Chapter 542
I managed to pry my heavy eyelids open just a fraction. Standing in the elevator, frozen in absolute horror, was Eleanor Gigi Marshall. Her authoritative Elder aura shattered as her eyes tracked the trail of blood on the floor, traveled up to the stretchers, and finally came to rest on our tightly intertwined hands.
She pressed a trembling hand over her mouth, her eyes wide with a devastating realization.
“Oh, Goddess,” Gigi whispered, her voice breaking. “What have we done?”
Eleanor “Gigi” Marshall
The image of their blood-smeared, intertwined hands burned in my mind as I stood in Dr. Evans’s private office. The scent of old paper and sterile air did nothing to settle my racing heart.
“She is pregnant, Eleanor,” Dr. Evans said softly, sliding a heavy, magically encrypted folder across the mahogany desk. Attached to the front was an ultrasound printout—a tiny, grainy gray dot.
A Marshall heir.
My breath hitched. The Moon Goddess was offering me a chance to atone for my sins, for the years I had exiled Dallas. But this fragile life was surrounded by lethal threats.
I thought of Dosha. Thirty years ago, I had watched her kneel over her mate’s body after Kaelen’s ambush—the way she had screamed, the way she had looked up at me with eyes that promised vengeance. She had been waiting for this moment ever since, biding her time for a chance to make the Marshall bloodline extinct.
If Dosha caught even a whisper of this child, she would slaughter Adella without hesitation. And Dallas—my foolish, dying grandson—would see this child as a burden he couldn’t protect, using it as yet another reason to force Adella away and convince himself he was saving her.
I snatched the ultrasound from the folder. “Classify these files. Top secret.”
Dr. Evans frowned, his conscience flaring. “Eleanor, they have a right to know. As her doctor—”
“You will change her diagnosis,” I commanded, letting my Elder aura flood the room. The air grew thick, pressing down on his chest. “She collapsed from stress syncope and malnutrition due to her wolfless constitution reacting to the mate-bond. Nothing more.”
“That violates every ethical oath I’ve taken!” he protested, gripping the edge of his desk.
I leaned forward, my voice dropping to a lethal whisper. “Your clinic sits on Marshall land, Doctor. Your family’s safety relies entirely on my goodwill. Do not test it.”
He swallowed hard, the fight draining from his eyes, and gave a stiff, defeated nod.
I walked to the humming shredder in the corner and fed the ultrasound into its metal teeth. I watched the only proof of my great-grandchild turn into unrecognizable confetti.
Dallas
Pain was the first thing to register—a deep, hollow ache in my chest where my Lycan heart barely fluttered, kept alive only by the relentless whir of the LVAD machine. I opened my heavy eyes to the sterile ceiling of the secret treatment suite.
“Adella,” I rasped, the name tearing at my dry throat.
“She is resting, Dallas,” my grandmother’s voice came from the bedside. Gigi looked down at me, her expression a mask of gentle concern.
“What happened?” I demanded, trying to push myself upright, but my muscles refused to obey.