Chapter 392
My breathing turned ragged. It was a lie. All of it. Dallas would never leave for the North without his encrypted Pack laptop — and I had just seen it sitting on his desk in the study.
Driven by a frantic need for the truth, I rushed into the master bedroom. That was when I saw it.
Sitting on my vanity was a large, sealed hospital evidence bag. Duncan must have left it there before coming out to the foyer. My hands shook violently as I tore the plastic open.
Inside were the clothes Dallas had worn three nights ago — brutally shredded by trauma shears, the expensive fabric stiff and heavy with dried, dark blood. The metallic scent hit my nose and made my stomach heave. I dug my fingers into the ruined fabric and felt something hard in the pocket.
I pulled it out. His heavy platinum wedding ring. A single, dark drop of dried blood stained the inside of the band.
He hadn’t gone to the North. He was critically injured, bleeding out somewhere, and someone was hiding him from me.
The crushing despair vanished, replaced by a cold, razor-sharp fury. Duncan wouldn’t tell me the truth — but there was one person in the Pack who couldn’t conceal a dying Alpha. I grabbed my coat, my mind locking onto a single name.
Dr. Liam Barber.
Azalea
The sterile, bleach-scented air of the Blackwood Medical Center’s private waiting area made my stomach churn. I glared at Duncan Whitaker, who stood like a stone gargoyle blocking the heavy double doors of the ICU.
“You’re killing him, Duncan,” I hissed, keeping my voice low but lacing it with venom. “Ragnar is tearing himself apart in there. He needs his Mate. The mate-bond is the only thing that can heal a wound the doctors can’t.”
Duncan’s jaw clenched, his posture rigid. He pulled out his phone and shoved the screen toward me — the video, the sickening forged footage of Adella supposedly kissing Braydon Hyde. “She did this to him. She broke him. The Alpha gave a direct order before he lost consciousness. Adella is not permitted on this floor.”
“It’s a setup!” I snarled. Our Pack mind-link crackled with the harsh, static-like feedback of our colliding fury. “How can you be blind enough to trust a Hyde’s cheap illusion over your own Luna?”
“She is a traitor,” Duncan replied coldly, shutting off the screen. “And I am protecting my Alpha.”
Realizing he was a lost cause, I took a step back. If Duncan wouldn’t let her in, I would have to find another way to help Adella myself.
Adelia POV
It was two in the morning. The master bedroom of the penthouse felt like a tomb. I sat on the edge of the bed, my trembling fingers clutching Dallas’s heavy platinum wedding ring. The dark drop of dried blood on the inner band mocked every one of Duncan’s lies.
I grabbed Dallas’s encrypted satellite phone from the nightstand. He never went anywhere without it. I dialed his number, praying to the Moon Goddess for a miracle.
It connected.
“Dallas?” I breathed, my heart hammering against my ribs.