Chapter 517
I yanked my arm out of Dallas’s grasp. “I can’t see anything, Dallas. But I can see he needs help.”
I grabbed the handles of Braydon’s chair and pushed him toward the manor doors. I felt the exact moment Dallas’s presence behind me went cold, the weight of his gaze like ice on my neck.
“Follow them,” Dallas ordered Duncan, his voice hollow.
I wheeled Braydon into the lavish guest suite on the first floor and rushed to the en-suite bathroom to grab a wet towel. When I returned, I started dabbing the sweat and blood from his bare chest, trying to assess the damage.
The bedroom door slammed open, rebounding violently off the wall.
Dallas stood in the doorway, leaning heavily on the frame. Duncan was right behind him, his face tight with worry.
“Get away from him,” Dallas snarled, the sound more beast than man. “Is this what you’ve been reduced to? An Omega warming his bed?”
The cruelty of his words ignited a blinding rage inside me. I threw the bloody towel onto the floor. “You rejected me!” I screamed, the raw agony of that night tearing through my throat.
Dallas pushed off the doorframe, his eyes blazing with a terrifying, possessive fire. “I am still your Mate! The Elders have not finalized the severance!”
He took a step toward me, but the exertion was too much. The roar tore through his throat, immediately followed by a sickening, wet rattle deep in his chest. Dallas doubled over, his large frame wracked by a violent spasm.
He vomited a mouthful of thick, unnatural black blood onto the pristine white carpet.
The argument died. Dallas fell to his knees, gasping for air, his pale lips stained with black. The humiliation in his eyes was absolute. He, the most powerful Lycan King, had just exposed his fatal weakness in front of his rival and the Mate who had just chosen another. Duncan immediately dropped to his side, hauling Dallas up by his arm. Dallas didn’t look at me. His chest heaved as he forced out a hollow, broken whisper.
“You deserve each other.”
Duncan practically carried him out of the room, leaving a suffocating, ringing silence in their wake.
My hands were trembling violently. I stared at the black blood on the carpet, my heart aching with a confusing, agonizing mix of guilt and terror. He was dying.
“Braydon, we need to get the Pack Doctor—”
I turned back to the bed, the words dying in my throat.
Braydon wasn’t groaning in pain. He was leaning back against the ornate headboard, his eyes tracking the empty doorway. And on his lips was a sly, triumphant smirk.
In a fraction of a second, the mask slipped back into place, replaced by a wince of feigned agony. But I had seen it. The perfectly timed collapse, the fresh blood, the provocation. It was all a calculated performance.