Chapter 453

I didn’t stop. I wanted the pain. I wanted to bleed out the agony of watching another Alpha hold what was mine.

Ten minutes later, the heavy ICU doors burst open.

Gamma Vance Decker froze in the doorway, his eyes widening in absolute horror at the bloodbath and the broken King thrashing in the center of it.

“Alpha!” Vance shouted, rushing forward, his hands reaching for my bleeding chest.

I didn’t hear him. The darkness was finally pulling me under, drowning me in the ashes of my own sacrifice.

Dallas

Three days. It had been three days since Vance Decker pumped me full of heavy sedatives to stop me from tearing my own silver-laced stitches apart in the ICU.

Now I sat behind the massive mahogany desk in the study at Marshall Tower. The air was thick with the scent of old leather and the sour, metallic tang of my own failing Lycan blood.

The heavy oak doors burst open. Azalea stormed in, her eyes red and blazing with furious tears.

“You’re a liar!” she screamed, slamming her hands on my desk. “You promised you would fix this! Instead, you’re playing the martyr while your Lycan dies from the severed bond! I’m telling her the truth.”

She pulled out her phone, her thumb hovering over the screen.

I didn’t yell. I didn’t let Ragnar’s agonizing whimpers bleed into my voice. Slowly, I reached into my pocket and placed my heavy gold signet ring on the polished wood. The dull clink echoed like a gunshot in the quiet room.

“Send one message,” I said, my voice a glacial, emotionless void. “And tomorrow morning, you will wake up in a human-run asylum in Switzerland. I will permanently sever your connection to the Pack network. You will be a true wolfless rogue, Azalea. You will never hear another mind-link again.”

Azalea froze. The color drained from her face as she stared into my dead, storm-gray eyes. She knew I wasn’t bluffing. The Silver Claws were hunting my mate — I couldn’t let a grieving teenager unravel the only plan keeping Adella alive.

Her phone slipped from her trembling fingers and clattered to the floor. A broken sob tore from her throat. “I hate you.”

“Good,” I whispered.

She turned and fled the room. As her footsteps faded, Eleanor “Gigi” Marshall stepped out from the shadows near the fireplace, her face carved from stern disapproval.

“That was unnecessarily cruel, Dallas,” Gigi stated, leaning on her ebony cane.

“It was a necessary shield,” I replied, fighting a violent cough. “And I need another one. Yara stays at the manor. You will take her to the charity galas, the dinners. Make the Pack and the public believe I’ve moved on.”

Gigi’s nose wrinkled in absolute disgust. “You want me to parade a Rogue mercenary through high society? It’s revolting.”

“It’s the only way to convince the assassins that Adella means nothing to me,” I growled, the Alpha authority bleeding into my tone.