vulnerability, one no Alpha would ever permit unless he trusted the person beneath him completely.
I ran my fingers through his dark, disheveled hair, tracing the jagged scar along his temple — a souvenir from a Rogue attack years ago. In sleep, the lines of pain on his face had smoothed out, leaving him looking younger. More like the boy who had watched me from the woods.
The silence in the car was heavy, but it wasn’t oppressive anymore. It was pregnant with truth.
I leaned down, pressing my lips close to his ear, needing to say the words even if he couldn’t hear them. I needed the universe to hear them.