Chapter 406
Duncan fought against the invisible pressure, his jaw clenched so tight I thought his teeth would shatter. “You are blinded by the bond!” he roared, pulling a sleek Pack tablet from his jacket and shoving it toward Dallas. “Ten minutes ago — I was downstairs watching her! This is the mate you choose to believe!”
I looked at the screen. It was high-resolution security footage of the Moon Goddess Garden. A woman wearing my exact dress was wrapped in Braydon Hyde’s arms, kissing him passionately in the rain.
I met Duncan’s furious glare, my voice dead calm. “That is not me.”
“Liar!”
“Actually, Duncan — it isn’t.”
The measured voice of Dr. Liam Barber cut through the tension as he strode into the room, a tablet in hand. He didn’t wait for permission. He synced his device to the wall monitor, projecting the garden footage for everyone to see.
“Pause it right there,” Liam instructed, zooming in on the woman’s left arm as it rested on Braydon’s shoulder. “Look at her wrist.”
The skin on the screen was flawless. Smooth and completely unblemished.
I didn’t need to be told twice. I raised my left arm and pulled back the oversized sleeve of the janitor’s uniform. Running across my pulse point was a jagged, faded white scar — a permanent mark from a childhood accident.
Duncan’s breath hitched. The color drained from his face as he looked from my wrist to the screen and back again.
“I told you about that scar, Liam,” Dallas rasped, his grip on my hand tightening. “The night my mother died.”
Liam nodded grimly. “And here is where the Luna actually was.”
He tapped the screen again. A new video played — clear, undeniable footage of the medical wing hallway, showing Nurse Anya shoving me into the consultation room and locking the heavy door from the outside.
The silence that followed was absolute.
The tablet slipped from Duncan’s trembling fingers and clattered to the floor. He stared at the evidence — unable to look away, unable to speak — as the full, horrifying weight of what he had almost done crashed down on him. What Braydon Hyde had manipulated him into doing.
Adelia POV
The clatter of the tablet hitting the floor echoed like a gunshot in the suffocating silence of Room 2201. Duncan stared at the shattered screen, then back at the faded scar on my wrist. All the color drained from his face, leaving him hollow and visibly ill.
Without a word, his knees buckled. He dropped to one knee in front of me, bowing his head in the ultimate display of submission and penance to a Luna.
“Luna,” Duncan choked out, his voice thick with shame. “I called you his whore. I let blind, twisted loyalty cloud my judgment. I almost forced a Rejection that would have destroyed our Pack’s core. I am so sorry.”
I looked down at the man who, just minutes ago, had been ready to sever us. But I didn’t see an enemy — I saw a broken warrior who had been manipulated.
“You were protecting your King, Duncan,” I said softly, my voice steady. “You are a loyal Beta. I forgive you.”